THE STORY OF CHIEF RED CLOUD——OGOLLALA SIOUX
I remember that our camp was located in the valley of the Little Big Horn. As I remember there were about four thousand Indians in our camp, and about a hundred Sioux warriors in my own band. There were four or five different sections of the Sioux tribe in this fight. I remember that Rain-in-the-Face and Sitting-Bull, Crazy Horse, and Big Man were with us in the battle. We were in our camp; there was plenty of [pg 169] buffalo meat in those days, and we killed a good many. The women were drying the meat, and the warriors were resting. Suddenly we heard firing, and we found out that the soldiers were on us. The women and children were all frightened, and started to run across the hills, and we men mounted our horses and started toward the enemy. I remember that we pushed Reno back until he had to cross the river, and go up against the bluffs, and then some of our Sioux rode around the hill to head him off, and we had him in a pocket. After we had killed many of Reno's men, Custer came along the ridge, and we were called off to fight Custer. We kept circling around Custer, and as his men came down the ridge we shot them down. And then the rest dismounted and gathered in a bunch, kneeling down and shooting from behind their horses. We circled round and round, firing into Custer's men until the last man was killed. I did not see Custer fall, for all the Indians did not know which was Custer. One reason why we did not scalp Custer was because the Indians and the white soldiers were so mixed up that it was hard to distinguish one man from another; and another reason was because Custer was the bravest man of all and we did not want to touch him as he made the last stand. This is also the opinion of Rain-in-the-Face. Regarding the cause of the Custer fight I must say, we were pursued by the soldiers, we were on the warpath, [pg 170] and we were on the warpath with the Crows and other tribes. We were trying to drive them back from the hunting grounds, and the soldiers came upon us and we had to defend ourselves. We were driven out of the Black Hills by the men seeking gold, and our game was driven off, and we started on our journey in search of game. Our children were starving, and we had to have something to eat. There was buffalo in that region and we were moving, simply camping here and there and fighting our Indian enemies as we advanced, in order to get the game that was in this country. We fought this battle from daylight up until three o'clock in the afternoon, and all of the white men were killed. I think that Custer was a very brave man to fight all these Indians with his few men from daylight until the sun was almost going down.