The Sioux were not beaten, however, for the discomfited warriors rallied a force to protect their flying women and children, under the leadership of Gall and others, Sitting Bull not being as much of a fighter as a talker. They were led to the attack again and again by their intrepid chiefs. On one occasion, so impetuous was their gallantry that the troops were forced to form square to repel their wild charges. Before the battle was over—and it continued into the next day—the Indians had been driven headlong for over forty miles.
They had suffered a serious loss in warriors, but a greater in the destruction of their camp equipage, winter supplies, and other property. Two thousand of them came in on the third day and surrendered, under promises of good treatment. Several hundred broke into small parties and scattered. Miles’ little force was too small to be divided to form a guard for the Indians who had been captured; and besides, he had other things to do, so he detained a number of the principal chiefs as hostages, and exacted promises from the rest that they would surrender at the Spotted Tail or Red Cloud Agency—a promise which, by the way, the great majority of them kept. Sitting Bull, Gall, and about four hundred others refused to surrender, and made for the boundary line, escaping pursuit for the time being.
This was the first and most serious defection from the Indian Confederacy. It was followed by others. In a subsequent campaign, in the depth of winter, a battalion under Lieutenant Baldwin struck Sitting Bull’s depleted and starving camp on two separate occasions, inflicting further loss upon that implacable chieftain.[[104]]
II. Miles’ Crushing Defeat of Crazy Horse at Wolf Mountain
Late in December Miles, having practically eliminated Sitting Bull from the game, moved out against Crazy Horse. He had with him five companies of the Fifth Infantry and two of the Twenty-second, in all four hundred and thirty-six officers and men and two Napoleon guns. These guns were fitted with canvas wagon-tops, and were so disguised as exactly to resemble the supply wagons of the train. The men left the cantonment on the 29th of December, 1876. It had been learned that Crazy Horse was in the valley of the Tongue River, south of the Yellowstone. There were sharp skirmishes on the first and third of January between the advance and war parties of Indians, who were moving gradually up the Tongue toward the mountains. On the evening of the 7th of January, 1877, a young warrior and a woman were captured, belonging to those Cheyennes who were still with Crazy Horse and the Unkpapas, and were related to some of the principal members of the band. From them much was learned of the situation of the Indian position.
From the collection of J. Robert Coster
| GEN. JOHN GIBBON | GEN. NELSON A. MILES |
| GEN. WESLEY MERRITT | GEN. ALFRED H. TERRY |
SOME FAMOUS INDIAN FIGHTERS
The next morning, the weather being bitterly cold, the men moved out to attack the Indian camp. Crazy Horse’s warriors numbered between eight and nine hundred. He had posted his men on the cliffs surmounting a valley in the Wolf Mountains, a spur of the Big Horn Range, not far from Crook’s battle-ground on the Rosebud. The troops entered the valley in full view of the Indians occupying the heights. The position was well chosen; for in order to make the attack, the soldiers would have to climb straight up the walls to get at the Indians, who were enabled, by the configuration of the ground and by their numbers, almost to surround the soldiers. One reason why Crazy Horse was willing to fight was because of his great desire to get possession of the Indians recently captured.