But my chief indignantly refused. “Are we coyotes?” he said. “Shall we slink into a hole and whine? You Yanktonaise and Minneconjous have eaten too much white man’s bread. It has taken the heart out of you. Do you wish to be the sport of our enemies? Then go back to the agencies and grow fat on the scrap they will throw to you. As for me, I am Uncapappa, I will not submit. I owe the white race nothing but hatred. I do not seek war with Miles, but if he pursues me I will fight. My heart is hot that you are so cowardly. I will not take part in this peace talk. I have spoken.”
Once again he rose, and spoke with the most terrible intensity, struggling to maintain his supremacy over his sullen and disheartened allies, but all in vain. He saw at last that his union of forces had been a failure, and, drawing his “Silent Eaters” around him, he sent criers through the camp calling on all those who wished to follow him to break camp.
It was a solemn day for my race, a bitter moment for my chief. He saw his bond of union crumbling away, becoming sand where he thought it steel. When Crazy Horse and the Cheyennes fell behind he could not complain, for they were but friends who had formed a temporary alliance, but the desertion of the Yanktonaise was a different matter. They were of his blood and were leaving us, not to fight, but to surrender. They were deserting us and all that we stood for. And my chief’s heart was very sore as he saw them ride away. Less than two hundred lodges went with The Sitting Bull; the others surrendered.
It took heroic courage to set face to the north at that time of the year. The land was entirely unknown even to our guides, and the winter was upon us. It was treeless, barren, and hard as iron. As the snows fell our sufferings began. I have read the white historians’ account of this. I have read in Miles’s book his boasting words of the heroism of the white troops as they marched in pursuit of us in the cold and snow, but he does not draw attention to the fact that my chief and his people traversed the same road in the same weather, with scanty blankets and no rations at all. According to his own report his troops outnumbered us, man, woman, and child, and yet he did not reach, much less capture, a man of us.
Our side of all this warfare has never been told. You have all the newspapers, all the historians. Your officers dare not report the true number of the slain, and they always report the red men to be present in vast number. It would make the world smile to know the truth. You glorify yourselves at our cost, and we have thus far had no one to dispute you. I am only a poor “Injun,” after all, and no one will read what I write, but I say the white soldiers could never defeat an equal number of my people on the same terms.
The Brave Cheyennes Were Running Through the Frosted Hills
This is Dull Knife’s band of Northern Cheyennes, known as the Spartans of the plains. And deservedly were they called a Spartan band, for, relentlessly pursued by cavalry troops for over ten days, these gallant warriors fought to their last nerve, making their last stand only when nature itself was exhausted.
Campaigning in Winter