A little boy of four years, the son of Yellow Bird, the medicine-man, was playing on his pony in front of a tipi when the firing began. As he described it some time ago in lisping English: “My father ran and fell down and the blood came out of his mouth [he was shot through the head], and then a soldier put his gun up to my white pony’s nose and shot him, and then I ran and a policeman got me.” As his father was thus killed and his mother was already dead, he was adopted by Mrs Lucy Arnold, who had been a teacher among the Sioux and knew his family before the trouble began. She had already given him his name, Herbert Zitkalazi, the last word being the Sioux form of his father’s name, “Yellow Bird.” She brought him back with her to Washington, where he soon learned English and became a general favorite of all who knew him for his affectionate disposition and unusual intelligence, with genuine boyish enthusiasm in all he undertook. His picture here given ([figure 82]) is from a photograph made in Lafayette park, Washington, in 1892. His adopted mother having resumed her school work among his tribe, he is now back with her, attending school under her supervision at Standing Rock, where, as in Washington, he seems to be a natural leader among those of his own age. When we think of these children and consider that only by the merest accident they escaped the death that overtook a hundred other children at Wounded Knee, who may all have had in themselves the same possibilities of affection, education, and happy usefulness, we can understand the sickening meaning of such affairs as the Chivington massacre in Colorado and the Custer fight on the Washita, where the newspaper reports merely that “the enemy was surprised and the Indian camp destroyed.”
PL. CII
BATTLEFIELD AFTER THE BLIZZARD
The Indian scouts at Wounded Knee, like the Indian police at Grand river and Pine Ridge, were brave and loyal, as has been the almost universal rule with Indians when enlisted in the government service, even when called on, as were these, to serve against their own tribe and relatives. The prairie Indian is a born soldier, with all the soldier’s pride of loyalty to duty, and may be trusted implicitly after he has once consented to enter the service. The scouts at Wounded Knee were Sioux, with Philip Wells as interpreter. Other Sioux scouts were ranging the country between the agency and the hostile camp in the Bad Lands, and acted as mediators in the peace negotiations which led to the final surrender. Fifty Cheyenne and about as many Crow scouts were also employed in the same section of country. Throughout the entire campaign the Indian scouts and police were faithful and received the warmest commendation of their officers.
On New Year’s day, 1891, Henry Miller, a herder, was killed by Indians a few miles from the agency. This was the only noncombatant killed by the Indians during the entire campaign, and during the same period there was no depredation committed by them outside of the reservation. On the next day the agent reported that the school buildings and Episcopal church on White Clay creek had been burned by hostiles, who were then camped to the number of about 3,000 on Grass creek, 15 miles northeast of the agency. They had captured the government beef herd and were depending on it for food. Red Cloud, Little Wound, and their people were with them and were reported as anxious to return, but prevented by the hostile leaders, Two Strike, Short Bull, and Kicking Bear, who threatened to kill the first one who made a move to come in. ([G. D.], 44.) A few days later a number of Red Cloud’s men came in and surrendered and reported that the old chief was practically a prisoner and wanted the soldiers to come and rescue him from the hostiles, who were trying to force him into the war. They reported further that there was much suffering from cold and hunger in the Indian camp, and that all the Ogalala (Red Cloud’s people of Pine Ridge) were intending to come in at once in a body.
On the 3d of January General Miles took up his headquarters at Pine Ridge and directed General Brooke to assume immediate command of the troops surrounding the hostile camp. Brooke’s men swung out to form the western and northern part of a circle about the hostiles, cutting them off from the Bad Lands, while the troops under General Carr closed in on the east and northeast in such a way that the Indians were hemmed in and unable to make a move in any direction excepting toward the agency.
On January 3 a party of hostiles attacked a detachment of the Sixth cavalry under Captain Kerr on Grass creek, a few miles north of the agency, but were quickly repulsed with the loss of four of their number, the troops having been reinforced by other detachments in the vicinity. In this engagement the Indian scouts again distinguished themselves. ([War], 21.) The effect of this repulse was to check the westward movement of the hostiles and hold them in their position along White Clay creek until their passion had somewhat abated.
On January 5 there was another encounter on Wounded Knee creek. A small detachment which had been sent out to meet a supply train coming into the agency found the wagons drawn up in a square to resist an attack made by a band of about 50 Indians. The soldiers joined forces with the teamsters, and by firing from behind the protection of the wagons succeeded in driving off the Indians and killing a number of their horses. The hostiles were reinforced, however, and a hard skirmish was kept up for several hours until more troops arrived from the agency about dark, having been sent in answer to a courier who managed to elude the attacking party. The troops charged on a gallop and the Indians retreated, having lost several killed and wounded, besides a number of their horses. ([Colby], 7.)
Amid all these warlike alarms the gentle muse Calliope hovered over the field and inspired W. H. Prather, a colored private of troop I of the Ninth cavalry, to the production of the ballad given below, one of the few good specimens of American ballad poetry, and worthy of equal place with “Captain Lovewell’s Fight,” “Old Quebec,” or anything that originated in the late rebellion. It became a favorite among the troops in camp and with the scattered frontiersmen of Dakota and Nebraska, being sung to a simple air with vigor and expression and a particularly rousing chorus, and is probably by this time a classic of the barracks. It is here reproduced verbatim from the printed slip published for distribution among the soldiers during the campaign.