forced to withdraw, handed the Indians a
strategic victory. Crook took no further action
in the campaign, while the victorious warriors
returned to their main encampment along Lit-
tle Bighorn River to await developments.
On June 25, the main Indian camp was at-
tacked by elements of the Seventh U.S. Cav-
alry under Custer, who was promptly driven
off. Once the Hunkpapa Sioux under Chief
Gall had pinned the Americans frontally, a
large body of Indians under Crazy Horse
turned their flank and took them from behind.
Twenty minutes later, Custer and his 261
troopers were annihilated. Thus, in the span
of a week Crazy Horse had defeated two of
the preeminent Indian fighters of the time. De-
spite their success, achieved largely through
tribal unity, the Indian bands broke up their
encampment and dispersed. But unlike Sitting
Bull and Gall, who took their bands to Canada
for safety, Crazy Horse determined to re-
mained behind and fight to the end.
Custer’s defeat stimulated greater efforts
on the part of the army to crush the Indians.
Throughout the winter of 1876, a column
under Gen. Nelson A. Miles relentlessly
hounded Crazy Horse’s band, and on January
7, 1876, he destroyed the remaining Sioux vil-
lage at Wolf Mountain in southern Montana.
The tribesmen, hungry and freezing, began
surrendering in small groups to the army.
Crazy Horse, however, held out until the
spring, when emissaries from Red Cloud ar-
rived and entreated him to surrender. When
Crook assured him of his own reservation on
the Powder River, the chief led 800 exhausted
followers to Fort Robinson (present-day
northwestern Nebraska) on May 5, 1877.
Unfortunately for all involved, Crook could
not fulfill the terms of his agreement, and
Crazy Horse was constrained to the Red
Cloud Agency. Older chiefs, including Red
Cloud himself, resented the adoration given
Crazy Horse by younger braves, and they
urged Crook to confine him. Crook was ap-
parently taken in by rumors that Crazy Horse
was plotting a rebellion and ordered his arrest
on September 7, 1877. Crazy Horse was bayo-
neted by Indian agency police during the
attempted arrest and died as he had lived—
defiantly. He remains an enduring symbol of
human resistance to oppression, commemo-
rated by Korczak Ziolkowski’s gigantic sculp-
ture on the very Black Hills for which he gave
his life defending.Bibliography
Ambrose, Stephen E. Crazy Horse and Custer: The Par-
allel Lives of Two American Warriors.Garden City,
NY: Doubleday, 1975; Clark, Robert A., ed. The
Killing of Chief Crazy Horse: Three Eyewitness
Views.Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988;
DeWall, Robb. Crazy Horse and Korszak: The Story
of an Epic Mountain Carving.Crazy Horse, SD:
Korczak’s Heritage, 1982; Hardorff, Richard G. The
Death of Crazy Horse: A Tragic Episode in Lakota
History. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,
1998; Kadlecek, Edward.To Kill an Eagle: Indian
Views on the Death of Crazy Horse.Boulder: John-
son Books, 1981; Mangum, Neil C. The Battle of the
Rosebud: Prelude to the Little Big Horn.El Se-
gundo, CA: Upton, 1987; McMurtry, Larry. Crazy
Horse.New York: Viking, 1999; Michno, Gregory F.
Lakota Noon: The Indian Narrative of Custer’s De-
feat.Missoula, MT: Mountain Press, 1997; Robinson,
Charles M. A Good Year to Die: The Story of the
Great Sioux War.Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press, 1996; Sajna, Mike. Crazy Horse: The Life Be-
hind the Legend.New York: Wiley, 2001.CRAZYHORSE