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© 2012 Taylor & Francis Doc #5 Commissioner of Indian Affairs Annual Report for 1877 This Excerpt from the 1877 Annual Repo Doc #5 Commissioner of Indian Affairs Annual Report for 1877 This excerpt from the 1877 annual report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs outlines the campaign against the Lakota and Cheyenne, placing greatest emphasis on what transpired after the battle. While it provides a solid timeline for engagements and interactions between the Lakota and Cheyenne and the army, the report puts a more positive spin on the army campaign than is justifiable. Note that it depicts Crook’s and Terry’s march during the month of August as a strategic pursuit of the Lakota and Cheyenne rather than the fruitless and frustrating floundering that it really was. It also depicts the cooperation between Crook and Terry as smooth flowing, which it wasn’t, and fails to mention that Crook’s blundering took his troopers to the brink of starvation. Here, as elsewhere in the report, less than stellar performance is reconstituted to reflect favorably on the field commanders. Excerpt from Commissioner E. A. Hayt to the Secretary of the Interior, 1 November 1877, in United States, Office of Indian Affairs, Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to the Secretary of the Interior for the Year 1877 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1877), pp. 14–20. THE SIOUX WAR. The causes which led in February, 1876, to a military campaign against that portion of the Sioux Nation, known as the non-treaty Sioux, or followers of Sitting Bull, were fully detailed in the last annual report of this office, as also the fact that after the opening of hostilities they received large accessions to their number from the agency Sioux. This report showed that such desertions were largely due to the uneasiness which the Indians had long felt on account of the infraction of © 2012 Taylor & Francis treaty stipulations by the white invasion of the Black Hills, seriously aggravated at the most critical period by irregular and insufficient issues of rations, necessitated by inadequate and delayed appropriations. Of this campaign a full and detailed account will of course be found in the reports of the honorable Secretary of War. It has, however, seemed to me proper to present herewith a brief outline of its principal events, in order that the records of the Indian Department may contain, at least, a summary of the most important Indian war of recent date, and one which has involved every interest of the largest tribe with which this office has to deal. The campaign was carried on for the most part in the region south of the Yellowstone, between the Big Horn and Powder Rivers, in Montana and Wyoming. It opened with an attack made upon an Indian camp on the Powder River, March 17th, 1876, by forces under General Crook, who had approached from the north by way of Forts Reno and Phil Kearney. After this attack the troops returned to Fort Fetterman, March 26th, and remained there until the last of May, when they again started out, pursuing the same route as before, and on June 17th engaged in an all-day fight with the hostiles near the head of the Rosebud, after which they went into camp, and General Crook sent for reinforcements, which arrived August 4th. About the middle of May a force of about one thousand men under General Terry left Fort Abraham Lincoln and ascended the Yellowstone to the mouth of the Rosebud. There the Seventh Cavalry, numbering 600 men, commanded by General Custer, left General Terry with orders to proceed up the Rosebud and across to the Little Big Horn. General Terry then proceeded to the mouth of the Big Horn, where he was met by a body of 450 men under General Gibbon, which © 2012 Taylor & Francis had marched from Fort Ellis down the Yellowstone. The combined forces ascended the Big Horn to the mouth of the Little Big Horn, which latter stream they also ascended, and arrived June 27th at a point about forty miles above its mouth. Here they found that two days previous the forces under General Custer had had an engagement on this ground with the hostiles, which had resulted in the entire destruction of five companies under General Custer’s immediate command; and that by their arrival the remaining seven companies, under Major Reno, had narrowly escaped sharing the same fate. The troops then returned to the mouth of the Big Born, leaving behind 259 dead and carrying with them 53 wounded. A month later, July 20th, at the request of Lieutenant General Sheridan, the Interior Department conceded to the military the supervision of the Lower Brulé, Cheyenne River, and Standing Rock agencies; and military officers were made acting agents at the Red Cloud and Spotted Tail agencies. About the same time, General Terry, who had meanwhile received reenforcements, descended the Yellowstone to the Rosebud, and ascended the Rosebud 36 miles, where, August 10th, he joined General Crook. The Indians, however, took this opportunity to escape in the direction of Tongue River. The trail was followed down the Tongue, across to the Powder River, and down the Powder to its month. At this point, on August 25th, the two forces separated, General Terry going north of the Yellowstone to prevent escape in that direction. General Crook followed the trail southeast toward the Black Hills until it became so scattered as to be indistinguishable. During this pursuit, on September 14th, General Crook’s advanced column surprised and attacked a village of thirty lodges near Slim Buttes, 180 miles from the Cheyenne River agency. This was followed up by an attack on his main column by the band of Crazy Horse. The troops then came into the vicinity of the Black Hills, and soon after assisted in © 2012 Taylor & Francis disarming the agency Indians of Red Cloud and Spotted Tail. General Terry likewise disarmed and dismounted the Indians at Cheyenne River and Standing Rock. The main body of the hostiles under Crazy Horse went in small companies toward the Yellowstone, near the Powder River, then up the Yellowstone to the Tongue River, and down that river to a point near Suicide Creek, where a winter camp was made in the heart of the buffalo country. This constituted the headquarters of the hostiles under Crazy Horse until March, 1877, when the camp removed to the Powder River. Another portion, under Sitting Bull, took a more northerly course toward the Yellowstone and Glendive Creek. The winter camp of this chief was about two hundred miles north of the Tongue River toward the Dry Fork of the Missouri. He seems to have made frequent trips between the camps for consultation and to distribute ammunition, which he obtained by trade with the Red River half-breeds near the British boundary. On the 18th of October a large force under Sitting Bull attacked a supply-train near Glendive Creek, ran off sixty mules, and retreated across the Yellowstone in the direction of Fort Peck. This movement was anticipated by Colonel Miles, who, with troops belonging to the just- completed cantonment at the mouth of Tongue River, started to intercept them, and came upon their camp October 21. Under a flag of truce presented by the Indians, two councils were held with Sitting Bull and other leading men, at which the latter reiterated their old desire to be independent of the United States, their indifference to any government aid in the way of supplies and annuities, and their wish to be connected with agencies only to the extent of trading in ammunition; nor would they give any pledges of good faith. The second day’s council was © 2012 Taylor & Francis immediately followed by an engagement, in which the Indians were driven from their position and fled, closely pursued by the troops, a distance of 42 miles, until, in the vicinity of Bad Route Creek, on the other side of the Yellowstone, the main body consisting of Minneconjoux and Sans Arcs, sued for peace on the terms which five days before they had rejected—unconditional surrender—and delivered up five of their number as hostages, viz, Red Skirt, White Bull, Black Eagle, Sun Rise, and Foolish Thunder. During the flight Sitting Bull, with his immediate followers, succeeded in breaking away to the left, and escaped in the direction of Fort Peck. The hostages were taken to the Cheyenne River agency, and their people, estimated at from four hundred to six hundred lodges, were placed, under the direction of Bull Eagle, Small Bear, and Bull, and ordered to reach the Cheyenne River agency not later than December 2, five days being allowed them to provide a supply of buffalo-meat, and thirty to make the march. This arrangement seems to have been made in good faith by some of the leading men taking part in it; but their influence over the others was not great enough to prevent any but the immediate relatives of the hostages from again joining the hostile camp. On the 15th of November a new expedition, under General Crook, started from Fort Fetterman to again follow up Crazy Horse. On the 25th of that month a detached camp of Cheyennes was struck by a portion of his troops under General Mackenzie, on the west fork of the Powder River, which resulted in the complete destruction of the village, and the loss to the Indians of all their ponies and camp equipage. The expedition then went down the Belle Fourche, and about the 1st of January returned to the cantonment, near Old Fort Reno. On the 16th of December, five Sioux chiefs from the hostile camp on Tongue River, followed at a distance by twenty or thirty other Indians, approached the Tongue River post bearing the white flag; but while passing the camp of © 2012 Taylor & Francis Crow scouts the five leaders were surrounded by twelve of their old enemies and instantly killed, whereupon their companions fled.
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