The quest to find gold was an obsession from the very beginning of the European invasion of the Americas. While the Native American worldview generally stressed the interconnectedness of people and the natural world, Europeans saw the natural world as something to be exploited. The obsession for exploitation, for obtaining personal wealth and, importantly, for finding gold continued into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and became an important part of the mythology of the United States. History books and popular literature are filled with the stories of “gold rushes” and the fabulous wealth that was extracted from the land.

In 1868, ten Sioux tribes – Brulé, Oglala, Miniconjou, Yanktonai, Hunkpapa, Blackfeet, Cuthead, Two Kettle, Sans Arcs, Santee—signed a treaty with the United States in which the Black Hills in South Dakota were included in an area which was to be held for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the Sioux people.

By 1875, at least 1,200 American prospectors, inspired by greed, had invaded the Black Hills looking for gold. In their book Indian Wars, Robert Utley and Wilcomb Washburn write: “Whites had entered the Black Hills in violation of treaty guarantees, but to remove them would provoke an irresistible public outcry.” President Ulysses S. Grant, in a secret November meeting with the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of War, Lieutenant General Sherman and Brigadier General George Crook, brushed aside any treaty obligations to the Sioux and ordered: “…no further resistance shall be made to miners going into [the Black Hills].” In December 1875 all Sioux nations were ordered onto reservations away from their sacred Black Hills, and away from the gold coveted by the Americans. In her book Montana Battlefields 1806-1877: Native Americans and the U.S. Army at War, Barbara Fifer reports: “The government even claimed that the decision was made partially to protect the reservation Indians from non-treaty Indians!” 

Messengers were sent out to inform the bands that they had to report to an Indian agency (reservation) before January 31, 1876, or be considered hostile.  It should be kept in mind that in an era before radio, television, and the internet, there was no rapid way of actually informing the Indians who were hunting on the unceded lands—the lands which did not yet belong to the United States and which the United States had told the Indians that they could continue to use—that they were to remove themselves from their tribal lands and report to the reservation. Also keep in mind that this was in the middle of winter, a time when snow and cold weather made travel difficult. In his book In Their Own Words: Warriors and Pioneers, T.J. Stiles reports: “The deadline, of course, was meaningless to the wandering Lakotas and Cheyennes. When they failed to come in, the administration decided it was justified in declaring war. On February 2, 1876, President Grant authorized General Willliam Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891), the Commanding General of the U.S. Army, to conduct operations against ‘hostile Indians.’” Most of the Indian bands in the unceded lands were blissfully unaware that they were now “hostiles” and at war with the United States.

General Philip Henry Sheriden (1831-1888) graduated from West Point in 1852 and was appointed to head up the Division of Missouri in 1869. The Military Division of the Missouri, an administrative formation of the U.S. Army, included most of the Great Plains. It had been formed after the Civil War to allow the rapid movement of troops against the Indians without the time-consuming approval of the War Department. In his Encyclopedia of American Indian Wars, 1492-1890, Jerry Keenan writes of General Sherian: “An energetic, exuberant officer, Sheridan was perhaps better suited to leading troops in the field than directing operations from his distant office in Chicago.”

Sheridan’s plan for the campaign, based on his earlier experiences fighting Indians, was to have three columns invade the unceded territory and drive the Indians into exhaustion or extinction. General George Crook (1828-1890) was to lead one column north from Fort Fetterman in Wyoming. A graduate of West Point, General Crook has a reputation as the Army’s best Indian fighter primarily because of his experience in fighting Apaches in Arizona. Marching through deep snow and subzero weather, Crook’s column began moving north in March. His cavalry, six companies of the 2^nd and 3^rd Cavalry Regiments with 383 men under the command of Colonel Joseph J. Reynolds (1822-1899), was the head of the column. On March 16, scout Frank Grouard (1850-1905) saw two Oglala Sioux warriors and reported that Crazy Horse’s camp must be nearby. Colonel Reynolds then led a night march to be able to attack the camp in the morning. Jerry Keenan reports: “On March 17, 1876, Reynolds found an Indian camp on the Powder River and launched an attack, firing the first shots of the Great Sioux War.” This attack is known as the Battle of Powder River or the Reynolds Battle.

The camp attacked by the troops was not that of Crazy Horse’s Oglala Sioux but Old Bull’s Northern Cheyennes. Crazy Horse’s village was about 15 miles to the north. While the army scouts reported more than 100 lodges in the camp, there were probably only about 40.

One of the young (teenaged) warriors in the camp was Wooden Leg, who, in his later years, would tell an interpreter the Indian side of the attack. According to Wooden Leg, in his story reprinted in In Their Own Words: Warriors and Pioneers, the Cheyennes knew that the soldiers were looking for them: “Every hunting party was on the lookout for white soldiers or for their trails. The women and old people in the camp kept themselves ever ready for immediate flight.” Wooden Leg also reports: “The council of old men decided we should keep away from the soldiers, not try to fight them.”

In spite of the vigilance of the Cheynne hunters and scouts, the soldiers surprised the camp. The battle began at 9:05 AM. Wooden Leg reports: “Women screamed. Children cried for their mothers. Old people tottered and hobbled away to get out of the reach of the bullets singing among the lodges. Braves seized whatever weapons they had and tried to meet the attack.” Wooden Leg also reports: “Women were struggling along burdened with packs of precious belongings. Some were dragging or carrying their children. All were shrieking in fright.”

The battle lasted for about five hours during which the American casualties included four killed, six wounded, and 66 were frostbitten. Colonel Reynolds ordered everything in the village destroyed: soldiers tore down and torched the lodges, destroying fresh and preserved food, ammunition, weapons, clothing, and buffalo robes. Wooden Leg reports: “From a distance we saw the destruction of our village. Our tepees were burned, with everything in them except what the soldiers may have taken.”

When the destruction of the village was complete, at about 2 PM, Colonel Reynolds ordered the troops to withdraw and in the hasty retreat the bodies of three soldiers were left behind. Colonel Reynolds retreated about 20 miles south.

The soldiers captured more than 700 Cheyenne horses. Wooden Leg reports: “The soldiers did not follow us. That night we who had horses went back to see what had happened to them.”  The Cheyenne warriors re-captured about 500 of their horses. The army had not posted any guards for the horses.

The Cheyennes moved to the Oglala Sioux village of Crazy Horse. Wooden Leg reports: “The Oglalas received us hospitably as we knew they would do.” Wooden Leg (1996: 164) also reports: “It was decided that the Oglalas and the Cheyennes should go together to the Hunkpapa Sioux, located northeastward from us.” The principal Hunkpapa chief is Sitting Bull (Buffalo Bull Sitting Down).  Barbara Fifer reports: “What the army’s expedition had accomplished was to combine three villages into a large one filled with angry people.” Wooden Leg, however, describes it this way: “So, in attaching ourselves to the Hunkpapas, we other tribes were not moved by a desire to fight. They had not invited us. They simply welcomed us. We supposed that the combined camps would frighten off the soldiers.”

Later, Reynolds would be court-martialed for dereliction of duty for failing to properly support the first charge with his entire command; for burning the captured supplies, food, blankets, buffalo robes, and ammunition instead of keeping them for army use; and most of all, for losing hundreds of the captured horses and leaving behind soldiers. He was found guilty and sentenced to suspension of rank and pay for one year. Reyolds had been a West Point classmate of President Ulysses S. Grant who remitted the sentence. Reynolds retired on disability leave from the U.S. Army on June 25, 1877.

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