June 16 and June 17: Dénouement or Confusion

[fred]

"Eureka! I have found it!" Is that how Reno felt or did the sights in front of him confuse him, scare him, worry him? What was he seeing? What did it all mean? It is easy to see a footprint in the sand and say someone was here. But why, for what purpose, and maybe the most imposing question of all, where did it all lead to? Were these signs the signs of fear or confidence?

They were different from others, different from what the soldiers were used to. Again, to what purpose?

On the 17th, Crook was being taught some lessons of his own by the Sioux and Cheyenne.

“The warriors dashed here, there, everywhere; up and down in ceaseless activity… Our efforts were directed toward closing in with the enemy by a series of charges, and theirs to avoiding close contact until, by the nature of the ground, our forces began to get scattered, and then their tactics changed from the defensive to the offensive. Each separate detachment was made the objective of terrific onslaughts; the warriors charging up to them, careening on their horses, and firing from behind them, while exposing as little of their own persons as possible. All the time they were whooping and yelling, hoping thereby to strike terror into the hearts of their adversaries and if possible, stampede them.” Captain Azor H. Nickerson, 23rd Infantry; Adjutant, Wyoming Column. [Willert, LBH Diary, p. 162]

Is this what was to greet the Seventh Cavalry?

[fred]

June 16: By 2 p.m. Reno has moved 27 miles. He camps until 8 that evening, then heads out again, moving another 11 1/2 miles. At 11:30 p.m., his troops have covered almost 40 miles and go into camp.

June 17: Early morning rain. Cool, misty. Reno covers 22 1/2 miles, south, then back north.

[clw]

On June 17, Reno came within 40 miles of Crook's fight on the Rosebud, like ships passing unknown to each other in the night.

[conz]

Out of Bray:

"On June 16 the village started west, eventually descending the ridges to the forks of Sun Dance (modern Reno) Creeks. Two miles separated the Cheyenne camp from the Hunkpapa circle. At the Cheyenne council tipi, a meeting of all the chiefs was heavy with the threat of impending danger."

Scouts rode in that night and reported Crook's column location and that it would probably continue down the Rosebud valley the next day. They further said:

"A screen of 262 Crow and Shoshone scouts, far ahead of the column, probed dangerously near the village approaches. Uproar seized the camps."

Soldiers were barely 20 miles from the village at this point.

In the 17th battle of the Rosebud between 750 Natives and the 1,300 of Crook's force, eight warriors were KIA (probably a similar number died of wounds afterwards) and Crook lost nine soldiers killed, and 23 wounded.

"Three days after the battle, the last of Crazy Horse's scouts returned from Goose Creek [where Crook had retreated to] to assure him that Crook did not intend to test again the courage of the Northern Nation."

Clair

[crzhrs]

June 17 (The LBH Campaign, Wayne Sarf):

The warriors of the great Sioux/Cheyenne encampment apparently did not consider attacking Crook's bluecoats a second time or even offering them serious harassment. Satisfied that the soldiers, whipped into at least temporary submission, no longer threatened the village, the Indians felt no need to crush their foes. It may have cost more lives, especially now that the soldiers knew Indians were willing to be the aggressors and would be more than ready for them.

[conz]

Reno's account:

"On the morning of June 16 we had gone no more than 8 miles down the tongue when Mitch Bouyer and the scouts galloped back to report that the old village was just ahead. There we counted 400 or more lodges, more than we suspected. Mitch thought that by now they were a long way off so that Terry's double attack on the Rosebud would find nothing.

"This presented a real dilemma. If I hurried down the Tongue for my expected rendezvous with Terry I could only report the size of a month-old village with no new intelligence; if I went ahead to find out where the village was headed I would be in violation of my orders.

"I felt I had been sent on a fool's mission which I could compound and be safe or rectify and put myself in peril. I decided to risk the later."

This was the decision that got him into so much trouble with Terry and Custer later.

Clair

[conz]

Reno's account, cont.:

"On the morning of the 17th I took my command upstream cautiously for six and a half miles and halted from 10:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. where the Rosebud bends to the southwest and Greenleaf Creek joins it form [sic] the southeast. I ordered no bugles blown or noises made and posted double pickets in apprehension of our discovery by the hostiles. Mitch said we could overtake the village in one day, but unbeknownst to us the warriors were at that very moment fighting Crook farther down the Rosebud as we drank coffee.

"During our six-and-a-half-hour halt the scouts followed the heavy trail and located the sun dance damp [sic] where Sitting Bull received his vision. After satisfying themselves that the trail continued southwest up the mainstream they returned to my camp.

"...I told [Forked Horn] that Custer had told us to turn back if we found the trail and that we would follow his orders. We had learned enough to justify the risk taken, but if we tarried long enough to be discovered I would never be able to justify it. Now I knew that the village had moved out of range of Terry's double attack plan and that the plan, unless radically revised, would prove to be humiliating and futile."