|
||||||||||||
Bruce Brown's 100 Voices... Philip Sheridan's spoksman, The American high command's view of Crazy Horse...
EXCERPT FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE "Who has the chief fighting men?" [among the "hostile" Sioux and Cheyenne, asked the Chicago Tribune reporter] [Lt. Walter S. Schuller, spokesman for Gen. Philip Sheridan, replied] "The chief fighting man is Crazy Horse, as a chief, and he has the best fighting element with him. He is no dount the bravest man. Sitting Bull is looked on more as a council chief. When he [Crazy Horse] makes a charge, there is a peculiarity about him. Indians usually fight in an accute angle when making a charge; but when he makes a charge, he always leads and he never allows his men to close up on him. He is always 30 or 40 yards ahead of them. He is only 29 years of age." The Death of Crazy Horse: A Tragic Episode in Lakota History, written and compiled by Richard G. Hardorff, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE, 2001 p 194
The American military brass had many things wrong (Sitting Bull was far more than just "a council chief" -- according to He Dog, Sitting Bull filled the same military position among the Hunkpapa Sioux that Crazy Horse filled among the Oglala Sioux, that of military commander-in-chief -- and Crazy Horse was actually a young-looking 37 or so years old at the time he was murdered by the American Army), but Schuller / Sheridan's description of Crazy Horse's style of charge is accurate. -- B.B.
|