Crazy Horse

For today, I'll start out with the musical introduction first instead of the history lesson. 

Before we talk about Crazy Horse the person, let's talk about Crazy Horse the rock band.  This band formed in 1969 and continues to remain active today.  It’s most famous member, Neil Young, played with them from 1990 to 2014.  Here’s a classic hit from Neil Young and Crazy Horse on the Rust Never Sleeps album.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQhEvfeJocM (you need to get past the ad)

I really like Neil Young and he was/is one of the founders of rock music.  In 1966 he co-founded the band Buffalo Springfield with Stephen Stills and later joined Crosby, Still & Nash (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) in 1969.  Lots of really good music from him through the years.

OK, back to history......

Considered one of the bravest and fiercest warriors of the Oglala Lakota Nation, Crazy Horse is a well-known legend from the American West.  He was born in the early 1840's in northwestern South Dakota to the parents Crazy Horse (Senior?) and Rattling Blanket Woman.  So now I wonder if his name is really Crazy Horse, Jr.?  Do you think he and his dad got their mail mixed up?

A typical teenager, he stole horses from neighboring Crow Indians at the age of 13.
 

Like his father and like other famous Indian chiefs and warriors (Geronimo), Crazy Horse reportedly had visions.  His started these visions as a young man when his father took him to a site near Sylvan Lake in the Black Hills for their “vision quest”.  During these visions, Crazy Horse would see himself as a great and mighty fighter, complete with certain war paint patterns and colors needed to protect him from danger.  He also dreamed of fighting the white soldiers.

In 1864 after the Sand Creek Massacre, Oglala and Minneconjou bands allied together to fight the US Army.  This groups' first battles wereat the Battle of Platte Bridge and the Battle of the Red Buttes.

The next year Crazy Horse led an ambush against Caption William Fetterman and his company of 100 soldiers.  A group of 1,000 Indians killed all members of this company in what was called the Fetterman Massacre or as the Lakota called it, the Battle of the Hundred in the Hand.

Years later, Crazy Horse and his 1,500 men attacked General George Crook’s army of 1,000 cavalry and infantry and 300 Crow and Shoshone Indians in the Battle of Rosebud.  This is the same General Crook that has a historic house/museum in Omaha (it's located in North O on the campus of Metro Community College's north campus).   Crook was considered to be the greatest Indian fighting General of the US Army. 

General George Crook

The interesting point of this battle was the delay it caused for Crook’s army as it was attempting to join up with General George Custer’s 7^th Cavalry during the summer campaign of 1876 to put down the Sioux uprising.  During the Battle of Rosebud, it was reported that Crook’s delay was directly related to his fear of Crazy Horse and his fighting tactics.

George Custer's story is also an interesting one.  He went to West Point in 1858 and later graduated last in his class in 1861.  Due to the demands of the Civil War at that time, Custer was still appointed to the Union Army.  He earned extensive praise for his leadership and fighting qualities in the Civil War and was front and center in forcing Lee's surrender at Appomattox to end the war in 1865.  It was after the Civil War that Custer was then assigned to fight the Indians.

General George C. Custer

Because Crook couldn't join up with Custer’s soldiers as planned, the 7^th Cavalry was deeply undermanned at the Little Bighorn river in southern Montana.

The Cheyenne and Lakota had a 4-mile long encampment along the banks of the Little Bighorn River.  It was a week after the Battle of Rosebud, June 25, 1876,  when the 7^th Cavalry attacked this encampment.  During this attack, Crazy Horse led a flanking attack against Custer.  Despite his West Point education and Civil War experience, it was too late before Custer realized he had been outflanked by Crazy Horse and he and all his men died in battle.  Indian accounts from the fight agree that Crazy Horse was “the greatest fighter in the whole battle”, further adding to his reputation as a warrior.

Map of the Battle of Little Bighorn

There were numerous other battles between Crazy Horse’s tribe and the US Army in the following year.  However, due to continual harassment by the Army and depleted herds of buffalo to feed his tribe, Crazy Horse finally surrendered at Fort Robinson in Nebraska in May, 1877.  Early the next fall Crazy Horse was stabbed by a camp guard’s bayonet when it was thought he was leaving to resume fighting and he died later that night.

It's unknown exactly where he is buried but it’s thought to be somewhere near Wounded Knee South Dakota (southeasts of the Black Hills).

A quote attributed to Crazy Horse - "I was hostile to the white man...we preferred hunting to a life of idleness on our reservations. At times we did not get enough to eat and we were not allowed to hunt. All we wanted was peace and to be left alone. Soldiers came and destroyed our villages. Then Long Hair (Custer) came...They say we massacred him, but he would have done the same to us. Our first impulse was to escape but we were so hemmed in we had to fight."

Much later, a member of the team that worked with sculptor Gutzon Borglum on Mt. Rushmore, began work on the Crazy Horse Monument in 1948.  Korczak Kiolkowski began this work on sacred Thunderhead Mountain 8 miles away from Mt. Rushmore.  Kiolkowski died in 1982 but the work continues under the direction of his wife and the couples’ 10 children.  This work remains funded entirely by donations and private funding despite offers by the US government for financial assistance.

Crazy Horse Memorial

Thanks for reading this chapter.  Only 15 1/2 weeks until our trip!