The Diaries of John Gregory Bourke Volume 1: November 20, 1872--July 28, 1876

Introduction

195 Introduction T he remaining Bourke manuscripts in this volume deal with the Great Sioux War of 1876-77, a brutal conflict most famous for the destruction of Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and five companies of the 7th Cavalry at the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876. The war was an outgrowth of many factors. The Indians were increasingly disillusioned with reservation life, and those who had never gone on the reservations were contemptuous of those who had. As more abandoned the reservation for the free, nomadic life, the center of resistance shifted from Red Cloud, who had more or less come to terms with the government, to the Hunkpapa Sioux chief Sitting Bull, who advocated breaking all connections with the whites, including the acceptance of government rations.1 The great sore point was, of course, the Black Hills, which, regardless of what the Indians might have thought of them as a geographical feature, were increasingly becoming a point of honor. Although Red Cloud, Spotted Tail, and other agency chiefs indicated a possible cession of the Black Hills to the government, leaders of the northern, non-agency bands of Lakotas and Cheyennes an1 . Robinson, Good Year to Die, 29-31. 196 THE GREAT SIOUX WAR: 1876–1877 nounced that they would go to war first. To emphasize their position , in the spring of 1875 the Indians closed the two roads leading into the Black Hills from Nebraska. Settlers and prospectors were killed, and livestock run off. Soon raiding extended into Wyoming. The situation presented a golden opportunity for the army command . With the end of the Civil War, the American public had resumed its traditional disdain for professional soldiers, and viewed the army as a tool of the increasingly unpopular Radical Reconstruction of the South. With the election of General Grant, however , army officers believed they had finally found an advocate for their views, particularly on westward expansion and the nagging “Indian Question.” Given Sheridan’s enthusiasm for expansion in general, and the writings and opinions of officers such as Custer, Dodge, Maj. James S. Brisbin, and Maj. George A. Forsyth, the soldiers attempted to sway public and congressional opinion toward the army as an instrument of national development. Thus President Grant faced growing pressure to annex the Black Hills away from the Indians.2 In the fall of 1875, a commission consisting of General Terry, Sen. W. B. Allison, S. D. Hinman, G. P. Beauvais, and several Easterners met with the Indians at the Red Cloud Agency, in northwestern Nebraska, in an effort to convince them to cede the region. The meeting was a fiasco, and the temper of the Indians was such that the commissioners were lucky to emerge alive. It became obvious the government would have to take by force what it could not gain by negotiation. On December 6, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Edward P. Smith, acting on instructions from Secretary of the Interior Zachariah Chandler, instructed the agents in the Dakotas and Nebraska to notify the various bands that they would have to be within the reservations on or before January 31, 1876. The timing was poor. Because of the winter, many Indians would not even get the word until well after the deadline. It made no difference. On February 1, 1876, the Interior Department gave the War Department responsibility for all non-agency Sioux. The immediate task fell to General Sheridan, the division commander . He envisioned a winter campaign of three converging columns , a tactic which had been used with success on the Southern Plains, most recently during the Red River War of 1874-75. Crook 2. McDermott, “Military Problem,” 18-19, 25-26. INTRODUCTION 197 would move up from the south, Col. John Gibbon would move east from his bases in western Montana, and Custer would move west from Dakota. They would batter the Indians back and forth until they submitted.3 Although Bourke pointed out that Crook had “the prestige of complete success in every campaign hitherto undertaken,” he was overly optimistic in saying that the general was “by all odds the worst foe the Sioux have ever yet had to meet.”4 In fact, this war probably was the low point of Crook’s career. While he understood the economic and cultural differences between the northern tribes and the Apaches, he did not understand the region. Crook’s earlier assignments, Arizona and the Pacific Northwest, were small in...