‘Thus the sources these authors cite do not hold up to scrutiny when closely examined as to any role Crazy Horse definitely and personally played in the Fetterman Fight’

Crazy Horse Image
I read the news item on P. 8 of your “Roundup” section in the June issue about the “Crazy Horse” picture. Surfing the Net one day, I came across a supposedly authentic copy of a tintype of Crazy Horse [from the Custer Battlefield Museum]. What do you know about this other “Crazy Horse” photo? I am an avid reader of anything that has to do with native American history. Keep the great stuff coming. I just can’t get enough of your super, super magazine.

Howard Sizemore
Maple City, Mich.

The editor responds: The photo in our June issue is not of Crazy Horse (Tasunka Witko), as History Detectives investigators proved. The studio photo you provided was first published more than 50 years ago; it was supposedly taken in 1877 at Camp Robinson, Nebraska Territory (where Crazy Horse died), and owned by the half-French, half-Sioux scout Baptiste “Little Bat” Garnier. Few historians or photo experts today accept it as an authentic portrait of Crazy Horse; some say it is No Neck, who surrendered with Crazy Horse. It is possible Crazy Horse never allowed himself to be photographed.

Crazy Horse Role
In the “Interview” in the August 2009 issue of Wild West, historian John H. Monnett questions Crazy Horse’s decoy role at the Fetterman Fight. Monnett says there is a lack of original Indian sources. I am currently reading the 2005 book The Journey of Crazy Horse, by Joseph M. Marshall III, who was raised on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation. Marshall reports hearing oral history about Crazy Horse’s role as the leader of the decoys.

Ed Colbach
West Linn, Ore.

John Monnett responds: I am quite certain that people living and growing up on the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservations from the 1940s to the present have heard stories of Crazy Horse’s role as leader of the decoy party at the Fetterman Fight of December 21, 1866. Many of these later stories have found their way into print and other media in recent times. James M. Marshall’s recent novel Hundred in the Hand tells the tale of a young man who accompanied Crazy Horse in the battle. The book is a good read and an excellent piece of fiction as to form. None other than Stephen Ambrose in his nonfiction Crazy Horse and Custer relates a vivid account of Crazy as a decoy at the battle; so too has Larry McMurtry in his short-form biography of Crazy Horse and in his fictional Boone’s Lick. Kingsley Bray in his highly acclaimed nonfiction Crazy Horse: A Lakota Life does the same.

The problem is that none of these tales ever appeared to the larger public prior to 1942. Thus the sources these authors cite do not hold up to scrutiny when closely examined as to any role Crazy Horse definitely and personally played in the Fetterman Fight. During the summer of 1930, Eleanor Hinman of the Nebraska State Historical Society, and her friend, Mari Sandoz, who in 1930 had yet to write anything about Indians, interviewed several aged friends and relatives of Crazy Horse who were still living on the reservations. There were no less than 10 interviews, including four with He Dog, Crazy Horse’s friend since boyhood. These informants went into detail about Crazy Horse’s life from birth to death. None of them mention Crazy Horse’s presence at the Fetterman Fight, let alone his being one of the decoys or their leader. Prior to 1930, others like Eli S. Ricker interviewed a number of Lakotas who were in the Fetterman Fight, including fellow Oglala American Horse and George Sword (Sword Owner), both of whom were decoys. Ricker interviewed Horn Chips, also a friend of Crazy Horse’s since boyhood. These three warriors make no mention of Crazy Horse at the battle. Other eyewitnesses interviewed in the early 20th century include warriors like White Bear (Minneconjou), Fire Thunder (Oglala), Little Wolf (Cheyenne, whose brother was a decoy killed in the Fetterman Fight) and White Elk (Cheyenne). These warriors were in the battle and told their stories long after the death of Crazy Horse but make no mention of him being a decoy in the Fetterman Fight. The cornerstone of Indian eyewitness accounts of the fight is the autobiography of White Bull (Minneconjou), Warpath, written by Walter S. Campbell in the 1930s. Again, White Bull makes no mention of Crazy Horse at the Fetterman Fight, although he tells of Crazy Horse’s heroics at the Wagon Box Fight in 1867 and during the 1870s.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to