According to Grant MacEwan, Major Walsh wrote of Sitting Bull the day after the chief’s death: ‘I am glad to hear that Bull is relieved of his miseries, even if it took the bullet to do it. A man who wielded such power as Bull once did, that of a King, and over a wild spirited people, cannot endure abject poverty…without suffering great mental pain, and death is a relief. I regret now that I had not gone to Standing Rock and seen him. Bull had been misrepresented. He was not the bloodthirsty man reports made him out to be. He asked for nothing but justice. He was not a cruel man. He was kind of heart. He was not dishonest. He was truthful. He loved his people and was glad to give his hand in friendship to any man who was honest with him.’

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As for James Walsh, his service with the NWMP did not last much longer. ‘By 1881, Macdonald had convinced himself that Walsh was wholly responsible for the Canadian government’s embarrassment over Sitting Bull,’ R.C. Macleod wrote. ‘Walsh was given extended leave to remove him from the scene…Macdonald had found a scapegoat and Walsh…was forced to resign in 1883.’ Upon leaving the North-West Mounted Police, Walsh established the Dominion Coal, Coke and Transportation Company and helped open coal mining in the Souris District of Manitoba. He died at Brockville, Ontario, July 25, 1905, at age 62.

This article was written by Ian Anderson and originally appeared in the February 1998 issue of Wild West.

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