Miles then sent Company D, under Lieutenant Robert McDonald, to help out. After crossing the valley in Company A’s tracks, McDonald’s men managed to climb up the second ridge and push the Indians back. Meanwhile, Big Crow tried to inspire his warriors by dancing along the summit of the third ridge, daring anyone to shoot him. His dancing and taunting went on for some time as bullets whizzed past him from 100 soldiers in the valley below. Finally, two soldiers from Company D, firing from the second ridge, dropped the daring Big Crow. His death discouraged some of the Northern Cheyennes, but other kinsmen fought on, as did the Lakotas.

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Blowing on an eagle-bone whistle, Crazy Horse led a charge of some 300 warriors on foot from the third hill toward the commands of Casey and McDonald. They closed to within 50 yards of the soldiers, but the firing by both sides–perhaps because of the falling snow, poor visibility and intense cold–was inaccurate. Fearing the other two companies would be overrun, Miles sent a third company, Company C under Captain Edmund Butler, into the fight. Butler and his men charged up the hill at Crazy Horse, who fell back at first but then took up a strong defensive position behind rocks and fallen trees near the top of the third ridge.

Miles needed more help, so he called in the field artillery, and the shells fired from the valley forced Crazy Horse and his men to abandon their positions. They did not flee in panic, however. As they fell back, they continued to fire at the soldiers, who pursued them for nearly a mile, until the snow fell too heavily to continue. The blizzard also covered the retreat of the warriors who had remained to fight from the hills northwest of the Tongue River. The five-hour Battle of Wolf Mountains (also known as the Battle Butte Fight) was over. Amazingly enough, the soldiers had suffered only a few casualties, one dead and eight wounded. One of the wounded would die the next day. The Indians’ losses were apparently also light–three killed, including the daring Big Crow–though Miles reported seeing pools of blood on the snow where the Indians had fought. Crazy Horse obviously still had enough healthy bodies to fight on, but he had used up most of his ammunition, which could not be replaced. He led his people back up the Tongue and then over to the Little Powder.

On January 9, Miles began his march back to his post at the mouth of the Tongue River. Although the battle had been a draw, the colonel had demonstrated to the nonagency Lakotas and Cheyennes that the soldiers could find them and fight them any time, anywhere. Talk of surrender resurfaced. It didn’t help that Hunkpapa leader Sitting Bull showed up in camp and announced that he was taking his people to safety across the Canadian border. Crazy Horse declined to join him; he knew it was even colder in Canada. But further resistance did seem futile to many of Crazy Horse’s followers. Colonel Miles and General Crook sent messengers to Crazy Horse’s camp with food and tobacco and promises of fair treatment. Each commander wanted to get credit for the great Oglala warrior’s surrender.

In early February 1877, Crook persuaded Spotted Tail, an uncle of Crazy Horse’s and the designated (by Crook) chief of all agency Lakotas, to march for peace. He was to go to Crazy Horse with 250 Bruls and a pack train of gifts and promise him his own agency in the Powder River country if he would surrender to Crook. Spotted Tail left his agency near Camp Sheridan in western Nebraska on February 13 and eventually found Crazy Horse’s camp on the Powder River. Crazy Horse was out on a solo hunt, but Spotted Tail told those present that unless they surrendered, Crook would attack them with the help of not only Crow and Shoshone scouts but also other Lakotas and Cheyennes. Negotiations began without Crazy Horse participating. The elusive Oglala did send word through his father, Worm, that he would soon bring his camp of Oglalas and Northern Cheyennes, about 400 lodges, to the Red Cloud Agency. Red Cloud had once been chief of all the agency Lakotas, but Crook had stripped him of the title and given it to Spotted Tail.On April 5 at Camp Sheridan, Spotted Tail reported the news of Crazy Horse’s imminent surrender, and the general naturally was delighted. Still smarting from his failure to defeat Crazy Horse at the Rosebud and jealous of Colonel Miles, Crook agreed when Red Cloud volunteered to go out and hurry the Oglala leader along. Red Cloud was allowed to take cattle and other provisions so that Crazy Horse and his followers would not have to stop to hunt on their way to the agency in western Nebraska.

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