[R-G] The Wounded Knee Massacre of Peaceful Sioux

[Hunter Gray]

Note by Hunterbear:

This is a longer post which is comprised of several accounts relating to one
of the most hideous atrocities to occur in what is called the United States:
the massacre by US Army troops of hundreds of peaceful Sioux at Wounded Knee
Creek, South Dakota, December 29, 1890.

The American poet, Stephen Vincent Benet [1898 - 1943]  in his "American
Names" concludes:

I shall not rest quiet in Montparnasse.
I shall not lie easy at Winchelsea.
You may bury my body in Sussex grass,
You may bury my tongue at Champmedy.
I shall not be there. I shall rise and pass.
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.


===================================================================


>From Phil Konstantin's website, http://members.tripod.com/~PHILKON/

*****
Words Spoken: Black Elk


"I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high
hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying
heaped and scattered along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them
with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the
bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It
was a beautiful dream... The nation's hoop is broken and scattered. There is
no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead."


*****


>From http://www.hanksville.org/daniel/lakota/Wounded_Knee.html


The Massacre at Wounded Knee

After Sitting Bull's death, Big Foot feared for the safety of his band,
which consisted in large part of widows of the Plains wars and their
children. Big Foot himself had been placed on the list of "fomenters of
disturbances," and his arrest had been ordered. He led his band toward Pine
Ridge, hoping for the protection of Red Cloud. However, he fell ill from
pneumonia on the trip and was forced to travel in the back of a wagon. As
they neared Porcupine Creek on December 28, the band saw 4 troops of cavalry
approaching. A white flag was immediately run up over Big Foot's wagon. When
the two groups met, Big Foot raised up from his bed of blankets to greet
Major Samuel Whitside of the Seventh Cavalry. His blankets were stained with
blood and blood dripped from his nose as he spoke.

Whitside informed him of his orders to take the band to their camp on
Wounded Knee Creek. Big Foot replied that they were going that way, to Pine
Ridge. The major wanted to disarm the Indians right then but was dissuaded
by his scout John Shangreau, in order to avoid a fight on the spot. They
agreed to wait to undertake this until they reached camp. Then, in a moment
of sympathy, the major ordered his army ambulance brought forward to accept
the ill Minneconjou chief, providing a warmer and more comfortable ride.
They then proceeded toward the camp at Wounded Knee Creek, led by two
cavalry troops with the other two troops bringing up the rear with their
Hotchkiss guns. They reached the camp at twilight.

At the camp, the Indians were carefully counted; there were 120 men and 230
women and children. Major Whitside decided to wait until morning to disarm
the band. They were assigned a camp site just to the south of the cavalry
camp, given rations, and provided with several tents as there was a shortage
of tepee covers. A stove was provided for Big Foot's tent and the doctor was
sent to give aid to the chief. To guarantee against escape from the camp,
two troops of cavalry were posted around the Indian tents and the Hotchkiss
guns were placed on the top of a rise overlooking the camp. The guns were
aimed directly at the lodges.

During the night the rest of the Seventh Cavalry marched in and set up north
of Major Whitside's troops. Two more Hotchkiss guns were placed beside the
two already aimed at the lodges. Colonel John Forsyth took over command of
the operation and informed Major Whitside that he had orders to take the
band to the railroad to be shipped to a military prison in Omaha.

In the morning a bugle call awakened the camp and the men were told to come
to the center of the camp for a talk. After the talk they would move to Pine
Ridge. Big Foot was brought out and seated before his tent. The older men of
the band gathered around him. Hardtack was issued for breakfast. Then the
Indians were informed that they would be disarmed. They stacked their guns
in the center, but the soldiers were not satisfied. The soldiers went
through the tents, bringing out bundles and tearing them open, throwing
knives, axes, and tent stakes into the pile. Then they ordered searches of
the individual warriors. The Indians became very angry but only one spoke
out, the medicine man, Yellow Bird. He danced a few steps of the Ghost Dance
and chanted in Sioux, telling the Indians that the bullets would not hurt
them, they would go right by.

The search found only two rifles, one brand new, belonging to a young man
named Black Coyote. He raised it over his head and cried out that he had
spent much money for the rifle and that it belonged to him. Black Coyote was
deaf and therefore did not respond promptly to the demands of the soldiers.
He would have been convinced to put it down by the Sioux, but that option
was not possible. He was grabbed by the soldiers and spun around. Then a
shot was heard; its source is not clear but it began the killing. The only
arms the Indians had were what they could grab from the pile. When the
Hotchkiss guns opened up, shrapnel shredded the lodges, killing men, women
and children, indiscriminately. They tried to run but were shot down "like
buffalo," women and children alike.

When the mass insanity of the soldiers ended, 153 dead were counted,
including Big Foot; but many of the wounded had crawled off to die alone.
One estimate place the final death toll at 350 Indian men, women and
children. Twenty-five soldiers died and 39 were wounded, most by their own
shrapnel and bullets. The wounded soldiers were started back to the Pine
Ridge agency. Then a detail of soldiers went over the battlefield, gathering
up any Indians that were still alive and placing them in wagons. As a
blizzard was approaching, the dead were left where they had fallen. The
wagons with the wounded arrived at Pine Ridge after dark. They contained
only 4 Sioux men and 47 women and children. These people were left outside
in wagons in the bitter cold while a search was made for housing for them.
Finally the Episcopal mission was opened, the benches removed and hay
scattered over the floor as bedding for the wounded Sioux. As they were
brought in, those who were conscious could see the Christmas decorations
hanging from the rafters.


*****


>From http://www.ibiscom.com/knee.htm


On the morning of December 29, 1890, the Sioux chief Big Foot and some 350
of his followers camped on the banks of Wounded Knee creek. Surrounding
their camp was a force of U.S. troops charged with the responsibility of
arresting Big Foot and disarming his warriors. The scene was tense. Trouble
had been brewing for months.

The once proud Sioux found their free-roaming life destroyed, the buffalo
gone, themselves confined to reservations dependent on Indian Agents for
their existence. In a desperate attempt to return to the days of their
glory, many sought salvation in a new mysticism preached by a Paiute
called Wovoka. Emissaries from the Sioux in South Dakota traveled to Nevada
to hear his words. Wovoka called himself the Messiah and prophesied that the
dead would soon join the living in a world in which the Indians could live
in the old way surrounded by plentiful game. A tidal wave of new soil would
cover the earth, bury the whites, and restore the prairie. To hasten the
event, the Indians were to dance the Ghost Dance. Many dancers wore brightly
colored shirts emblazoned with images of eagles and buffaloes. These "Ghost
Shirts" they believed would protect them from the bluecoats' bullets. During
the fall of 1890, the Ghost Dance spread through the Sioux villages of the
Dakota reservations, revitalizing the Indians and bringing fear to the
whites. A desperate Indian Agent at Pine Ridge wired his superiors in
Washington, "Indians are dancing in the snow and are wild and crazy....We
need protection and we need it now. The leaders should be arrested and
confined at some military post until the matter is quieted, and this should
be done now." The order went out to arrest Chief Sitting Bull at the
Standing Rock Reservation. Sitting Bull was killed in the attempt on
December 15. Chief Big Foot was next on the list.

When he heard of Sitting Bull's death, Big Foot led his people south to seek
protection at the Pine Ridge Reservation. The army intercepted the band on
December 28 and brought them to the edge of the Wounded Knee to camp. The
next morning the chief, racked with pneumonia and dying, sat among his
warriors and powwowed with the army officers. Suddenly the sound of a shot
pierced the early morning gloom. Within seconds the charged atmosphere
erupted as Indian braves scurried to retrieve their discarded rifles and
troopers fired volley after volley into the Sioux camp. From the heights
above, the army's Hotchkiss guns raked the Indian teepees with grapeshot.
Clouds of gun smoke filled the air as men, women and children scrambled for
their lives. Many ran for a ravine next to the camp only to be cut down in a
withering cross fire.

When the smoke cleared and the shooting stopped, approximately 300 Sioux
were dead, Big Foot among them. Twenty-five soldiers lost their lives. As
the remaining troopers began the grim task of removing the dead, a blizzard
swept in from the North. A few days later they returned to complete the job.
Scattered fighting continued, but the massacre at Wounded Knee effectively
squelched the Ghost Dance movement and ended the Indian Wars.

Eyewitness to a Massacre

Philip Wells was a mixed-blood Sioux who served as an interpreter for the
Army. He later recounted what he saw that Monday morning:

"I was interpreting for General Forsyth (Forsyth was actually a colonel)
just before the battle of Wounded Knee, December 29, 1890. The captured
Indians had been ordered to give up their arms, but Big Foot replied that
his people had no arms. Forsyth said to me, 'Tell Big Foot he says the
Indians have no arms, yet yesterday they were well armed when they
surrendered. He is deceiving me. Tell him he need have no fear in giving up
his arms, as I wish to treat him kindly.' Big Foot replied, 'They have no
guns, except such as you have found.' Forsyth declared, 'You are lying to me
in return for my kindness.'

During this time a medicine man, gaudily dressed and fantastically painted,
executed the maneuvers of the ghost dance, raising and throwing dust into
the air. He exclaimed 'Ha! Ha!' as he did so, meaning he was about to do
something terrible, and said, 'I have lived long enough,' meaning he would
fight until he died. Turning to the young warriors who were squatted
together, he said 'Do not fear, but let your hearts be strong. Many soldiers
are about us and have many bullets, but I am assured their bullets cannot
penetrate us. The prairie is large, and their bullets will fly over the
prairies and will not come toward us. If they do come toward us, they will
float away like dust in the air.' I turned to Major Whitside and said, 'That
man is making mischief,' and repeated what he had said. Whitside replied,
'Go direct to Colonel Forsyth and tell him about it,' which I did.

Forsyth and I went to the circle of warriors where he told me to tell the
medicine man to sit down and keep quiet, but he paid no attention to the
order. Forsyth repeated the order. Big Foot's brother-in-law answered, 'He
will sit down when he gets around the circle.' When the medicine man came to
the end of the circle, he squatted down. A cavalry sergeant exclaimed,
'There goes an Indian with a gun under his blanket!' Forsyth ordered him to
take the gun from the Indian, which he did. Whitside then said to me, 'Tell
the Indians it is necessary that they be searched one at a time.' The young
warriors paid no attention to what I told them. I heard someone on my left
exclaim, 'Look out! Look out!' I saw five or six young warriors cast off
their blankets and pull guns out from under them and brandish them in the
air. One of the warriors shot into the soldiers, who were ordered to fire
into the Indians. I looked in the direction of the medicine man. He or some
other medicine man approached to within three or four feet of me with a long
cheese knife, ground to a sharp point and raised to stab me He stabbed me
during the melee and nearly cut off my nose. I held him off until I could
swing my rifle to hit him, which I did. I shot and killed him in
self-defense.

Troop 'K' was drawn up between the tents of the women and children and the
main body of the Indians, who had been summoned to deliver their arms. The
Indians began firing into 'Troop K' to gain the canyon of Wounded Knee
creek. In doing so they exposed their women and children to their own fire.
Captain Wallace was killed at this time while standing in front of his
troops. A bullet, striking him in the forehead, plowed away the top of his
head. I started to pull off my nose, which was hung by the skin, but
Lieutenant Guy Preston shouted, 'My God Man! Don't do that! That can be
saved.' He then led me away from the scene of the trouble."


References:

Brown, Dee, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1971); Jensen, Richard, et. al,
Eyewitness at Wounded Knee (1991); Utley, Robert M., The Last Days of the
Sioux Nation (1963); Wells, Philip, "Ninety-six Years among the Indians of
the Northwest", North Dakota History, 15, no. 2 (1948).


*****


>From Jordan Dill's website, at http://www.dickshovel.com/DwyBrd.html


A Massacre Survivor Speaks...


He liked to talk about the past...In Lakota, he was called Wasee Maza - Iron
Tail - and years after the massacre, General Nelson Miles had invited him to
Washington and introduced Beard to a number of military officials. Among
those he met was Admiral George Dewey, naval hero of Manila Bay and the
Spanish-American War. Later, he formed his own name by taking an old Sioux
nickname -Beard - and adding it to the admiral's surname.

"At eighteen, Beard [born in 1857] had been among a group of warriors who
had crossed the Little Bighorn in the final moments of the battle. [Now] at
thirty-three, he and his family were camped in Big Foot's village. Years
later, the last Lakota survivor of both Custer and Wounded Knee talked at
length about the fight inside the council grounds, about the flight from the
Miniconju village into the ravine. Beard spoke through an interpreter, who
both summarized and quoted him directly:

"The struggle for the gun was short, the muzzle pointed upward toward the
east and the gun discharged. In an instant a volley followed as one shot,
and the people began falling. He saw everybody was rolling and kicking on
the ground. He looked southeastward and he did not know what he was going to
do. He had only one knife. He looked eastward and saw the soldiers were
firing on Indians and stepping backwards and firing. His thought was to rush
on the soldiers and take a gun from one of them. He rushed toward on the
west to get a gun. While he was running, he could see nothing for the smoke;
through the rifts he could see the brass buttons of the uniforms; he rushed
up to a soldier whose gun rested over Dewey's shoulder and was discharged
when the muzzle was near his ear, and it deafened him for a while. Then he
grabbed the gun and wrenched it away from the soldier. When he got the gun,
he drew his knife and stabbed the soldier in the breast...While Dewey was on
this soldier, some other soldiers were shooting at him, but missed him and
killed soldiers on the other side. When he got up he ran right through the
soldiers toward the ravine, and he was the last Indian to go into the
ravine. The soldiers were shooting at him from nearly all directions, and
they shot him down...Dewey tried to get to the ravine and succeeded in
getting on his feet...Right on the edge of the ravine on the south side were
soldiers shooting at the Indians who were running down into the ravine, the
soldiers' shots sounded like fire crackers and hail in a storm; a great many
Indians were killed and wounded down there...

"When he went to the bottom of the ravine, he saw many little children lying
dead in the ravine. He was now pretty weak from his wounds. Now when he saw
all those little infants lying there dead in their blood, his feeling was
that even if he ate one of the soldiers, it would not appease his
anger...The Indians all knew that Dewy was wounded, but those in the ravine
wanted him to help them. So he fought with his life to defend his own
people. He took his courage to do that - "I was pretty weak and now fell
down.' A man with a gunshot wound through the lower jaw had a belt of
cartridges, which he offered Beard and asked to try and help them again.

"'When he gave me the cartridges, I told him I was badly wounded and pretty
weak, too. While I was lying on my back, I looked down the ravine and saw
these women, girls and little girls and boys coming up, I saw soldiers on
both sides of the ravine shoot at them until they had killed every one of
them."

"He saw a young woman among them coming and crying and calling, "Mother!
Mother!' She was wounded under her chin, close to her throat, and the bullet
had passed through a braid of her hair and carried some of it into the
wound, and then the bullet had entered from the front side of the shoulder
and passed out the back side. Her Mother had been shot behind her. Dewey was
sitting up and he called to her to come to him. When she came close to him,
she fell to the ground. He caught her by the dress and drew her to him
across his legs. When the women who the soldiers were shooting at got a
little past him, he told this girl to follow them on the run, and she went
up the ravine.

"He got himself up and followed up the ravine. He saw many dead men, women,
and children lying in the ravine. When he went a little way up, he heard
singing; going a little way farther, he came upon his mother who was moving
slowly, being very badly wounded. She had a soldier's revolver in her hand,
swinging it as she went. Dewey does not know how she got it. When he caught
up to her she said, 'My son, pass by me; I am going to fall down now.' As
she went up, soldiers on both sides of the ravine shot at her and killed
her. 'I returned fire upon them, defending my mother. When I shot at the
soldiers in a northern direction, I looked back at my mother and she had
already fallen down. I passed right on from my dead mother and met a man
coming down the ravine who was wounded in the knee...

"Dewey was wounded so that his right arm was disabled; he placed the thumb
of his right hand between his teeth and carried his Winchester on his left
shoulder, and then he ran towards where he has heard that White Lance [his
brother] was killed. As he ran, he saw lots of women and children lying
along the ravine, some alive and some dead. He saw some young men just
above, and these he addressed, saying to them to take courage and do all
they could to defend the women. 'I have,' he said, 'a bad wound and am not
able to defend them; I could not aim the gun,' and so he told the young men
this way. It was now in the ravine just like prairie fire when it reaches
brush and grass...; it was like hail coming down; an awful fire was
concentrated on them now and nothing could be seen for the smoke. In the
bottom of the ravine, the bullets raised more dust than there was smoke, so
that they could not see one another.

"When Dewy came up into the 'pit,' he saw White Lance upon top of the bank,
and was rolling on down towards the brink to get down into the ravine. He
was badly wounded and at first was half dead, but later revived from his
injuries. When Dewey went into the 'pit,' he found his brother William Horn
Cloud lying or sitting against the bank shot through the breast, but yet
alive; but he died that night. 'Just when I saw my wounded brother William,
I saw White Lance slide down the bank and stand by William. Then William
said to White Lance, "Shake hands with me, I am dizzy now"' While they had
this conversation, Dewey said, 'My dear brothers, be men and take courage. A
few minutes ago, our father told us this way, and you heard it. Our father
told us that the all people of the world born of the same father and mother,
when any great tragedy comes, it is better that all of them should die
together than that they should die separately at different times, one by
one...'

"White Lance and William shook hands. Then White Lance and Dewey lifted
their brother up and stood him on his feet; then they placed him on White
Lances's shoulder. White Lance was wounded in several places and weak from
loss of blood, but he succeeded in bearing William to the bottom of the
ravine...Dewey said they now heard the Hotchkiss or Gatling guns shooting at
them along the bank. Now there went up from these dying people a medley of
death songs...Each one sings a different death song if he chooses. The death
song is expressive of their wish to die. It is also a requiem for the
dead...'At this time, I was unable to do anything more and I took a rest,
telling my brothers to keep up their courage.' The cannon were pouring in
their shots and breaking down the banks which were giving protection to the
fighting Indians...The Hotchkiss had been shooting rapidly and one Indian
had gotten killed by it. His body was penetrated in the pit of the stomach
by a Hotchkiss shell, which tore a hole through his body six inches in
diameter. The man was insensible, but breathed for an hour before he died...
"In this same place there was a young woman with a pole in hand and a black
blanket on it. When she would raise it up, the soldiers would whistle and
yell and pour volleys into it. One woman here spoke to Beard and told him to
come in among them and help them. He answered that he would stay where he
was and make a fight for them; and that he did not care if he got killed,
for the infants were all dead now, and he would like to die among the
infants. When he was saying this, the soldiers were all shooting
furiously... "Dewey laid down again in the same little hollow and reloaded
his gun. The soldiers across from him were shooting at him while he was
reloading. While he was reloading, he heard a horseman coming along the
brink of the ravine - could hear the foot falls. This man as he came along
gave orders to the men which he supposed were to fire on the women in the
pit for a fusillade was instantly opened on them...

"The sun was going down; it was pretty near sundown...He saw five Oglala
Sioux on horseback. He called them, but they were afraid and ran away, but
he kept on calling and going till they all stood still and he came upon
them. He went on with them a little way and soon he met his brother Joseph
coming toward them on horseback. Dewey asked, 'Where are you going?' Joe
answered, 'All my brothers and parents are dead, and I have to go in and be
killed, too; therefore I have come back.' Dewey said, "You better come with
us; don't go there; they are all killed there,' and the five Oglalas joined
with Beard in the same appeal. Now the Oglalas left these two brothers. The
Joe got off his horse and told Dewey to get on. Dewey was covered with
blood. He mounted the horse and Joe walked along slowly. After a little, a
mounted Indian relation came up behind them. The three went together over to
White Clay Creek...

"Dewey's little infant, Wet Feet, died afterwards in the next March. This
child was nursing its dead mother who was shot in the breast. It swallowed
blood and from this vomited and was never well, was always sick till it
died."


*****


>From http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/a_c/bigfoot.htm


Big Foot (??-1890)

As the leader of the Miniconjou band massacred at Wounded Knee Creek on
December 29, 1890, Big Foot haunts the history of the American West, an
image of brutal death "drawn," as N. Scott Momaday has written, "in ancient
light."

Big Foot and his people lived on the Cheyenne River Reservation in
present-day South Dakota and were among the most enthusiastic believers in
the Ghost Dance ceremony when it arrived among the Lakota in the spring of
1890. The hunger and misery that had followed the final break-up of their
great reservation in 1889 made the Lakota keenly receptive to the Ghost
Dance message of messianic renewal, and the movement swept rapidly through
their encampments, causing local Indian Agents to react with alarm. Some
effectively suppressed the dancers, others called for troops to restore
order.

At the Standing Rock reservation, where Sitting Bull was suspected of
encouraging the Ghost Dance in order to provoke an uprising, the crisis led
to bloodshed when Indian police sent to arrest the aging holy man killed him
in a confrontation with his followers. Fearful of reprisals, many from
Sitting Bull's band fled south, where they found a haven with Big Foot.

Big Foot decided to lead his people away from the possibility of further
violence at neighboring Standing Rock and headed farther south toward the
reservation at Pine Ridge, hoping to find safety there. Increasingly ill
with pneumonia, he had no intention of fighting and was flying a white flag
when soldiers patrolling for roving bands caught up with him on December 28,
1890. That night Big Foot and his people camped near Wounded Knee Creek,
surrounded on all sides by soldiers.

The next morning, the soldiers set up several large Hotchkiss guns on a hill
overlooking the camp and began confiscating the Indians' weapons. When a gun
accidentally went off, they opened fire, and within a few minutes, some 370
Lakota lay dead, many of them cut down by the deadly Hotchkiss guns as they
sought shelter against a creek bank. The soldiers even pursued fleeing women
and children, shooting some as far as two miles from the site of the
original confrontation. One Indian witness remembered:

A mother was shot down with her infant; the child not knowing that its
mother was dead was still nursing... The women as they were fleeing with
their babies were killed together... and after most of them had been killed
a cry was made that all those who were not killed or wounded should come
forth and they would be safe. Little boys... came out of their places of
refuge, and as soon as they came in sight a number of soldiers surrounded
them and butchered them there.

Big Foot himself was among the first killed. His frozen corpse, half raised
as though trying to warn his people of their imminent disaster, lay
untouched for three days until it was unceremoniously dumped into a mass
grave.


*****


>From http://woptura.com/milesltr1917.html


The following is a letter from General Nelson A. Miles to the Commissioner
of Indian Affairs in 1917 concerning the Massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890:


Washington, D. C. March 13, 1917

The Honorable Commissioner of Indian Afairs

Sir:

I am informed that there is a delegation in Washington now who came here
from South Dakota and who are representatives of the remnant of what is
known as the Big Foot Band of Northern Sioux Indians.

I was in command of that Department in 1889, 1890, and 1891, when what is
known as the Messiah craze and threatened uprising of the Indians occurred.
It was created by misrepresentations of white men then living in Nevada who
sent secret messages to the different tribes in the great Northwest calling
upon them to send representatives to meet Him near Walker Lake, Nevada.

This was done, and returning to their different tribes in the Northwest and
West, and even in the Southwest, they repeated the false statement to the
different tribes that the Messiah had returned to earth and would the next
year move East,driving large herds of wild horses, buffalo, elk, deer and
antelope, and was going to convert this into an Indian heaven--in other
words, the Happy Hunting Grounds.

This, together with the fact that the Indians had been in almost a starving
condition in South Dakota, owing to the scarcity of rations and the
nonfulfillment of treaties and sacred obligations under which the Government
had been placed to the Indians, caused great dissatisfaction, dissension and
almost hostility. Believing this superstition, they resolved to gather and
go West to meet the Messiah, as they believed it was the fulfillment of
their dreams and prayer and the prophecies as had been taught them by the
missionaries.

Several thousand warriors assembled in the Bad Lands of South Dakota. During
this time the tribe, under Big Foot, moved from their reservation to near
the Red Cloud Agency in South Dakota under a flag of truce. They numbered
over four hundred souls. They were intercepted by a command under Lt. Col.
Whitside, who demanded their surrender, which they complied with, and moved
that afternoon some two or three miles and camped where they were directed
to do, near the camp of the troops.

During the night Colonel Forsyth joined the command with reinforcements of
several troops of the 7th Cavalry. The next morning he deployed his troops
around the camp, placed two pieces of artillery in position, and demanded
the surrender of the arms from the warriors. This was complied with by the
warriors going out from camp and placing the arms on the ground where they
were directed. Chief Big Foot, an old man, sick at the time and unable to
walk, was taken out of a wagon and laid on the ground.

While this was being done a detachment of soldiers was sent into the camp to
search for any arms remaining there, and it was reported that their rudness
frightened the women and children. It is also reported that a remark was
made by some one of the soldiers that "when we get the arms away from them
we can do as we please with them, " indicating that they were to be
destroyed. Some of the indians could understand English. this and other
things alarmed the Indians and scuffle occured between one warrior who had
rifle in his hand and two soldiers. The rifle was discharged and a massacre
occurred, not only the warriors but the sick Chief Big Foot, and a large
number of women and children who tried to escape by running and scattering
over the prarie were hunted down and killed. The *official reports make the
number killed 90 warriors and approximately 200 women and children.

*(Note: "Official reports" = Armys' version, actual number killed was closer
to 350)

The action of the Commanding Officer, in my judgement at the time, and I so
reported, was most reprehensible. The disposition of his troops was such
that in firing upon the warriors they fired directly towards their own lines
and also into the camp of the women and children. and I have regarded the
whole affair as most unjustifiable and worthy of the severest condemnation.

In my opinion, the least the Government can do is to make a suitable
recompense to the survivors who are still living for the great unjustice
that was done them and the serious loss of their relatives and property--and
I earnestly recommend that this may be favorably considered by the
Department and by Congress and a suitable appropriation be made.

I remain

Very truly yours,

(SGD.) NELSON A. MILES

Lt. General, U. S. Army