Legends of the Old West - LITTLE BIGHORN Ep. 1 | “A Hostile Declaration”

Episode Date: September 8, 2021

The U.S. government tries and fails to buy the sacred Black Hills from the Lakota. As a result, President Ulysses S. Grant authorizes a plan to wage war on the Native American tribes of the Northern Plains. Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer believes he will lead part of the attack, but his job is in jeopardy when he offends the President. Meanwhile, in southern Montana, Lakota chief Sitting Bull has his first vision about an upcoming confrontation with U.S. Army soldiers. Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join For more details, visit our website www.blackbarrelmedia.com and check out our social media pages. We’re @OldWestPodcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. This show is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please visit AirwaveMedia.com to check out other great podcasts like Ben Franklin’s World, Once Upon A Crime, and many more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. Lakota Chiefs Red Cloud and Spotted Tail said no. They absolutely would not sell their most sacred land for any price. They sat in a room in Washington, D.C. in the spring of 1875, listening to offers that soon changed in tenor. After the initial refusal, negotiators for the U.S. government started vaguely threatening to withhold food rations from reservations. The chiefs still said no. When negotiators suggested, in their typically veiled way, that the U.S. Army might start allowing miners into the sacred land, Red Cloud and Spotted Tail still said no. The Black Hills in modern-day South Dakota were not for sale. The two chiefs

were older now, and they were in favor of peace with the Americans, and that made sense. They had fought their war against the U.S. Army and won, the first time that had ever happened. It was the only time in history that Native peoples forced the United States to sit down at the peace table and agree to their demands. But by the spring of 1875, an economic crisis had gripped the U.S. for two years, and it continued to radiate out from financial centers and affect nearly every American. Many were out of work, and many more shouted at the government to buy the Black Hills. The gold in the hills could pull the country out of economic ruin,

and it also looked good in personal bank accounts. Basic human greed never went away. So President Grant called a conference in Washington to try to buy the hills. And it failed. Red Cloud and Spotted Tail went home. A few months later, in September 1875, Grant tried again. He sent a delegation west to meet with Native leaders on their home turf. Red Cloud and Spotted Tail showed

up, and so did several thousand others who wanted to hear the deal. In the months between the negotiations, Red Cloud and Spotted Tail changed their minds. They now believed the U.S. would take control of the Black Hills somehow, someway. It was inevitable, so they might as well get something from it to help their people. This time, they named a price. $70 million. That would be more than $2 billion today. And if that number sounds high, consider this. Based on the estimated amount of gold and silver that came out of the hills during the lifetime of the mines,

and using today's prices, the total value would be more than $73 billion. If the Black Hills region was its own country here in 2021, it would rank number 70 on the list of the richest nations in the world. But back in 1876, $70 million was too much for the American delegation, and negotiations broke down a second time.

There would not be a third. Two months after the final failed attempt to buy the Black Hills President Grant held a meeting at the White House that changed the history of the American West. As a podcast network, our first priority has always been audio and the stories we're able to share with you. But we also sell merch. And organizing that was made both possible and easy with Shopify. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell and grow at every stage of your business.

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Shopify.com slash realm. From Black Barrel Media, this is Legends of the Old West. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this is a six-part series about one of the defining moments of American history, the Battle of the Little Bighorn. This is Episode 1,

A Hostile Declaration. The pivotal meeting happened in Washington on November 3rd, 1875. President Grant met with a group of advisors that included General Phil Sheridan and General George Crook. Sheridan was stationed in Chicago, Illinois, and was the commander of the Division of the Missouri. That meant he oversaw all the territory from Illinois to the Rocky Mountains, and from Texas to Canada, basically the entire homeland of the Plains Indians. basically the entire homeland of the Plains Indians. He and his boss, William Tecumseh Sherman, General of the Army, had been preaching all-out war against the tribes for years,

and they were continually frustrated with Grant's peace policy. The policy for the northern plains was rooted in the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, the agreement that ended Red Cloud's war. Grant didn't want to break the treaty, but the situation was rapidly advancing toward the point where he felt he had no choice. For two years in the late 1860s, Lakota Chief Red Cloud led several hundred warriors, including Crazy Horse, against white travelers and U.S. Army soldiers in the Powder River country of northern Wyoming and southern Montana. The Army built three forts along the Bozeman Trail to protect travelers. The trail was one of the main wagon roads to the west, but it was also the most difficult to use and the forts were isolated

and vulnerable. Red Cloud's forces ravaged the soldiers at all times of the year until the warriors ultimately annihilated the command of Captain William Fetterman. All 81 soldiers were killed in a single battle. After the Fetterman fight and another year of smaller engagements, After the Fetterman fight and another year of smaller engagements, the U.S. asked for peace. The Fort Laramie Treaty that ended the bloodshed was historic and classic at the same time. It was historic in that it was the first and only time that Native tribes forced the U.S. into a peace treaty. And it was classic because it was full of all the wonderfully vague clauses and spectacular double talk that were the hallmarks of peace treaties with Native peoples. Among the deal points, the big ones were that the U.S. agreed to close the Bozeman Trail forever, close the three army forts forever, and give the Black Hills to the Lakota forever. Beyond that, Native leaders couldn't possibly comprehend

all the complex phrases that were soaked in legal jargon. And those phrases allowed the U.S. to justify virtually any action. Article II allowed, quote, Such officers, agents, and employees of the government as may be authorized to enter Indian reservations in discharge of duties enjoined by the law. What exactly did that mean? In practical terms, it meant the U.S. could send pretty much anyone onto a reservation to do pretty much anything. And that's how President Grant was able to justify sending

Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and a thousand troops into the Black Hills in the summer of 1874. Technically, they were scouting for a site to build a fort, even though the land still belonged to the Lakota. And sure, they did their scout, but they also scouted for, and confirmed the existence of, gold. Afterward, the Lakota called Custer's Trail the Thieves' Road. In the spring of 1875, Grant tried to buy the Black Hills at a meeting in Washington, and Red Cloud refused. In the summer of 1875, miners ignored the treaty and rushed into the Black Hills in search of riches. In the fall, Grant tried to buy the hills again. This time, Red Cloud named a price, but it was too high for the Americans.

So again, there was no deal. Grant had been ordering soldiers to physically remove miners from the Black Hills while he tried to come up with a new idea, but it quickly became obvious that his middle ground approach couldn't continue. So in early November, he called a meeting at the White House and gave General Sheridan what he wanted. He would allow Sheridan to go on the offensive, but it had to be cloaked in legal cover, as always. For a long time, Sheridan had advocated a plan to strike the tribes in their winter camps when they were most vulnerable. The army rarely took action in the winter for the simple reason that it was just too difficult. But Sheridan was convinced it could be done, so he devised a strategy.

One week after the meeting, an Indian inspector, which was an official job title, wrote a report that gave President Grant the legal authority to take offensive action against the tribes. The report outlined numerous ways in which the government claimed the tribes had broken the Fort Laramie Treaty. All the reasons were exaggerations or outright lies. in which the government claimed the tribes had broken the Fort Laramie Treaty. All the reasons were exaggerations or outright lies. In fact, the year of 1875 had been the most peaceful in recent memory. Nevertheless, in December, runners went out to the winter camps with a message, be on a reservation by January 31, 1876, or the U.S. Army would wage war. For most of the tribes on the northern plains, the time frame was a joke. In the dead of winter, they couldn't

possibly make it by the deadline even if they wanted to. The handful of tribes that could make it and wanted to did, but many didn't try because it was impossible, and a third group had no intention of complying with any order or request by the U.S. government. On February 1st, 1876, the day after the deadline, the U.S. Department of the Interior made a declaration. All Native people who were not on reservations were designated hostile. General Sheridan had been calling Native Americans hostiles for years, and now it was official. He outlined his winter strategy for his commanders, and the first strike made it look like the plan would be a grand victory for the U.S. Army.

like the plan would be a grand victory for the U.S. Army. But all it did was awaken a sleeping giant. The first major Native American leader who learned about the winter attack by white soldiers was Crazy Horse. He helped carry the news to Sitting Bull. And from that point forward, nothing went right for the Americans. Americans. Crazy Horse is one of the great enigmatic figures in American history. We have plenty of verbal and written descriptions, but he never had his picture taken, so we still don't know exactly what he looked like. We know he had unusually light skin and sandy brown hair, such that his name at birth was Lighthair. As he grew into adolescence, he was called Curly, again because of his hair. And when he proved himself in battle against other tribes, his father handed down his own name, Crazy Horse. In village life, Crazy Horse was uncommonly quiet and reserved.

But in battle, he was almost impossibly brave. He distinguished himself so many times at such a young age that he earned his way into an elite warrior society and was selected as one of four shirt wearers. Being a shirt wearer was a prestigious honor. Crazy Horse was given a shirt made of bighorn fleece, and locks of hair were woven into it that represented his accomplishments. Crazy Horse's shirt had 250 locks of hair in it. But those honors were 10 years in the past, and a lot had happened since then. Crazy Horse lost his shirt-wearer status. He ran away with the woman he loved, but she was already married.

Her husband tracked them down, burst into their tent, and fired a gun at Crazy Horse. The bullet tore a gash in Crazy Horse's left cheek and broke his jaw. Shortly after that episode, Crazy Horse's only brother was killed in an attack on some miners, and a close friend was killed in a poorly planned raid on the Shoshones. The next year, Crazy Horse got married, probably out of obligation. He was around 30 years old and needed a wife and children. He and his wife had a girl, but unfortunately she only lived to the age of three. So the early 1870s were a rough period for Crazy Horse. By the spring of 1876,

his life had normalized to whatever extent that was possible. And in March of 1876, his village was camped along the Powder River in southern Montana. Early in the morning, on a freezing cold day, his village was shocked to see people trudging through the snow toward them. The people were refugees from a village farther down the river, and they had a story to tell. Their village had been attacked a few days earlier, after dawn by a company of white soldiers. They almost certainly didn't know the commander by name, but he was General George Crook,

the officer who had been with General Sheridan during the big meeting in Washington last fall that authorized the new offensive strategy. The full strategy wasn't set to begin until April, but Crook had made the first strike. In mid-March, he led 400 cavalrymen toward a village of about 65 lodges. It was mostly a Cheyenne village led by Chief Old Bear, but some Oglala and many Kanju from the Lakota tribe were visiting at the time. were visiting at the time. They had all heard of the declaration by the United States, and they were slowly making their way toward a reservation, but they were in no hurry. They stopped along the way to let their horses eat the good grass where they could find it. The village was asleep when Crook's men attacked early on a brutally cold morning.

The soldiers charged into the village and forced most of the people to flee, but around 150 warriors regrouped and counterattacked. The fighting was probably stilted and scattered thanks to the weather. Only two villagers were killed and a few others wounded, but the worst part was that the soldiers burned most of the lodges. When the soldiers finally rode away, most of the villagers were homeless, hungry, and terrified. They trekked through the snow to reach the closest camp that could help, the camp that was the home of Crazy Horse. Crazy Horse and his small village welcomed the refugees and gave them food and shelter. But Crazy Horse's small village couldn't refugees and gave them food and shelter.

But Crazy Horse's small village couldn't adequately care for all the new refugees. They needed more supplies and the counsel of other leaders and safety in numbers. The new combined village moved northwest to join Sitting Bull's camp. Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse met a few years earlier, around the time Crazy Horse's daughter was born. They had participated in several raids together, and now, at Sitting Bulls camp, the elders discussed and debated the situation for three days. Many of the people in camp were there because they aligned themselves with the ideals of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and the other leaders. Those leaders would never sign a treaty with white men. They did not attend the conference in Nebraska last fall when Red Cloud offered to sell the Black Hills, and they vowed to stay away from the encroaching white civilization. And that was Sitting Bull's advice now. He said they should

avoid the whites, not attack them. The tribes should not be the aggressors, but they would absolutely fight if they or their friends were attacked. There was general consensus on the plan, and Sitting Bull sent runners to the reservations to request warriors. The village would try to avoid white travelers and soldiers, but it needed to prepare for a fight. It couldn't afford to be caught off guard like Old Bear's village. At the end of March and through April and May, the village moved northwest, and it grew in size and strength every day. It was comprised mainly of Cheyenne and the Oglala and Hunkpapa bands of the Lakota.

A few years earlier, Sitting Bull became close friends with a Cheyenne and the Oglala and Hunkpapa bands of the Lakota. A few years earlier, Sitting Bull became close friends with a Cheyenne medicine man, and they made a pact to protect and support each other. And now, the Cheyenne had been attacked, so Sitting Bull and his followers supported their allies. And warriors heeded Sitting Bull's calls. They and their families streamed in from reservations, and the village grew to the size of a town and then to the size of a small city. Even so, at that point, the numbers might not have been insurmountable for a solid force of American troopers. But General Phil Sheridan's plan had been delayed by politics in Washington.

The delay cost the U.S. Army whatever advantage it might have had, and it almost cost Custer his job. Being removed from a grand expedition on the plane to battle the last remaining free warriors was probably a fate worse than death for Custer. And in the space of two months, he suffered both fates. Originally, General Sheridan wanted to start the winter campaign in February, while the tribes were scattered in smaller camps. He knew that if he waited until spring or summer,

the camps would link up and merge, and they would be bolstered by men from reservations who joined up to go hunting. But the plan was pushed back to April, though it kept the same premise. The strategy called for three simultaneous attacks. The 7th Cavalry would leave its headquarters in Bismarck, Dakota Territory, and march west into Montana. A force that was in western Montana would march east, and General Crook would lead a column north from Wyoming. But when Sheridan pushed his commanders to get started, only Crook was able to make progress. In mid-March, Crook made it to the Powder River

in southern Montana and attacked the Cheyenne village, which sent refugees running for Crazy Horses Village and started the buildup of Native American warriors earlier than usual. To Sheridan's frustration, the two other columns weren't able to move, and a series of delays ruined the plan. and a series of delays ruined the plan. Shortly before Crook's attack, a blizzard slammed Dakota territory and made it impossible for the 7th Cavalry to travel. But even if the weather had been perfect, the regiment's flamboyant lieutenant colonel, George Armstrong Custer, wasn't home. Custer had been gone for most of the winter with his wife Libby.

They spent most of their extended furlough in New York City, where Custer had cut his famously long blonde hair, and they only returned after General Sheridan denied another extension. But no sooner had they arrived at the post than Custer received a telegram that ordered him to leave again. This time he was supposed to report to Washington, D.C. to testify at an impeachment hearing. President Grant's Secretary of War, William Belknap, was the latest member of the president's staff to get caught in a scandal. Belknap had been accepting bribes and kickbacks that added to the already widespread

corruption in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Belknap quickly resigned to avoid impeachment, but he learned the hard way that he could be impeached by Congress even after he left office. Custer's testimony as America's number one Indian fighter was impactful, even though he said repeatedly that it was all hearsay. He didn't have evidence or direct knowledge of the schemes, but his testimony was deemed powerful nonetheless. And in typical Custer fashion, he ran headlong into a situation that he didn't fully understand. Some of his testimony infuriated his longtime supporter,

General Phil Sheridan. And then Custer was forced to give more testimony. A trip that he thought would last a few days turned into a saga of more than a month. And when he returned to Congress at the end of April, he somehow outdid himself. This time, he infuriated the President of the United States. President Grant's brother Orville was implicated in the scandal, and Grant was so offended by

Custer's testimony that he personally removed Custer from command of the Dakota Column for the upcoming campaign against the hostiles. Custer couldn't believe what was happening. General Sherman, the General of the Army, advised Custer couldn't believe what was happening. General Sherman, the general of the army, advised Custer to go see the president. Custer had already tried twice during his month in Washington, and Grant refused to see him both times. But Custer tried again. On May 1st, Custer went to the White House. He sat in a waiting room for five hours and watched other people go in and out of the president's office. That afternoon, Grant sent a message that said he would not see Custer.

Custer begged, but Grant refused. Custer was out of options. He boarded a train for the long, slow, disappointing trip back to Bismarck. Custer made it to Bismarck five days later, along with the man who was in charge of Dakota Territory, General Alfred Terry. Terry had been given his own bad news. He'd been ordered to lead the Dakota Column himself, and Terry had no interest in spending

weeks on the dusty trail in the blazing heat to start a war with the best horse soldiers on the plains. Terry was much more comfortable in the office, and he had no experience fighting Indians. He lobbied for Custer's reinstatement instead of enlisting the actual commanding officer of the 7th Cavalry, Colonel Samuel Sturgis. Terry organized support for Custer, and Grant finally relented. Grant reinstated Custer as a subordinate to Terry. In the space of one week, Custer experienced a complete reversal of fortune. On May 1st, he was at his lowest point when he was removed from command.

By May 8th, he was back on the team. He and Terry arrived at Fort Lincoln near Bismarck, and Custer immediately began prepping the 7th Cavalry for its mission. On May 17th, 1,200 men and 1,600 horses and mules marched out of Fort Lincoln toward the wild country in the west. Custer made arrangements for his wife Libby and his sister to ride with the column on the first day, and Custer and Libby led the troops out of the fort. The regimental band struck up an old Irish tune called Gary Owen, which had been adopted as the anthem of the 7th Cavalry. For Custer, a grand adventure lay ahead.

He was back with his men, he had his wife by his side, and he was riding out on a campaign to fight Indians. The only thing that dampened the mood was the weather. It had rained for several days, and a thick gray mist hung in the air. Those who were inclined to look for signs worried about dark and ominous things to come. After delays because of weather and politics, General Phil Sheridan's grand strategy was finally underway. The Dakota Column was marching west through present-day North Dakota. The Wyoming Column, led by General George Crook,

had struck the Cheyenne Village two months earlier and was now marching north from Fort Fetterman in Wyoming. And the Montana Column was marching east from Fort Ellis near Bozeman. The three columns were supposed to converge from the east, west, and south, and strike camps that were somewhere in southeastern Montana or western Dakota Territory. No one knew exactly where the camps were, but they'd find them eventually. And while the armies began their search, Sitting Bull's village grew rapidly. It moved along the rivers in southern Montana

and gained new members every day as people fled the reservations. Sitting Bull was around 45 years old in 1876. He was a medicine man and the clear leader of the Hunkpapa band of the Lakota Sioux. The name Sioux is an overall label that was created by the French when they first encountered Sitting Bull's ancestors 200 years earlier. It was a corruption of a Chippewa word that meant little snakes. But the way the Chippewa used it to describe the Sioux, it meant enemies. Americans adopted the label as a way to describe three Sioux, it meant enemies. Americans adopted the label as a way to describe three

tribes collectively, the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota. The tribes shared a similar dialect and origin story, so they were grouped together under the name Sioux. The Sioux people believed that the number seven had mystical properties, and each tribe was divided into seven smaller groups that were called bands. The Lakota were the dominant tribe on the northern plains, and most of the leaders you've heard of came from bands of that tribe. The great war chief Red Cloud was born into the Brulee band, and then became a leader of the Oglala band. Crazy Horse was Oglala,

and Sitting Bull led the Hunk Papa Band. In the spring of 1876, members of all the bands who had no desire to live on reservations or who had answered Sitting Bull's call for help hurried to Sitting Bull's camp. In late May, while the Dakota Column battled the weather as it slowly worked its way toward Montana, Sitting Bull sat on a butte near the Rosebud River. He looked out over an incredible vista in southern Montana. Below him, a village that had grown to more than 400 lodges stretched out for almost a mile. He settled into a good spot high on the butte and began to pray. After a while, he drifted off to sleep and had a dream. In the dream, he saw a village shaped like a cloud hovering over the ground.

A dust storm rolled in from the east. It slammed into the cloud, and the collision caused bursts of lightning and rain. Then the cloud smashed the dust storm and forced it away. When Sitting Bull awoke, he believed he had seen a vision of the future, a vision that would turn out to be the first of two before the ultimate confrontation. In his dream, the dust storm was created by army soldiers, and the village had successfully repelled it. Before he had taken up his perch on the Butte, his scouts told him that there were soldiers moving in from the west and maybe the south as well.

But Sitting Bull was confident that an attack would come from the east, from soldiers he didn't even know were there. He had dreamed of a fight with the 7th Cavalry, and a month later, it happened. But before that, three other things happened. Sitting Bull had another vision, one that foretold a great Native victory. The Montana column that could have struck from the west and dealt a devastating blow, didn't.

And a fight with the Wyoming columnumn in the South did happen. It was called the Battle of the Rosebud, and it opened the door for Custer's Column in the East to ride to its destiny. Next time on Legends of the Old West, Custer and the Dakota Column inch closer to Montana. The Montana Column misses an opportunity to strike, and the real action happens along the banks of the Rosebud.

Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and hundreds of warriors attacked the Wyoming column. That's next week on Legends of the Old West. And members of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have to wait week to week. They receive the entire season to binge all at once with no commercials. Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. Memberships begin at just $5 per month. Original music by Rob Valliere. I'm your writer, host, and producer, Chris Wimmer.

If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. Check out our website, blackbarrelmedia.com for more details and join us on social media. We're at Old West Podcast on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. This show is part of the Airwave Podcast Network. Please visit airwavemedia.com to check out other great podcasts like Ben Franklin's World, Once Upon a Crime, and many more. Thanks for listening.

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