Sitting Bull’s War by Paul L Hedren- A Book Review

 

Sitting Bull’s plan was simple. Don’t go anywhere near the Whites. If they aren’t where you are, they can do you no harm.  

Problematically, the Whites kept coming. Amazingly, in the vastness of the West, Sitting Bull’s people ran out of room. Then they had to stand and fight. Spectacularly they did so, at the Rosebud and the Little Big Horn.

Sitting Bull’s War is my latest acquisition from Paul L Hedren. Hedren gives us 423 pages of text, notes for each of the 16 chapters and a copious biography.   The are 14 pages of photographs.  This is highly readable quality scholarship throughout. I can only give you snapshots of a work of such size.

Hedren says “I consciously intend that the work in hand defy the standard tradition. This is a unique history of the Great Sioux War, carefully and deliberately told through the eyes of its victims, the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne of the northern plains…”

He wants to give us an insiders perspective and largely succeeds in doing so. Indian accounts are personal, selective, and detached. No one wanted to implicate himself for condign punishment. 

Also, the Indian tradition was to proclaim one’s own valour and skill in war.  After the defeat this became personally problematic. They had been crushed and their world was literally gone with the Buffalo. All that courage and killing and only ruination resulted and, what of the dead? Indian losses per capita were huge. 

All the same, Hedren has gathered the accounts and reconstructed the sequences. The result is clear eyed and we see the individuals and share their experiences of victory and defeat.

There is detail galore of the kind that delights the enquiring reader. A key source of arms and ammunition were the Metis of Canada. At first the Sioux fought them. That proved very unprofitable. The Metis could have a fight. They followed the old trading routes their forebears had traversed before New France fell.

As an alternative to fighting friendship developed between Lakota and Metis. We might recall that it was in Canada that Sitting Bull sought refuge. 

A Hudson’s Bay Company Trader recalled “Sitting Bull did not care to arouse the Metis against him”. The two peoples did brisk trade. Metis prices were high but the quality was good. American officials became concerned.  Well armed Indians were a constant fear.

It is often said that the Victors captured significant arms and ammunition at the Little Big Horn. They did indeed. Hedren reminds us that the ammunition didn’t fit the Indian rifles. Also, the Indians thought the single-shot breech-loading Springfield carbine inferior to their own Henry or Winchesters. Not because the Springfields jammed, they didn't.

Additionally huge amounts of ammunition were expended at the Rosebud Fight and then more in the killing of Custer and Companies. Post Little Big Horn the Lakota and allies were much worse off for ammo than pre Rosebud.

Red Cloud's earlier successful resistance is considered in detail. He won and everyone knew it. He was not to know the strategic situation had changed. What Red Cloud defended was no longer key to USA expansion.

The dynamic of the Tribes and Indian Agency is dealt with in detail. It was often a complex interaction. Many Indians liked to summer on the Plains and didn't see why they shouldn't. When was an Indian a Hostile? No one could be sure. Yet many Indians never were. It made no difference in the long run.

Betimes, the population of the reservation was a political barometer. Indian Agents were a key USA intelligence resource. How many and where?

The Blue Coats never stopped coming. Infantry with their longer ranged weapons were particularly hard to deal with. US infantry could and did chase the Indians across the Plains. Hedren tells us about it.

When it came to horsemen the Indians thought the Crow and Shoshone more dangerous than the Cavalry.

All of the famous are found herein, sometimes with visual detail. For instance, Crazy Horse rides a white spotted pony. You might want to replicate that.

The Indians never had enough modern weapons. 

When Crazy Horse, Little Big Man and He Dog’s people surrendered they had 117 firearms for 217 men and 186 boys.  Mind you they had a total of 2,200 ponies, US Mules and cavalry horses. Mobility was good but eating was essential. Hunger broke the Plains People.

Combat detail abounds  as you might expect in a work on this subject. The Army does what it does, by the book. The Indians display tactical brilliance or defiant idiocy depending on who, where and when.

It is not possible to do this book justice in a one page review. There is so much useful information in it.  Buy a copy if you are interested in the Pony Wars, Plains Peoples or Old West. You will not regret it. 

Let me take the opportunity to commend Rosebud and Powder River by the same author. I have them both. Books to revisit.  

As I conclude Hedren's Great Sioux War-Order of Battles wends its way here. Each engagement is detailed with deployments and tactics used. I think it will see much use.