The Rosebud Battle
First act of the Little Bighorn Battle saga
Before I start, a confession of sorts is in order. Until last weekend, I knew about but had never visited the site of one of the most significant battles of the Indian Wars of the late 19th Century. That’s the Rosebud Battlefield, which occurred on June 17, 1876, along the hills and rocky bluffs that edge Rosebud Creek in southeastern Montana.
This confession comes from someone who is not only a Montana native, but a Southeastern Montanan, born in Glendive and raised there, in Terry and in Miles City before my family moved to Billings early in my junior year of high school.
I'm hardly alone in my neglect of this scenic and historical gem, a 3,072-acre preserve located about 65 miles from Hardin, 115 miles from Billings and 36 miles from Sheridan, Wyoming. For context, 2020 was a record year for visitation to Montana state parks, driven by people's desire to head outdoors and safely escape pandemic- caused confines. Last year saw 3.4 million visits to Treasure State parks. Topping the charts were Flathead Lake, 471,690; Giant Springs (Great Falls), 384,309; Cooney (Roberts), 359, 607; and Lake Elmo (Billings), 331,388. Two Eastern Montana parks made the Top 10 most-visited list: Makoshika (Glendive), 128,288, and Tongue River Reservoir (Deck 92,492.
Yet Rosebud Battlefield finished near the bottom of the ranking of Montana's 45 state parks; it came in at No, 42 with 5, 973 visits, a nine-percent drop from the 6,563 visitors in 2019.
For me — until a few days ago — and millions of others, Rosebud's importance is overshadowed by its famous neighbor, the Little Bighorn National Battlefield, about 30 miles to the northwest on a straight-line measure. Visitation there hit a record 425,995 in 2002 but fell off — again due to the pandemic — to 97,461 in 2020.
Yet to grasp what happened along the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876, one needs to understand what happened eight days earlier in the foothills of Wyoming's Bighorn Mountains The facts of the Rosebud Battle are well-documented, and what you’re reading draws from an excellent brochure available at the battlefield.
(Park entrance. Dennis Gaub photo)
On that day, 1,300 soldiers, scouts and miners fought an almost equal number of Native American warriors. Native people on the battlefield that day included members of these tribes, as combatants or scouts: Northern and Southern Cheyenne; Lakota, Wa Kota and Dakotas of the Sioux Nation, comprised of Ogalala, Minneconju’, Sans Arc, Hunkpapa, Northern Santee, Yanktonais, Bridle and Two Kettles; Assiniboine,-Arapaho, Arkira; Crow and Eastern Shoshone.
More than 2,500 individuals battled during the six-hour fight. It raged over an area of more than ten square miles, only a fraction of which is inside the boundaries of a park established in 1978.
The battle resulted from the Bureau of Indian Affairs' edict demanding that all Plains Indians live on reservations by January 1876, which impelled the Army to enforce that unrealistic deadline, starting in late winter of 1876. The pincer strategy, designed to squeeze wayward Indians and force them to give up their nomad lifestyle, called for:
Colonel John Gibbons to leave Fort Ellis, near the pioneer settlement of Bozeman, and move east down the Yellowstone River.
Brigadier General Alfred Terry's Dakota column to leave Fort Abraham Lincoln near Bismark, in the Dakota Territory, and move west.
Brigadier General George Cook, heading the largest force, to leave Fort Fetterman in Wyoming Territory and move north.
Crook commanded more than 1,000 men, including 15 companies of the 2nd and 3rd Cavalry, and five companies of the 5th and 9th Infantry. He reached present day Sheridan, Wyoming, on June 14, where his ranks swelled with the addition of 276 Shoshone and Crow scouts.
Crook received intelligence, later found to be incorrect, that an Indian village was on Rosebud Creek, about 35 miles away, so he ordered his men to streamline their packs for light marching to take advantage of it.
By the evening of June 16, Crook's army camped on Rosebud Creek. The next morning Crook moved down the stream about five miles and halted at about 8 a.m. Men unsaddled their horses, and officers gathered to chat or play cards. They were unaware that the Lakota and Cheyenne had detected Crook's movement the night before. The Indians raced from their village on a tributary of the Little Bighorn River, about 30 miles away, and intercepted Crook’s forces. An estimated 700-1,500 warriors engaged Crook's troops. Their leaders were 0galla warrior Crazy Horse, heading the Lakota band, and Two Moon, Young Two Moon and Spotted Wolf heading the Cheyenne.
At 8:30 a.m., when soldiers heard gunfire to the north, they thought the sound came from scouts hunting buffalo, but their minds changed when they saw Crow and Shoshone scouts racing down the hills, pursued by Lakota warriors. The scouts halted and fought the Lakota within 500 yards of Crook's camp, buying him time to assemble his defense.
(Plaque depicting where the fighting began - Dennis Gaub photo)
Crook sent the 2nd Cavalry under Captain Henry B. Noyes, supported by infantry, to low hills north of the camp. The calvary dismounted and joined the foot soldiers in the defensive effort. Meanwhile, Captain Anson Mills led his 3rd Cavalry battalion in a charge against warriors on Noyes' right.
Mills later described what happened:
“We met the Indians at the foot of this ridge, and charged right in and through them, driving them back to the top of the ridge. These Indians were most hideous, everyone being painted in most hideous colors and designs, stark naked, except their moccasins, breech clouts and head gear, .. the Indians proved then and there that they were the best cavalry soldier on earth. In charging up to war, they exposed little of their persons, hanging on with one arm around the neck and one leg over the horse, firing and lancing from underneath the horses’ necks, so that there was no pair of the Indian at which we would aim.”
(The gap near an ancient buffalo jump where Indian warriors used the lower elevation to charge the soldiers; heavy fighting took place here - Dennis Gaub photo)
More action occurred to the west where Colonel William B. Royall's remaining four companies of the 3rd Cavalry chased warriors, who retreated before his men.
About a mile north of the creek, a high knoll above the Rosebud valley gave the army an advantage. Mills' second charge cleared the hilltop, which Crook seized as his command post.
The battle ebbed and flowed for hours. Indians retreated in the face of soldiers' advance, then the warriors would return and drive back troops now scattered.
One soldier gave the native warriors high praise.
“They were in front, rear, flanks, and on every hilltop far and near. I had been in several Indian battles, but never saw so many Indians at one time before … or so brave,” he said.
At 11 a.m., Crook tried to force the outcome. Thinkin the Indian lamp was nearby on Rosebud Creek, he ordered Mills to take eight companies of cavalry and attack the village. The Indians, however, interpreted Mills' actions as a sign of retreat. They concentrated on Crook's left and nearly overwhelmed Captain Royall’s detachment as it tried to unite withe Crook.
Mills' battalion was saved by cover fire from the infantry and brave fighting by the Indian scouts,. The enemy warriors proved too formidable, and his casualties were mounting, so Crook was forced to recall Mills. That prompted the Indians to abandon the battlefield.
Crook sustained high casualties by Indian war standards: nine dead, 21 wounded. His supplies and ammunition were running low, so the general buried his dead and returned to his base in Sheridan. He and his men were not present eight days later at the fateful, more famous battle.
Indian losses, for the Lakota and Cheyenne, are unknown but probably similar. Their morale boosted by stopping Crook, they returned to their camp. This battle would foreshadow the Little Bighorn battle eight days later.