Crazy Horse

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Crazy Horse (1840?–1877), war leader of the Oglala Lakota Sioux.Crazy Horse achieved renown in intertribal warfare on the northern Great Plains and in conflict with the U.S. Army. Introverted, mystical, and eccentric in dress and deportment, he excelled at hit‐and‐run tactics. Between 1866 and 1876, he gained distinction in combat with U.S. soldiers. On 21 December 1866, he led the decoy party that enticed Capt. William J. Fetterman and eighty soldiers to their destruction near Fort Phil Kearny, Wyoming. He also participated in the Wagon Box Fight nearby on 2 August 1867. His greatest fame, however, arose from his role in the Battle of the Little Bighorn, 25 June 1876, when he and other warriors wiped out an entire unit of Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry Regiment. The Indian victory prompted decisive military reaction, and on 6 May 1877, Crazy Horse surrendered at Camp Robinson, Nebraska. On 7 September, resisting confinement in the post guardhouse, he received a fatal wound from a soldier's bayonet. His people buried him at an unknown spot on the plains. He is remembered as the greatest of all Sioux war leaders.

Bibliography

Mari Sandoz , Crazy Horse, Strange Man of the Oglalas, 1942.

Robert M. Utley

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