“That is very logical of you, Major,” Forsyth replied. “And very naïve as well. I see you have conveniently decided to postpone disarming them. What do you plan to do when these armed Indians run off or charge us en masse in the middle of the night?”
Whitside knew well enough to remain quiet. These questions were not meant to be answered.
“Major, I want this encampment completely surrounded with troops and Hotchkiss guns. And I want it done now. We disarm them at first light.”
“Yes, sir.” Whitside snapped off a salute and got to work, though he felt uneasy about it. The troop placements that Forsyth had ordered would form a large square around the Sioux. That might help prevent escapes, but if there was an uprising, it could mean his men would be caught in their own crossfire.
• • •
Other than the soldiers getting drunk on a keg of whiskey brought in by a local trader, the night had been uneventful. But as the sun rose over the encampment, things had taken a turn for the worse. Colonel Forsyth was acting so aggressively that Whitside worried he was severely hungover, or possibly even still drunk.
The Sioux had been assembled in front of their tepees at first light, fed a hardtack breakfast, and then ordered to surrender their weapons. Twenty-five old and worn rifles had been collected and stacked in a pile in front of the army officers. Through an interpreter, Colonel Forsyth accused the ailing Big Foot of withholding their best guns. Big Foot conferred with his men, who responded that these were all the guns they had.
“You are lying to me,” Forsyth told the Indian chief. Then he turned to a nearby lieutenant. “Assemble a detail and search every man, woman, and child, as well as every tepee, wagon, bush, and bag. Leave nothing untouched.”
The lieutenant rode off and returned an hour later with thirty-eight more guns as well as knives, axes, tent pegs, scissors, and other sharp objects that could easily be used as weapons. Whitside and Forsyth stood facing Big Foot and a couple dozen of his warriors as the additional cache of weapons was added to the stack. Troopers lined up on either side of the officers. No one spoke; the tension was palpable.
Except for the warriors standing directly in front of them, the Sioux were now completely disarmed. “Lift your clothing and show us that you are unarmed,” Forsyth ordered the men in front of him. The old men complied instantly, lifting up the blankets draped over their shoulders to show they had no weapons, but the young warriors refused.
“I will not ask you again,” Forsyth said. “Remove your coverings now or we will search you ourselves.”
The young warriors did not budge.
“Very well.” Forsyth turned to the same lieutenant he’d sent out earlier to scour the camp. “Search these men, head to toe.”
Two guns were quickly revealed before a young deaf warrior named Black Coyote drew a gun from under his blanket and leaped backward. He shook it high over his head and yelled in Lakota. Whitside was pretty sure he wanted to be paid for the expensive weapon.
Two soldiers snuck up behind Black Coyote and grabbed hold of his arm, struggling to seize the weapon.
Bang! The gun discharged into the eastern sky.
Everyone froze.
The shot echoed.
Then, silence.
Colonel Forsyth yelled, “Fire! Fire on them!”
In an instant, the serene South Dakota hills erupted in noise and motion. Soldiers swung their rifles around to aim at the Sioux; young warriors charged at the pile of confiscated weapons, and unarmed Sioux screamed and ran in every direction.
Whitside unbuttoned his pistol case and drew his army Colt. Swiveling his head from side to side he saw Sioux falling everywhere. A few fell while fighting, but most were shot in the back as they ran away. Some Indian boys who had been playing leapfrog moments ago collapsed in a hail of bullets. Gun smoke soon filled the field of fire, but soldiers continued to shoot volleys in the general direction of the Sioux, who were quickly finding that they had no way to retreat—they were surrounded by soldiers on all sides.
Whitside heard a horrific sound. The Hotchkiss guns. He went to one knee to prepare himself for the hail of oversized shells that would be coming in at sixty-eight rounds per minute. As the Hotchkiss guns roared, soldiers started to fall, or were thrown to the ground like rag dolls. Whitside spotted a few wagons and Sioux horsemen attempting escape, but the Hotchkiss guns obliterated them.
Whitside wanted the slaughter to stop, but his head was spinning. He retched. Wiping his mouth with his sleeve, he yelled: “Cease fire! Cease fire!” But it was hopeless. A frenzy had taken hold of his men. On the outskirts of the encampment, he saw women, some carrying babies, being chased down by soldiers on horseback. They were shot without even so much as a warning to stop or surrender. Soldiers streamed through the camp killing the elderly, women, and children—even infants in cradleboards were not spared.
For the first time in years, Whitside prayed.
When the gunfire finally subsided, heavy smoke and screams of pain filled the air. The smell of sulfur, blood, and human excrement assaulted him from every direction. To his left he heard yelling, down by the dry ravine. Whitside ran toward the sound and arrived just in time to see Gatling guns cutting down several groups of Sioux attempting to take refuge in a shallow gully. Soldiers around the perimeter winced as they were hit by shrapnel and splintered rock.
It grew still again and he looked around. It was really over this time. There were no more targets. The only Sioux who moved were those squirming on the ground in agony. It was the most heartrending scene he’d ever witnessed.
Whitside collapsed to his knees.
• • •
Major Samuel Whitside stood, his legs still shaking, and glanced at his pistol. It had never been fired. At first he found that comforting, but he knew that if one of the Sioux warriors had charged at him, he would have killed him without a thought. And what then? Would he have joined in the massacre? Would he have shot women and babies? He knew that his own participation didn’t matter. He was second in command and he had failed to stop the carnage that now lay out before him.
Dammit. He knew this had been a ragtag band of Indians lead by an old and ailing chief. They were, for the most part, women, children, and infants. When the shooting started, few of the young warriors had even been armed. If not innocent, they had at least been mostly harmless.
Now they were mostly dead.
Whitside began to walk through the bodies and shout orders for the wounded to be tended to. He didn’t argue when his troopers received the treatment first. They were his charges, after all.
He returned to check on Colonel Forsyth and found him unharmed. Relieved, Whitside looked toward the ground at the warriors who had been near him when the shooting began. He recognized one of them as the Indian in the center of the three who’d initially come out to meet him on horseback. He recognized the next man on the ground as well. He looked different than the others: older, but also paler, as though he’d been ill.
Whitside gasped.
Big Foot was dead.
Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota
December 31, 1890
“Major, what the hell happened?”
General Nelson Miles was angry. After the Sitting Bull debacle, this mass killing at Wounded Knee added another disgrace to his command.
Major Whitside looked around the empty room. He was uncomfortable meeting privately with the general. “Sir, shouldn’t Colonel Forsyth be present for this conference?”
“I’ve already spoken to Colonel Forsyth. If I wanted him present, he would be sitting beside you. Now answer my question.”
“Yes, sir.” Whitside folded his gloves and hands into his lap and looked directly forward, avoiding eye contact with General Miles. He recited what the general recognized as a well-rehearsed account of the incident.
When Whitside had finished, the general leaned back in his chair and lifted his chin. He spoke in a tone he’d spent years cultivating for the sole purpos
e of intimidation. “Major, there were sixty-four army casualties—twenty-five dead and thirty-nine wounded. It appears most of our troopers were hit by rifle fire from fellow soldiers or by our own Hotchkiss guns.” He waited for Whitside to feel the weight of the coming question. “Why did you order such an inept emplacement?”
Whitside looked conflicted. He wanted to defend himself, but did not want to put the blame squarely onto Forsyth, his commanding officer. The general did not speak, allowing the awkward silence to linger.
Finally, Whitside answered. “Sir, I was following orders from my commanding officer.”
“Colonel Forsyth told you to place your heavily armed men in a rough square facing each other?”
“I was instructed to encircle the Sioux so that no one could escape. It was a several-hundred-yard enclosure.”
Miles shook his head. He was sure that most of the troopers had been killed or injured by friendly fire. It was ironic, he thought, that the best way for the Sioux to kill his soldiers would have been for them to duck while the soldiers shot each other.
“What happened the night before the incident?” Miles asked.
Whitside shifted his eyes and locked them on to the general. “The night before, sir?”
“You heard me.”
“Sir, I presume you mean the celebration of the capture of Big Foot. A few men drank, but not to excess.”
Miles nodded. “Okay, then tell me about the morning. Prior to the first shot.”
“After voluntary disarmament failed, we initiated a search for weapons. The colonel was highly annoyed with Big Foot’s lying about guns and weapons being hidden in camp.”
“How did the Sioux react to the search?”
“I saw anger on their faces, but they complied.” Whitside hesitated before adding, “The interpreter told us that Big Foot ordered his men to remain calm and allow the search.”
“What was found?”
“Colonel Forsyth’s anger turned out to be justified. Search teams found more rifles, pistols, knives, tomahawks, scissors, and lances. Everything was heaped onto a huge stack. The colonel lectured Big Foot on duplicity, but I don’t think the Indians grasped his meaning. They’re naturally deceitful.”
Whitside looked like he was waiting for a reaction, but the general remained stoic. “I understand that Black Coyote ignited the altercation? He brandished a pistol?”
“Correct, sir. When two cavalrymen tried to take it from him he fired it into the air. Possibly as a signal.”
“Then what?”
“Then all hell broke loose.”
“And yesterday?”
“What about yesterday, sir?”
“Why did Colonel Forsyth need to be rescued?”
“We engaged over four thousand Sioux. We had no visibility due to the blizzard and we were badly outnumbered.”
“Colonel Forsyth was ordered to gather up the hostile Sioux at White Clay Creek and escort them back to the reservation. He ended up outflanked and pinned down in a valley. If the Ninth Calvary hadn’t rescued him you wouldn’t be sitting in front of me today.” He paused to let his words sink in. “Did it occur to you that the hostiles, after seeing what happened to Big Foot, might try to fight?”
Whitside flinched before making eye contact again. “Sir, you should ask Colonel Forsyth about his command decisions during combat.”
General Miles contemplated further questions but decided they would lead nowhere. The officers and troops were already circling the wagons, painting a self-serving picture of a stand-up battle where every soldier had shown forbearance and then, only when absolutely necessary, tenacity and courage under fire.
“Dismissed.”
Whitside stood and walked to the door. Then he turned back and asked, “Does the general anticipate a board of inquiry?”
“I said you were dismissed, Major.”
Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota
January 1, 1891
White Lance examined the ice-covered corpses of his fellow Lakota Sioux. The blizzard that had rolled in after the slaughter had frozen the bodies exactly as they’d fallen. He saw depressions in the frozen ground where some of the bodies had been removed by friends or family to be buried.
At first, White Lance thought himself lucky to have survived the massacre. But now, as he surveyed the pained faces of the men, women, children, and babies strewn about the ground, he was no longer so sure.
The white soldiers, including their chief, a man they called General Miles, kept yelling at him to leave the dead and go to the hills to look for the living, but White Lance pretended not to understand. He had been instructed by his chief to memorialize each of the dead and how they had fallen. Tribal history was an important Sioux tradition and White Lance had been entrusted with the duty to ensure that the real story of what had happened here lived on.
The bodies were cold and stiff, and White Lance often had to turn them in order to see their faces. It was slow, gruesome work. A wagon soon came over a rise with six or seven Sioux huddled in back. General Miles seemed happy to see these survivors and yelled at the doctor to attend to them at once. How could a few live Sioux please a white man after he had killed so many? The world was incomprehensible.
Later that afternoon, the general called the eighty-four Sioux who’d been searching the bodies along with White Lance to gather around a wagon that served as a makeshift speaker’s platform. A Lakota interpreter stood by Miles’s side and translated.
“Thank you for coming here. It is a sad day and it must be overwhelming for you. We have discovered seven Sioux who would have died in this weather if you had not come to this place, so you have done well.”
White Lance wondered how the general would feel if these were his people—slaughtered without mercy. He willed his mind to shed anger because rage would interfere with his attempt to remember every detail of what he saw.
“We will demand an investigation of what has happened here, but there are no more survivors and it is now time for you to return to the reservation.”
Two old warriors stood shaking their heads. The eldest said, “You have no right to order us. We are a free people. We stay to bury our dead.”
The general spoke for a long time before the interpreter nodded his understanding.
“The great general says that if you return now . . . peaceably, none of you will be punished.”
“Punished?” The two old warriors looked incredulously at each other. “We do not understand. Punished for what?”
“You left the reservation. You participated in Ghost Dancing. You prepared for war. These things are against our treaty.”
Half of the Sioux stood and yelled. The interpreter did his best to explain their collective complaint to Miles. “They say that the white man has repeatedly broken the treaty.” The general held up his hand and nodded as if he understood. He spoke several sentences back to the interpreter.
“General Miles says there are food, blankets, and tools in those wagons. If you return peaceably to the reservation, they are yours. He will find out what happened here and those at fault will be disciplined. He also has people coming to bury the dead. It is best now that you leave this sad place. The spirits are not good.”
There would be more discussion, but White Lance knew that, in the end, they would leave Wounded Knee without further conflict. He also knew what would happen after they did. Earlier, along one side of the field, he’d seen soldiers drawing a long rectangular outline in the dirt. They were going to toss the bodies of his people into a common grave and throw dirt on them until they disappeared forever.
The white man wanted no reminders of what had happened here.
White Lance would remember everything.
Pine Ridge, South Dakota
January 6, 1891
General Miles flung the magazine onto the table in front of Whitside.
“Did you have anything to do with this story?”
Whitside looked down at an issue of Leslie’s.
/> “No, sir.”
He threw down a copy of Harper’s. Then the Evening Star, a Washington, D.C., newspaper. Then a heap of other newspapers from all across the country.
“How about these?”
“No, sir.”
Miles was furious. “How can I conduct a fair board of inquiry if people believe the lies in these publications?” He picked up the Evening Star. “In this story they claim that Sitting Bull ambushed Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn and they call him ‘the assassin of the brave Custer.’ Nothing could be further from the truth! Custer was the one to attack and he was outmaneuvered.”
He traded the Evening Star for Harper’s. “In this issue, the artist Frederic Remington turns the Wounded Knee massacre into a glorious triumph and writes that Big Foot’s band was the worst of their race. His illustrations are pure fiction.”
Then he picked up Leslie’s and read from it. “In the annals of American history, there cannot be found a battle so fierce, bloody, and decisive as the fight at Wounded Knee Creek between the Seventh Calvary and Big Foot’s band of Sioux. This affair at Wounded Knee was a stand-up fight of the most desperate kind, in which the entire band was annihilated.”
Miles violently swept the newspaper and magazines off the table and onto the floor. Where had this information come from? He did not believe reporters invented stories, so someone had to be feeding these accounts to the newspapers. Ever since he had relieved Colonel Forsyth of his command pending an investigation, army officialdom seemed intent on hiding the real story. He suspected that Whitside was part of the effort to recast the massacre as an honorable battle.
Miles supported his weight with two fists anchored against the table. He breathed hard for almost a full minute before lifting his head and looking Whitside directly in the eyes.
“Major, I called you here for a simple question. I want a yes-or-no answer. Will you testify truthfully at the hearing?”
Whitside answered without hesitation, “Yes, sir.”