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 purpose 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.”
Pine Ridge, South Dakota
January 14, 1891
“These are your findings?” General Miles asked.
The investigating officers, Major J. Ford Kent and Captain Frank D. Baldwin, had concluded their investigation the day before. They’d found little fault in Forsyth’s conduct.
Kent answered. “Yes. Testimony supplied no evidence or indication of fault by Colonel Forsyth.”
“I saw the field of battle three days after the incident, but still frozen in time,” Miles said. “Anyone with two eyes could see fault. Did you examine Major Whitside’s map of the troop and gun placements?”
“We did,” Kent said. “It was deemed flawed, but not negligent.”
After his personal examination of Wounded Knee, Miles had ordered Whitside to go back and draw a detailed map of the Sioux and cavalry positions. He wanted an accurate drawing for the record because he believed the troop placement had been reckless.
“And all the dead women and children. No fault?”
“Testimony showed great forbearance by our troopers. Major Whitside testified that the Sioux fired fifty shots before his men returned fire. Every witness testified that some noncombatants were unfortunately shot by our men due to the warriors running amongst them, but that Sioux warriors killed the large majority of them by firing into or across their own women and children.”
“Do you believe that?” Miles asked.
“We have no evidence to the contrary.” Kent glanced at Baldwin for reassurance and got a nod. “The testimony was very consistent.”
“I want you to reopen the inquiry. Find testimony that is consistent with the facts on the ground, not a story concocted after the fact.”
“But General—”
“That’s an order, Major. Dismissed.”
Pine Ridge, South Dakota
January 20, 1891
Major Kent and Captain Baldwin sat nervously in front of the general’s desk.
General Miles read the conclusion of the revised report aloud: “Colonel Forsyth’s command was not held at a safe distance, and the attack of the Indians resulted in a surprise to the troops.”
He threw the report on the table, and looked at Major Kent. “That’s it? He positioned his troops too close and thus allowed himself to be surprised? That’s the most mild censure I’ve ever read.”
“General, we have no evidence of malfeasance . . . and we have a surfeit of testimony to the opposite. We can rule no other way.”
“Perhaps, but I can make my own recommendation.”
“General, may I speak freely?” Kent asked.
“You may.”
“There is word going around that you are intent on railroading Colonel Forsyth because the Sitting Bull and Wounded Knee incidents will hurt your career.”
“Does that make sense to you?” Miles asked.
“Sir, I have never known you to be vindictive.”
“I was speaking logically, Major. If the army wants to portray Wounded Knee as a stand-up victory over heavily armed savages, wouldn’t I be best served by going along with that story? Wouldn’t a military victory enhance my career?”
Kent looked confused. “Then why so many inquiries, sir?”
“Because I promised the Sioux survivors that I would investigate and punish any wrongdoers.”
“Sir? You’re doing this because of a promise you made to Indians?”
“No, I’m doing this because it is right.”
Washington, D.C.
February 7, 1891
General John Schofield, commanding general of the United States Army, read the recommendation that accompanied the Board of Inquiry findings. General Miles had been harsh on Colonel Forsyth, and, by doing so, had by default been harsh on the United States Army.
“Troops were not disposed,” Miles’s report read, “to deliver its fire upon the warriors without endangering the lives of some of their own comrades.” Later, Miles commented on the fact that many of the Indians had already been disarmed, writing: “A large number of the 106 Sioux warriors were without firearms when the outbreak occurred.”
Throughout the document, General Miles had used words like “inexcusable,” “apathy,” “neglect,” “contempt,” and “incompetence.” He went on to make the worst accusation that can be leveled against a field-grade officer. “Colonel Forsyth was inexperienced in the responsibility of exercising command.”
Schofield knew that this report would not only ruin Colonel Forsyth’s career, it would reflect badly on the army. And for what purpose? Miles’s recriminations were at odds with most newspaper accounts of the battle, not to mention the testimony of soldiers present that day. Even retired general William T. Sherman, who had been Schofield’s predecessor as commanding general of the army, had taken Forsyth’s side. “If Forsyth was relieved because some squaws were killed,” Sherman had written, “then somebody had made a mistake, for squaws have been killed in every Indian war.”
Schofield picked up a pen and paused briefly before writing to his boss, the secretary of war.
The interests of military service do not, in my judgment, demand further proceedings in this case, nor any longer continuance of Col. Forsyth’s suspension from the command of his regiment. The evidence in these papers shows that great care was taken to avoid unnecessary killing of Indian women and children.
In my judgment, the conduct of the regiment was well worthy of the commendation bestowed upon it by me in my first telegram after the engagement.
He concluded that the soldiers had displayed great forbearance and that units under Forsyth’s command had shown excellent discipline.
General Schofield reread his report. He was pleased. This would finally set the record straight.
Pine Ridge, South Dakota
February 17, 1891
Col. Forsyth Exonerated, His Action at Wounded Knee Justified, Decision of Secretary Proctor on the Investigation—The Colonel Restored to the Command of His Gallant Regiment
The headline couldn’t have been clearer, and General Nelson Miles couldn’t have been more depressed.
The crushing futility sapped every bit of his energy. He was not angry, he was not bitter, and he certainly was not surprised—but he was weary. It had been an agonizing political battle, but now it was over and he had lost.
After receiving Commanding General Schofield’s report, Secretary of War Redfield Proctor had penned what would become the official government position on the Battle of Wounded Knee.
The disarmament was commenced and it was evident that the Indians were sullenly trying to evade the order. They were carried away by the harangue of the ghost dancer, and wheeling about, opened fire. Nothing illustrates the madness of their outbreak more forcibly than the fact that their first fire was so directed that every shot that did not hit a soldier must have gone through their own village. There is little doubt that the first killing, of women and children was by the first fire of the Indians themselves.
The firing by the troops was entirely directed on the men until the Indians, after their break, mingled with their women and children, thus exposing them to the fire of the troops and as a consequence some were killed. Major Whitside emphatically declares that at least fifty shots were fired by the Indians before the troops returned the fire. Major Kent and Capt. Baldwin concur in finding that the evidence fails to establish that a single man of Col. Forsyth’s command was killed or wounded by his fellows.
This fact and, indeed, the conduct of both officers and men through the whole affair, demonstrates an exceedingly satisfactory state of discipline in the Seventh Cavalry. Their behavior was characterized by skill, coolness, discretion, and forbearance, and reflects the highest possible credit upon the regiment.
The concluding sentence crushed General Miles’ spirit:
The interests of the military service do not demand any further proceedings in this case. By direction of the President, Col. Forsyth will resume the command of his regiment.
St. Louis, Missouri
June 1891
“General, here are the citations for Wounded Knee.”
The staff officer was newly assigned and unaware of General Miles’s disapproval of the army’s actions at Wounded Knee. At least the general preferred to assume that the staff officer was unaware; otherwise he would be annoyed at his cheerful delivery of more than a dozen Medal of Honor citations for bravery at Wounded Knee.
Miles had thought his anger over Wounded Knee had ebbed, but when he’d heard about these citations working their way up to him, he’d lost his temper again. This was the greatest number of Congressional Medals of Honor ever awarded in any single engagement. He should have seen it coming: The army does not merely bury its blunders; it decorates them with so many ribbons that no one can question the veracity of the official report.
There had already been a couple of Medals of Honor awarded, and this new round would bring the total to seventeen. He sighed. There will be more to come, he thought.
“Is this an inconvenient time, sir? I can return with them later.”
Miles held his hand out. “No. This won’t take but a moment.”
He rifled through the citations quickly, making scant comments on just a few. He handed them back to the staff officer. “You may forward these to the War Department.”
“Sir, if you’ll excuse me . . . you hardly added any comments. Would you like to keep them overnight? At this late juncture, there is no hurry.” The confused staff officer held up the citations. “These men fought bravely under your command.”
“Whatever gave you that idea?” Miles asked testily.
“I read the reports before reviewing the citations.”
“You shouldn’t believe everything you read. These men didn’t fight; they killed. They had disarmed the majority of the Sioux before the first shot was ever fired.”
“Sir?” The officer looked thoroughly confused. “Congress wouldn’t approve Medals of Honor without endorsement. The president has commended the action. Why would everyone in the chain of command participate in a deception?”
“Because governments do not make mistakes.”