Bloody Knife
Encyclopedia
Bloody Knife was an American Indian
scout and guide with the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment
. He was the favorite scout of Lieutenant Colonel
George Armstrong Custer
and he has been called "perhaps the most famous Native American scout to serve the U.S. Army."
Being born to a Hunkpapa
Sioux
father and an Arikara
mother around 1840, he was abused and discriminated against by the other Sioux in his village, in particular by Gall, a future chief
. When Bloody Knife was a teenager, he would leave his village with his mother to live with the Arikara tribe. His brothers were killed by a Sioux raid led by Gall in 1862. He found employment as a courier
and hunter
for the American Fur Company
and later served under such officers as Alfred Sully
before scouting for George Custer on several military expeditions. He died on June 25, 1876 during the Battle of the Little Bighorn
from a bullet to the head.
. His father was a Hunkpapa
Sioux
and his mother a member of the Arikara
tribe, also known as the Ree. He lived with his father's tribe for the early years of his life. Since he was of mixed blood and the Sioux were traditional enemies of the Arikara, he was often discriminated against and treated poorly by the other Sioux. For this he grew a hatred for the Sioux tribe and a feud was started with a fellow Sioux named Gall. A man who became like an older brother to Gall, Sitting Bull
, also heavily abused Bloody Knife. When he was aged about fifteen, he and his mother left his father and the Sioux to return to the Arikara at an American Fur Company
trading post called Fort Clark
, which was located close to modern day Stanton, North Dakota
on the Upper Mississippi River
.
While living at Fort Clark, he was constantly in danger. Arikaras who wandered too far from the fort were often attacked by Sioux war parties. Despite his partial Sioux ancestry, Bloody Knife was also subjected to these attacks and was once ambushed by Gall and several other Hunkpapas during a trip to visit his father. They beat him severely, stripped him of his clothing, spat on him, mocked him, hit him with coup sticks
and musket ramrods
. Then in the fall of 1862, two of his brothers were killed, mutilated, and scalped
by Sioux war party led by Gall. Their bodies left to be eaten by wolves. During his time at Fort Clark, Bloody Knife worked delivering mail to other forts in Missouri and to Fort Totten
in North Dakota. The Sioux killed several men on these routes, however Bloody Knife almost always delivered the mail on time.
Alfred Sully
in 1865 as a scout on his Sioux expedition. Bloody Knife proved useful to the group of Galvanized Yankees
, prisoner soldiers from the Confederate States Army
who served the Union
in the America West instead of serving time in a prisoner-of-war camp
, who were at Fort Berthold. He also assisted as a messenger, helping the garrison
of troops communicate with other military units in the area which was still controlled mainly by the Sioux. In the winter of that same year, Bloody Knife set up a meeting with Captain Adams Bassett of Company C, Fourth U.S. Volunteer Infantry, letting him know that Gall had recently arrived near Fort Berthold. He told Bassett that Gall was not peaceful and had already killed white men along the Missouri River. Captain Bassett decided to send a lieutenant of his with a platoon and Bloody Knife to capture Gall or kill him if he would not surrender. Bloody Knife then led the group of soldiers to the Hunkpapa village, south of the fort where Gall was staying. The men attempted to arrest Gall upon arrival, but when he tried to escape he was bayoneted and forced to the ground. Gall then received two more stabs from bayonets while on the ground. Soon afterward Bloody Knife intended to shoot Gall in the head, but just as he was about to pull his trigger, the officer in command knocked his gun away from Gall's face and claimed he was already dead. Furious with the officer, the two exchanged heated words before leaving. Gall, however would survive the incident and go on to become a Sioux war chief.
In 1866 President
Andrew Johnson
authorized a force of Indian scouts with the signing of the Indian Scout Enlistment Act. In May 1868, Bloody Knife enlisted at Fort Stevenson
with the U.S. Army's Indian scouts as a corporal
. Bloody Knife developed a serious alcohol addiction at this time which could have led to his desertion in September of that year. Later however in 1872, he was made a lance corporal
. Aside from Fort Berthold, Bloody Knife served at several other forts such as Fort Buford, Fort Rice
, and Fort Lincoln. In 1872, he was involved in the Yellowstone Expedition. The next year at Fort Rice he met George Armstrong Custer
for the first time. The two soon became friends and Custer admired Bloody Knife's talents as a scout. Though he is said to be have been insolent toward whites and ridiculed them, he often amused Custer by ridiculing his marksmanship. Custer occasionally gave him rewards such as a silver medal he had ordered for Bloody Knife in Washington with his name on. He would go on to become Custer's favorite scout very quickly. On the next Yellowstone Expedition, Bloody Knife joined Custer and fought a few battles with the Sioux. Bloody Knife helped to discover an abandoned Sioux village which he estimated to have held 1,000 warriors. The group ended up following the trail and led to a battle at the Yellowstone.
Then in 1874, the scout took part in yet another expedition, this time being the Black Hills Expedition. The expedition included over a thousand men, including geologist
s, infantry, cavalry, two miners, several reporters, and sixty-five Arikara scouts. Just a short while before the expedition had begun, the Sioux had attacked the Arikara village at Fort Berthold. In total, five Arikaras and one Mandan died from the attack. One of Bloody Knife's sons was killed in the attack and another scout, known as Bear's Ears or Bear's Eye had a brother killed in the same attack. Bloody Knife blamed the death of his son on Gall. Many of the Arikara on the expedition were eager to avenge the attack and when signs of a Sioux band in the Black Hills were found they began to sing war songs and put war paint on their horses and themselves. Custer however, who was not interested in solving tribal feuds, ordered the scouts not to attack any Sioux unless fired upon first. Bloody Knife and twenty-five other Arikaras were then sent out for more scouting and found a small camp of five lodges. The scouts waited for Custer to arrive with Louis Agard, his interpreter, before taking any actions. Although some reports had suggested that thousands of warriors would be in the hills preparing to attack, and most of the soldiers and civilians thought that a fight would occur soon, the group Bloody Knife came across was made up of only twenty-seven Oglala Sioux
. This group of Sioux had been cutting lodgepoles and hunting in the Black Hills before intending to return to the Red Cloud Agency
, which was one hundred miles south of their location. The group had no knowledge of the soldiers in the area and all but one Oglala ran away when Agard and some of the scouts approached them.
During the expedition on August 7, Bloody Knife came across a grizzly bear
roughly seventy-five yards from where Custer was finding a campsite. Custer, having had a lifelong dream of killing a grizzly bear, shot the animal in the thigh with his Remington
rifle. Custer shot at the bear again and Bloody Knife and William Ludlow
helped bring it down. Bloody Knife put his knife into its jugular to make sure the grizzly had died. The bear was an old male with broken teeth, covered in scars, and was 800 pounds in weight. Though Custer would take credit for the kill, some believe that the fatal bullet was fired by Bloody Knife himself.
At one point during the Black Hills Expedition, several wagons became stuck at a bank
. Custer asked whose fault it was for the stoppage and a scout named Charley Reynolds
blamed the incident on Bloody Knife. Custer drew out his revolver and fired a few shots in the direction of the two scouts. Bloody Knife and Reynolds took cover behind trees. Bloody Knife then came to Custer and stated, "It is not a good thing you have done to me; if I had been possessed of madness too, you would not see another day." Custer said in return, "My brother, it was the madness of the moment that made me do this, but it is now gone. Let us shake hands and be friends again." Bloody Knife eventually did agree and shook Custer's hand.
While most Indian scouts were making a sum of $13 a month (the same amount of pay the troops were receiving), Custer managed to get Bloody Knife a job with the quartermaster
as a guide where he made $75 ($ at today's prices) per month.
On November 30 1874, Bloody Knife was discharged as a private and for his efforts in the Black Hills Expedition, he would receive an additional $
150 for what was called his "invaluable assistance".
Bloody Knife was assigned to Major Marcus Reno
, who had a command of 140 soldiers, at the Battle of the Little Bighorn
on June 25, 1876. During the battle, Custer had directed Bloody Knife, along with the other Arikara and Crow scouts, to drive off the herds of Indian ponies in the Sioux camp. After Reno and his men retreated into the timber near the river during an early part of the confrontation, Bloody Knife was killed by a gunshot to the head. He was mounted on his horse at the time and may have been hit with more than one bullet. Reportedly, he was standing next to Reno during this segment of the battle. Reno had motioned for Bloody Knife to come near him so he could ask him what the Indians would do when his command began to move away from their village when Bloody Knife was shot and his brains and blood splattered onto Reno's face. Reno was traumatized and began to panic. Reno then set in motion a series of frantic actions and many of his troopers would die as a result. Bloody Knife was one of three Arikara scouts assigned to Reno to die in the battle, the others being Little Brave (also known as Bear's Trail or Little Soldier) and Bobtail Bull. The battle would become a huge defeat for the U.S. Army.
Bloody Knife's corpse had been mutilated by the opposing Sioux. According to the testimony of Bloody Knife's sister, her daughters had found his body on the battlefield, unaware that it was the body of their uncle, cut off his head and brought it back to the Hunkpapa village. The head was put on a pole and displayed in the village. When she saw the head and recongnized it to be the head of her brother she was horried and according to David Humphreys Miller, an interviewer who talked with many of the participants and witnesses from the battle she cried out: "Gall has killed him at last!" However, other accounts of the story do not mention Gall and no historians have recorded how the sisters reacted when they discovered that it was the head of their uncle that they had brought back. Bloody Knife's body was buried on June 27 by Colonel John Gibbon
's troops on the battlefield. A scalp was found in an empty Sioux lodge by one of Gibbon's men and the Arikara identified it as the scalp of Bloody Knife due to the gray streaks in the hair.
Years after his death on April 14, 1879, Bloody Knife's widow, She Owl, arrived at Fort Berthold. She went to Thomas Ellis, an agent at the fort, stated she was "the sole and only legal representative of said Bloody Knife," and wished to receive money that was owed to him for his services. In 1881, she received $91.66 in wages from the United States government.
Following his death at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the remaining Arikara scouts composed a song in his honor. In the 1991 television mini-series Son of the Morning Star
, Bloody Knife is portrayed by Sheldon Peters Wolfchild.
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
scout and guide with the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment
U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment
The 7th Cavalry Regiment is a United States Army Cavalry Regiment, whose lineage traces back to the mid-19th century. Its official nickname is "Garryowen," in honor of the Irish air Garryowen that was adopted as its march tune....
. He was the favorite scout of Lieutenant Colonel
Lieutenant Colonel (United States)
In the United States Army, United States Air Force, and United States Marine Corps, a lieutenant colonel is a field grade military officer rank just above the rank of major and just below the rank of colonel. It is equivalent to the naval rank of commander in the other uniformed services.The pay...
George Armstrong Custer
George Armstrong Custer
George Armstrong Custer was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the Indian Wars. Raised in Michigan and Ohio, Custer was admitted to West Point in 1858, where he graduated last in his class...
and he has been called "perhaps the most famous Native American scout to serve the U.S. Army."
Being born to a Hunkpapa
Hunkpapa
The Hunkpapa are a Native American group, one of the seven council fires of the Lakota Sioux tribe. The name Húŋkpapȟa is a Sioux word meaning "Head of the Circle"...
Sioux
Sioux
The Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...
father and an Arikara
Arikara
Arikara are a group of Native Americans in North Dakota...
mother around 1840, he was abused and discriminated against by the other Sioux in his village, in particular by Gall, a future chief
Tribal chief
A tribal chief is the leader of a tribal society or chiefdom. Tribal societies with social stratification under a single leader emerged in the Neolithic period out of earlier tribal structures with little stratification, and they remained prevalent throughout the Iron Age.In the case of ...
. When Bloody Knife was a teenager, he would leave his village with his mother to live with the Arikara tribe. His brothers were killed by a Sioux raid led by Gall in 1862. He found employment as a courier
Courier
A courier is a person or a company who delivers messages, packages, and mail. Couriers are distinguished from ordinary mail services by features such as speed, security, tracking, signature, specialization and individualization of express services, and swift delivery times, which are optional for...
and hunter
Hunting
Hunting is the practice of pursuing any living thing, usually wildlife, for food, recreation, or trade. In present-day use, the term refers to lawful hunting, as distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species contrary to applicable law...
for the American Fur Company
American Fur Company
The American Fur Company was founded by John Jacob Astor in 1808. The company grew to monopolize the fur trade in the United States by 1830, and became one of the largest businesses in the country. The company was one the first great trusts in American business...
and later served under such officers as Alfred Sully
Alfred Sully
Alfred Sully , was a military officer during the American Civil War and during the Indian Wars on the frontier. He was also a noted painter.-Biography:...
before scouting for George Custer on several military expeditions. He died on June 25, 1876 during the Battle of the Little Bighorn
Battle of the Little Bighorn
The Battle of the Little Bighorn, also known as Custer's Last Stand and, by the Indians involved, as the Battle of the Greasy Grass, was an armed engagement between combined forces of Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho people against the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army...
from a bullet to the head.
Early life
Though his exact date and place of birth are unknown, Bloody Knife was likely born between 1837 and 1840 in Dakota TerritoryDakota Territory
The Territory of Dakota was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1861, until November 2, 1889, when the final extent of the reduced territory was split and admitted to the Union as the states of North and South Dakota.The Dakota Territory consisted of...
. His father was a Hunkpapa
Hunkpapa
The Hunkpapa are a Native American group, one of the seven council fires of the Lakota Sioux tribe. The name Húŋkpapȟa is a Sioux word meaning "Head of the Circle"...
Sioux
Sioux
The Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...
and his mother a member of the Arikara
Arikara
Arikara are a group of Native Americans in North Dakota...
tribe, also known as the Ree. He lived with his father's tribe for the early years of his life. Since he was of mixed blood and the Sioux were traditional enemies of the Arikara, he was often discriminated against and treated poorly by the other Sioux. For this he grew a hatred for the Sioux tribe and a feud was started with a fellow Sioux named Gall. A man who became like an older brother to Gall, Sitting Bull
Sitting Bull
Sitting Bull Sitting Bull Sitting Bull (Lakota: Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake (in Standard Lakota Orthography), also nicknamed Slon-he or "Slow"; (c. 1831 – December 15, 1890) was a Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux holy man who led his people as a tribal chief during years of resistance to United States government policies...
, also heavily abused Bloody Knife. When he was aged about fifteen, he and his mother left his father and the Sioux to return to the Arikara at an American Fur Company
American Fur Company
The American Fur Company was founded by John Jacob Astor in 1808. The company grew to monopolize the fur trade in the United States by 1830, and became one of the largest businesses in the country. The company was one the first great trusts in American business...
trading post called Fort Clark
Fort Clark Trading Post State Historic Site
Fort Clark Trading Post State Historic Site was once the home to a Mandan and later an Arikara settlement. Over the course of its history it also had two factories...
, which was located close to modern day Stanton, North Dakota
Stanton, North Dakota
Stanton is a city in Mercer County, North Dakota in the United States. It is the county seat of Mercer County. The population was 366 at the 2010 census. Stanton was founded in 1883 and became the county seat when Mercer County organized in 1884....
on the Upper Mississippi River
Upper Mississippi River
The Upper Mississippi River is the portion of the Mississippi River upstream of Cairo, Illinois, United States. From the headwaters at Lake Itasca, Minnesota, the river flows approximately 2000 kilometers to Cairo, where it is joined by the Ohio River to form the Lower Mississippi...
.
While living at Fort Clark, he was constantly in danger. Arikaras who wandered too far from the fort were often attacked by Sioux war parties. Despite his partial Sioux ancestry, Bloody Knife was also subjected to these attacks and was once ambushed by Gall and several other Hunkpapas during a trip to visit his father. They beat him severely, stripped him of his clothing, spat on him, mocked him, hit him with coup sticks
Counting coup
Counting coup refers to the winning of prestige in battle, rather than having to prove a win by injuring one's opponent. Its earliest known reference is from Shakespeare's "Hamlet" where Laertes and Hamlet conduct a mock swordfight before King Claudius and Queen Gertrude...
and musket ramrods
Ramrod
A ramrod is a device used with early firearms to push the projectile up against the propellant . It is also commonly referred to as a "scouring stick"...
. Then in the fall of 1862, two of his brothers were killed, mutilated, and scalped
Scalping
Scalping is the act of removing another person's scalp or a portion of their scalp, either from a dead body or from a living person. The initial purpose of scalping was to provide a trophy of battle or portable proof of a combatant's prowess in war...
by Sioux war party led by Gall. Their bodies left to be eaten by wolves. During his time at Fort Clark, Bloody Knife worked delivering mail to other forts in Missouri and to Fort Totten
Fort Totten, North Dakota
As of the census of 2000, there were 952 people, 230 households, and 200 families residing in the CDP. The population density was 124.2 people per square mile . There were 255 housing units at an average density of 33.3/sq mi . The racial makeup of the CDP was 0.84% White, 0.11% African...
in North Dakota. The Sioux killed several men on these routes, however Bloody Knife almost always delivered the mail on time.
First years as a scout
After working for the American Fur Company, Bloody Knife accompanied Brigadier GeneralBrigadier General
Brigadier general is a senior rank in the armed forces. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries, usually sitting between the ranks of colonel and major general. When appointed to a field command, a brigadier general is typically in command of a brigade consisting of around 4,000...
Alfred Sully
Alfred Sully
Alfred Sully , was a military officer during the American Civil War and during the Indian Wars on the frontier. He was also a noted painter.-Biography:...
in 1865 as a scout on his Sioux expedition. Bloody Knife proved useful to the group of Galvanized Yankees
Galvanized Yankees
Galvanized Yankees was a term from the American Civil War used to refer to former Confederate prisoners of war who had sworn allegiance to the Union. Due to doubts about their ultimate loyalty, Galvanized Yankees were generally assigned to garrison forts far from the Civil War battlefields or in...
, prisoner soldiers from the Confederate States Army
Confederate States Army
The Confederate States Army was the army of the Confederate States of America while the Confederacy existed during the American Civil War. On February 8, 1861, delegates from the seven Deep South states which had already declared their secession from the United States of America adopted the...
who served the Union
Union (American Civil War)
During the American Civil War, the Union was a name used to refer to the federal government of the United States, which was supported by the twenty free states and five border slave states. It was opposed by 11 southern slave states that had declared a secession to join together to form the...
in the America West instead of serving time in a prisoner-of-war camp
Prisoner-of-war camp
A prisoner-of-war camp is a site for the containment of combatants captured by their enemy in time of war, and is similar to an internment camp which is used for civilian populations. A prisoner of war is generally a soldier, sailor, or airman who is imprisoned by an enemy power during or...
, who were at Fort Berthold. He also assisted as a messenger, helping the garrison
Garrison
Garrison is the collective term for a body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it, but now often simply using it as a home base....
of troops communicate with other military units in the area which was still controlled mainly by the Sioux. In the winter of that same year, Bloody Knife set up a meeting with Captain Adams Bassett of Company C, Fourth U.S. Volunteer Infantry, letting him know that Gall had recently arrived near Fort Berthold. He told Bassett that Gall was not peaceful and had already killed white men along the Missouri River. Captain Bassett decided to send a lieutenant of his with a platoon and Bloody Knife to capture Gall or kill him if he would not surrender. Bloody Knife then led the group of soldiers to the Hunkpapa village, south of the fort where Gall was staying. The men attempted to arrest Gall upon arrival, but when he tried to escape he was bayoneted and forced to the ground. Gall then received two more stabs from bayonets while on the ground. Soon afterward Bloody Knife intended to shoot Gall in the head, but just as he was about to pull his trigger, the officer in command knocked his gun away from Gall's face and claimed he was already dead. Furious with the officer, the two exchanged heated words before leaving. Gall, however would survive the incident and go on to become a Sioux war chief.
In 1866 President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson was the 17th President of the United States . As Vice-President of the United States in 1865, he succeeded Abraham Lincoln following the latter's assassination. Johnson then presided over the initial and contentious Reconstruction era of the United States following the American...
authorized a force of Indian scouts with the signing of the Indian Scout Enlistment Act. In May 1868, Bloody Knife enlisted at Fort Stevenson
Fort Stevenson
Fort Stevenson was a frontier military fort in the 19th century in what was then Dakota Territory and what is now North Dakota. The fort was abandoned in 1883 with the sale of all buildings and property. In 1901 the lands encompassing the Fort Stevenson Military Reservation were sold to Black and...
with the U.S. Army's Indian scouts as a corporal
Corporal
Corporal is a rank in use in some form by most militaries and by some police forces or other uniformed organizations. It is usually equivalent to NATO Rank Code OR-4....
. Bloody Knife developed a serious alcohol addiction at this time which could have led to his desertion in September of that year. Later however in 1872, he was made a lance corporal
Lance Corporal
Lance corporal is a military rank, used by many armed forces worldwide, and also by some police forces and other uniformed organizations. It is below the rank of corporal, and is typically the lowest non-commissioned officer, usually equivalent to the NATO Rank Grade OR-3.- Etymology :The presumed...
. Aside from Fort Berthold, Bloody Knife served at several other forts such as Fort Buford, Fort Rice
Fort Rice
Fort Rice was a frontier military fort in the 19th century in what was then Dakota Territory and what is now North Dakota....
, and Fort Lincoln. In 1872, he was involved in the Yellowstone Expedition. The next year at Fort Rice he met George Armstrong Custer
George Armstrong Custer
George Armstrong Custer was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the Indian Wars. Raised in Michigan and Ohio, Custer was admitted to West Point in 1858, where he graduated last in his class...
for the first time. The two soon became friends and Custer admired Bloody Knife's talents as a scout. Though he is said to be have been insolent toward whites and ridiculed them, he often amused Custer by ridiculing his marksmanship. Custer occasionally gave him rewards such as a silver medal he had ordered for Bloody Knife in Washington with his name on. He would go on to become Custer's favorite scout very quickly. On the next Yellowstone Expedition, Bloody Knife joined Custer and fought a few battles with the Sioux. Bloody Knife helped to discover an abandoned Sioux village which he estimated to have held 1,000 warriors. The group ended up following the trail and led to a battle at the Yellowstone.
Black Hills Expedition
Geologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...
s, infantry, cavalry, two miners, several reporters, and sixty-five Arikara scouts. Just a short while before the expedition had begun, the Sioux had attacked the Arikara village at Fort Berthold. In total, five Arikaras and one Mandan died from the attack. One of Bloody Knife's sons was killed in the attack and another scout, known as Bear's Ears or Bear's Eye had a brother killed in the same attack. Bloody Knife blamed the death of his son on Gall. Many of the Arikara on the expedition were eager to avenge the attack and when signs of a Sioux band in the Black Hills were found they began to sing war songs and put war paint on their horses and themselves. Custer however, who was not interested in solving tribal feuds, ordered the scouts not to attack any Sioux unless fired upon first. Bloody Knife and twenty-five other Arikaras were then sent out for more scouting and found a small camp of five lodges. The scouts waited for Custer to arrive with Louis Agard, his interpreter, before taking any actions. Although some reports had suggested that thousands of warriors would be in the hills preparing to attack, and most of the soldiers and civilians thought that a fight would occur soon, the group Bloody Knife came across was made up of only twenty-seven Oglala Sioux
Oglala Lakota
The Oglala Lakota or Oglala Sioux are one of the seven subtribes of the Lakota people; along with the Nakota and Dakota, they make up the Great Sioux Nation. A majority of the Oglala live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the eighth-largest Native American reservation in the...
. This group of Sioux had been cutting lodgepoles and hunting in the Black Hills before intending to return to the Red Cloud Agency
Red Cloud Agency
The Red Cloud Agency was an Indian agency for the Oglala Lakota as well as the Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho, from 1871 to 1878. It was located at three different sites in Wyoming Territory , before being moved to South Dakota. It was then renamed the Pine Ridge Reservation.- Red Cloud Agency No...
, which was one hundred miles south of their location. The group had no knowledge of the soldiers in the area and all but one Oglala ran away when Agard and some of the scouts approached them.
During the expedition on August 7, Bloody Knife came across a grizzly bear
Grizzly Bear
The grizzly bear , also known as the silvertip bear, the grizzly, or the North American brown bear, is a subspecies of brown bear that generally lives in the uplands of western North America...
roughly seventy-five yards from where Custer was finding a campsite. Custer, having had a lifelong dream of killing a grizzly bear, shot the animal in the thigh with his Remington
Remington Arms
Remington Arms Company, Inc. was founded in 1816 by Eliphalet Remington in Ilion, New York, as E. Remington and Sons. It is the oldest company in the United States which still makes its original product, and is the oldest continuously operating manufacturer in North America. It is the only U.S....
rifle. Custer shot at the bear again and Bloody Knife and William Ludlow
William Ludlow
William Ludlow was an officer in the Corps of Engineers and a major general in the United States Army who served in the Civil War, Plains Indian Wars, the Spanish-American War, and led a scientific expedition examining the natural wonders of Yellowstone National Park.-Early life:Ludlow was born in...
helped bring it down. Bloody Knife put his knife into its jugular to make sure the grizzly had died. The bear was an old male with broken teeth, covered in scars, and was 800 pounds in weight. Though Custer would take credit for the kill, some believe that the fatal bullet was fired by Bloody Knife himself.
At one point during the Black Hills Expedition, several wagons became stuck at a bank
Bank (geography)
A geographic bank has four definitions and applications:# Limnology: The shoreline of a pond, swamp, estuary, reservoir, or lake. The grade can vary from vertical to a shallow slope....
. Custer asked whose fault it was for the stoppage and a scout named Charley Reynolds
Charley Reynolds
"Lonesome" Charley Reynolds was a scout in the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment who was killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in the Montana Territory. He was noted as an expert marksman, frontiersman and hunter. He had also been a scout with Buffalo Bill.-Biography:Charles Alexander Reynolds was...
blamed the incident on Bloody Knife. Custer drew out his revolver and fired a few shots in the direction of the two scouts. Bloody Knife and Reynolds took cover behind trees. Bloody Knife then came to Custer and stated, "It is not a good thing you have done to me; if I had been possessed of madness too, you would not see another day." Custer said in return, "My brother, it was the madness of the moment that made me do this, but it is now gone. Let us shake hands and be friends again." Bloody Knife eventually did agree and shook Custer's hand.
While most Indian scouts were making a sum of $13 a month (the same amount of pay the troops were receiving), Custer managed to get Bloody Knife a job with the quartermaster
Quartermaster
Quartermaster refers to two different military occupations depending on if the assigned unit is land based or naval.In land armies, especially US units, it is a term referring to either an individual soldier or a unit who specializes in distributing supplies and provisions to troops. The senior...
as a guide where he made $75 ($ at today's prices) per month.
On November 30 1874, Bloody Knife was discharged as a private and for his efforts in the Black Hills Expedition, he would receive an additional $
Dollar sign
The dollar or peso sign is a symbol primarily used to indicate the various peso and dollar units of currency around the world.- Origin :...
150 for what was called his "invaluable assistance".
The Battle of Little Bighorn and his death
He was with Custer during the Little Bighorn campaign in 1876 and repeatedly told Custer there were too many Indians to fight, a warning Custer ignored. Bloody Knife, in turn, ignored Custer's plea for him to stay out of the battle. By some accounts, before the battle began, Bloody Knife signaled to the sun with his hands, "I shall not see you go down behind the hills tonight."Bloody Knife was assigned to Major Marcus Reno
Marcus Reno
Marcus Albert Reno was a career military officer in the American Civil War and in the Black Hills War against the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne...
, who had a command of 140 soldiers, at the Battle of the Little Bighorn
Battle of the Little Bighorn
The Battle of the Little Bighorn, also known as Custer's Last Stand and, by the Indians involved, as the Battle of the Greasy Grass, was an armed engagement between combined forces of Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho people against the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army...
on June 25, 1876. During the battle, Custer had directed Bloody Knife, along with the other Arikara and Crow scouts, to drive off the herds of Indian ponies in the Sioux camp. After Reno and his men retreated into the timber near the river during an early part of the confrontation, Bloody Knife was killed by a gunshot to the head. He was mounted on his horse at the time and may have been hit with more than one bullet. Reportedly, he was standing next to Reno during this segment of the battle. Reno had motioned for Bloody Knife to come near him so he could ask him what the Indians would do when his command began to move away from their village when Bloody Knife was shot and his brains and blood splattered onto Reno's face. Reno was traumatized and began to panic. Reno then set in motion a series of frantic actions and many of his troopers would die as a result. Bloody Knife was one of three Arikara scouts assigned to Reno to die in the battle, the others being Little Brave (also known as Bear's Trail or Little Soldier) and Bobtail Bull. The battle would become a huge defeat for the U.S. Army.
Bloody Knife's corpse had been mutilated by the opposing Sioux. According to the testimony of Bloody Knife's sister, her daughters had found his body on the battlefield, unaware that it was the body of their uncle, cut off his head and brought it back to the Hunkpapa village. The head was put on a pole and displayed in the village. When she saw the head and recongnized it to be the head of her brother she was horried and according to David Humphreys Miller, an interviewer who talked with many of the participants and witnesses from the battle she cried out: "Gall has killed him at last!" However, other accounts of the story do not mention Gall and no historians have recorded how the sisters reacted when they discovered that it was the head of their uncle that they had brought back. Bloody Knife's body was buried on June 27 by Colonel John Gibbon
John Gibbon
John Gibbon was a career United States Army officer who fought in the American Civil War and the Indian Wars.-Early life:...
's troops on the battlefield. A scalp was found in an empty Sioux lodge by one of Gibbon's men and the Arikara identified it as the scalp of Bloody Knife due to the gray streaks in the hair.
Years after his death on April 14, 1879, Bloody Knife's widow, She Owl, arrived at Fort Berthold. She went to Thomas Ellis, an agent at the fort, stated she was "the sole and only legal representative of said Bloody Knife," and wished to receive money that was owed to him for his services. In 1881, she received $91.66 in wages from the United States government.
Personal life and legacy
Bloody Knife married an Arikara woman named She Owl (also known as Owl Woman) in 1866. From their time together they had several children. One of his sons was supposedly murdered by his own wife in 1904. His daughter passed away at a very young age and buried at Fort Buford. Her grave marker claims that she died on December 28, 1870 from disease.Following his death at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the remaining Arikara scouts composed a song in his honor. In the 1991 television mini-series Son of the Morning Star
Son of the Morning Star
Son of the Morning Star is a 1984 non-fiction book on the subject of George Armstrong Custer, with the subtitle 'Custer and the Little Bighorn'. A 1991 television film was based on the book. Both the book and the film chronicle the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the personalities involved, and the...
, Bloody Knife is portrayed by Sheldon Peters Wolfchild.