Major General George Crook's Use Of Counterinsurgency Compound Warfare During The Great Sioux War Of 1876-77 by Major Wesley M. Pirkle

Author:Major Wesley M. Pirkle [Pirkle, Major Wesley M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781249372110
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: BiblioScholar
Published: 2012-09-13T00:00:00+00:00

Crook’s Application of a Counterinsurgency Compound Warfare Campaign at the Rosebud

Crook would receive a great deal of criticism and second-guessing in the press for his actions at the Rosebud. Crook had faced an Indian enemy of unprecedented strength and had survived to fight another day. While Crook had misread the intelligence concerning the location of a Sioux village, it is a testament to his judgment that he was prudent enough to listen to his scouts and understands his forces limitations.

Prior to the initiation of the campaign, Crook knew that his success would rely, in large part, to his ability to recruit able scouts. Intra-tribal scouts had been and would continue to prove a successful means of finding, fixing and defeating Indians. From the outset he specifically wanted to recruit Oglala Sioux from the Red Cloud Agency.

Crook set out to recruit Sioux scouts after receiving reports of the friendliness of the Oglala Sioux towards the United States and the general peace at the Red Cloud Agency. When he arrived there were no Indian Bureau personnel to meet him but Crook spoke with leaders within the tribe. According to Bourke’s account, Crook had convinced Sitting Bull of the South, Rocky Bear and Three Bears to enlist scouts for the expedition. Bourke also reports that, “when Agent Hastings returned there seemed to be a great change in the feelings of the Indians, and it was evident that he had done his best to set them against the idea of helping in the campaign.”{79}

The bad blood between Crook and Hastings went back to a seizure of weapons and ammunition that his troops had conducted earlier that year. Crook reminded Agent Hastings that he had attended the meeting in October of 1875 when President Grant had decided, with Secretary of the Interior Zachariah Chandler, to attack the Sioux who had not returned to their respective agencies. Agent Hastings seemed to view the Oglala Sioux at the Red Cloud Agency as peaceable, even when the facts would appear to prove otherwise. Evidence points to Hastings accepting Red Cloud’s statements that the Sioux leaving the reservation were merely conducting their summer hunting. Hastings would also be quoted on the 6th of June 1876 in the New York Times as saying

“From the best information, I can get not more than four hundred Cheyennes (sic) and four hundred Sioux have left the agency, including women and children. They belong to that part of my people who have been in the habit of going north every summer. The agency Indians are all quiet and show no hostile feeling. There is no foundation for the outrageous and false reports in circulation.”{80}

While there is no conclusive evidence, it is highly probable that Crook faced some of these Sioux and Cheyenne warriors at the Rosebud and Custer faced them at the Little Big Horn.

The merits of Hastings actions to keep the Sioux and Cheyenne out of the war are debatable, but the key issue was the failure of government agencies to work together towards a common purpose.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.