: The Dull Knife Battle, 1876

The fact of the case is the operations of Generals Terry and Crook will not bear criticism, and my only thought has been to let them sleep. I approved what was done, for the sake of the troops, but in doing so, I was not approving much, as you know.

—Lieutenant General Philip H. Sheridan

(to General Wm. T. Sherman)

The [Battle of Cedar Creek] was no more bloody or decisive than the fight with Otis a week earlier, but it afforded Miles the chance to maneuver an entire regiment and laid the groundwork for much self-congratulation.

—Robert M. Utley

The Lance and the Shield

The encounter [at Cedar Creek] between the colonel [Miles] and chief [Sitting Bull] is one of the most striking episodes in the Indian Wars. It is as replete with imperious demands and arrogant challenges to combat as any knightly tale …

—Fairfax Downey

Indian Fighting Army

Neither the wild tribes, nor the Government Indian Scouts ever adopted any of the white soldiers’ tactics. They thought their own much better.

—Captain Luther H. North

Pawnee Battalion

The noble red man is not a fool. He is a cunning nomad, who hates civilization, and knows how to get all out of it that pleases him—whiskey, tobacco, rations and blankets, idleness in peace and a rattling fight whenever he is ready for it. And when he is beaten he returns to the arms of his guardians on the reservation, bringing his store of white scalps with him as pleasing memorials of the good time he had.

It is time to stop all that. The continent is getting too crowded.

—Editorial

New York Herald

This expedition was one of the best equipped that ever started on an Indian campaign … [The Cheyenne] were foemen worthy of Mackenzie’s or anybody else’s steel. The battle which ensued was in some respects one of the most terrible in Western history, and in its results exemplified, as few others have done, the horrible character of war.

—Cyrus Townsend Brady

Indian Fights and Fighters

Never again would Northern Cheyenne material culture reach the heights of richness and splendor that the people knew before that bitter day in the Big Horns.

—Peter J. Powell

Sweet Medicine