November 24, 2004
Yesterday
From the "The More Things Change" department: a brief look back at the United States' very first "Clash of Civilisations".
After thousands of rounds of ammunition had turned the air blue and thick with gunsmoke, 173 people lay dead, most still in their lodges. The soldiers then cut the bindings of the lodges, collapsing them, and burned them with the people still inside. They gathered up all the food, weapons, and supplies they could carry and rode off toward Fort Shaw, driving the band's horse herds before them.
Although the numbers became a matter of controversy, it is clear that most of the dead were women and children and old people. [Colonel E.M.] Baker, in his report of the incident, claimed that all but fifty-three were abled-bodied warriors, which even by army standards is an absurd body count. Most reports state that a great many of the able-bodied men were out hunting. The winter had already been cruel, many were hungry, and the hunters were out to get meat. Perhaps a more realistic breakdown of the dead was in a report submitted to his superiors by W.A. Pease, the Indian agent: Only fifteen of the dead Indians had been fighting men between the ages of twelve and thirty-seven, while ninety were women and fifty were children. One suspects that the rest of the dead were old people. -- James Welch, Killing Custer, p. 33
Happy Thanksgiving.
Posted by Eddie Tews at November 24, 2004 12:50 PM
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