War on the American Plains

Few periods in American history have been more romanticized in popular culture than the Indian Wars on the Western Plains in the second half of the 19th Century. For many Civil War heroes - Sherman, Sheridan, Hancock, and most famously Custer, among others - it was a continuation of their military careers, but under radically different circumstances. For their Indian foes - Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe - it was a war for survival they ultimately had no chance of winning.

In the black and white Western films of the early 20th Century, the American cavalryman was depicted as a dashing and morally upright hero, tasked with fending off swarming hordes of 'wild' Indians. A century later, pop culture prefers to depict the Plains Indian as a noble mystic, at one with nature and driven to fight against the rapacious greed of the white man.

As is often the case in history, the reality was very different than both of these cultural depictions. Though there is no denying that war on the Western Plains was certainly 'wild', and bore witness to incidents of casual brutality that chilled the blood of Civil War veterans.

Indian tribes and bands had been wandering the Plains for thousands of years, waging war on one another. These conflicts were typical of those found in tribal cultures. Most were raids, focusing on capturing material goods or humiliating foemen. The violence itself, though sometimes vicious in its intensity, was minimal. Non-fatal displays of martial prowess, such as 'counting coup' with lances, was common.

By the time of the American Civil War (1861-1865) the tribes of the Plains had been in extensive contact with whites, and many were well-equipped with firearms. Veterans of the Indian Wars claimed that virtually every Indian warrior they faced had a pistol; many others used rifles and carbines and some even wielded sabers and cavalry banners. Some mocked white soldiers by shouting profanity in English and blowing on captured military trumpets.

The Indians were adept at terror tactics and guerilla warfare. Initially their covert style of warfare inspired amusement and contempt in soldiers that had recently been sent to the Plains, but their foes in the Army learned to appreciate their methods. Pitched battles such as the Little Bighorn were a rarity. Most encounters were small - the most typical scenario involved a party of several soldiers or civilians being ambushed by a party of a few dozen young braves.

Veteran American soldiers on the Plains always cautioned green recruits to 'save the last bullet for yourself'. During the Fetterman Fight and the Little Bighorn, the last surviving white officers appear to have shot each other rather than risk being taken alive. Men who were captured, or found wounded on the field of battle were usually tortured to death with hideous cruelty. A common sight on the Plains in the 1860s and 1870s was the corpse of a white soldier or settler, missing its scalp, with deep gashes across its throat, chest, and thighs. The nose, fingers, toes, eyes, and genitalia might also be missing.

After the Civil War, white America was thoroughly disenchanted with warfare, particularly far-flung 'small wars' of empire on the Western frontier. The military was commonly mocked and criticized in the Eastern media, while former abolitionists now turned their focus to the 'Indian Problem'. The military and the settler population of the West were offended by the Eastern sympathy with the 'noble red man', their views jaded by personal experience with the gruesome and thankless nature of Plains warfare.

As with many human conflicts, both sides commited atrocities. It would be unfair to overlook the unprovoked attacks and heinous tortures inflicted by Indian warriors on their new white neighbors, but it would be just as unfair to overlook the fact that the sanctity of their lands and identities were not being respected by a growing population of white settlers. At a council with white officers, one Indian chief recommended that the whites 'put all the Indians on wheels' so it would be easier to push them to the most remote corners of the country.

In the mid-late 19th Century, America was rapidly fulfilling its 'Manifest Destiny', steamrolling over the vastly out-numbered and under-organized Indian opposition. The Indians themselves had no hope of any long-term resistance against this inevitable process. Neither society understood the other, and few on either side even tried. Though its loss of life was minimal (compared to the Civil War that preceded it), the Indian Wars of the 1860s and 1870s were an ugly, tragic, and indeed, 'wild' chapter in America's history.