Crook resumed his march at 6 a.m. on June 17th. Headed by the cavalry, his column, following the Rosebud, marched with companies, closed up, expecting an imminent ambush.

At 8 a.m., Crook called a halt to water the horses, and threw out pickets to the north. The column had halted in a natural amphitheatre, flanked by lines of bluffs on either bank of the creek. Beyond the bluffs on the north side of the Rosebud, and about a mile away, was an irregular ridge.

Crook's men bivouacked, in their line of march, on both sides of the creek. On the northern bank was the battalion of five companies of 2nd Cavalry commanded by Captain Henry Noyes, followed by two companies of the 3rd led by Captain Frederick Van VIiet. Beyond these were five companies of infantry then further to the west the mule packers and some Indians. On the south side of the Rosebud were the 3rd Cavalry battalions commanded by Captains Anson Mills and Guy V. Henry.

Crook was evidently not expecting an imminent attack, and his men had dismounted and were relaxing when, at about 8-30 a.m., shots were heard, and some Crow scouts appeared galloping down the slopes of the ridge, waving their rifles and yelling "Lakota! Lakota!". Already a mass of warriors were rushing up the valley, driving back Crook's pickets from the bluffs. More Indians began to appear on the crest of the ridge to the north and the west, and opened fire on the soldiers.

They charged directly at Crook's men; mounted warriors "dashed here, there, everywhere, up and down in ceaseless activity; their gaudy decorations, waving plumes and glittering arms, forming a panoramic view of barbaric splendor". The Sioux were countercharged by the Indian auxiliaries under Captain Randall, and for about 20 minutes confused hand-to-hand fighting ensued, with the soldiers unable to open fire without hitting their own side. Then Captain Mills was ordered to counter-attack against the bluffs in the centre with four companies of the 3rd Cavalry.

Meanwhile Crook and his second-in-command, Colonel Evans, were deploying the remainder of their forces. Captain Van Viiet and his cavalry companies were sent to guard Crook's rear by occupying the bluffs to the south, whilst Companies G and H of the 9th Infantry were despatched to hold the low bluffs to the north. Four companies of 2nd Cavalry were dismounted to form a skirmishing line in support of Mill's attack. They deployed behind a low ridge, and drove back the attacking Indians. Their line was extended by C, D, E, and F Companies of 4th Infantry, which advanced to the crest of a plateau from where they could see a mass of warriors below them.

Meanwhile Mills launched his attack in column of companies. A participant wrote: "We went like a storm, and the Indians waited for us until we were within fifty paces. We were going too rapidly to use our carbines, but several of our men fired their revolvers." The Indians, crouched behind rocks, replied with rifle fire, with some individual warriors launching bold charges against isolated soldiers, one or two of whom were reputedly scalped.

The main Sioux force fell back to the crest of the ridge, Mills writing that: "The Indians proved then and there that they were the best cavalry soldiers on earth. In charging up towards us they exposed little of their person, hanging on with one arm around the neck and one leg over the horse, firing and lancing from underneath the horse's neck, so that there was no part of the Indian at which we could aim."

As Mills reached the crest of the ridge, the 2nd Cavalry to his left also pushed forward. The Army horses were terrified by the yelling and appearance of the Indians, so Mills dismounted his men and positioned them behind rocks. He wrote: "Their [the Sioux] shouting and appearance was so hideous that it terrified the horses more than our men and rendered them almost uncontrollable before we dismounted and placed them behind the rocks. The Indians came not in a line but in flocks or herds like the buffalo, and they piled in upon us until I think there must have been one thousand or fifteen hundred in our immediate front, but they refused to fight when they found us secured behind the rocks, and bore off to our left..." Here, to the west, were Henry and Royall's men and some Crow and Shoshone. The Sioux moved round the flank of the "friendlies" just as three companies of infantry came up in their rear. The hostiles' target was the cavalry horses which had been moved back to the rear, but they were in effect ambushed by the infantry and some dismounted cavalry positioned on the bluffs. Waiting until the enemy were within 150 yards, they opened fire. Some of the Sioux recoiled back up the ridge to join the force engaged with Mills, whilst others pressed on round the left of the infantry.

Rosebud is a difficult battle to reconstruct, largely because the Indians had no clear overall strategy; their tactics were basically opportunistic; they aimed to attack enemy weak spots and isolated bodies of troops whereever they found them. If there was any overall leadership at all it was provided by Crazy Horse, though his influence was fairly limited.

As the attackers pressed around the left flank of the friendly Indians and the infantry, Colonel Evans ordered Captain Henry to detach two cavalry companies (D and F) to the south side of the creek in order to hold a low ridge about 500 yards to the west. With the position apparently stabilised, the advance to the north was renewed by Mills, and Henry's two remaining companies under Lieutenant-Colonel Royall moved forward in a flanking move from the south-east.

The Sioux again broke, and withdrew to a hill (later to be called Crook's Hill), from which they continued to fire on the American forces. Crook ordered Mills, with his own battalion and two of Henry's to take this position, and once again the Sioux fell back, this time to a conical hill about 1,200 yards to the north. Meanwhile Royall took his three companies against a Sioux force on a lower ridge lying south-west across Kollmar Creek, parallel to the main ridge. The Sioux here fell back to the west, and Royall pressed on after them, with the result that his force began to become over-extended. He was separated from Crook's main force, about a mile to the east, by a canyon, and becoming increasingly vulnerable.

Thus by about 10-30 a.m, three distinctive battles were going on; Royall in the west was encountering increasing difficulties, Crook was consolidating on Crook's Hill with Mills and Noyes' men, whilst Van Vliet was well away to the south occupying the equivalent of the rear.

Crook now ordered Burt and Burrowe's infantry companies (G and H) to go to the support of Royall, but they were too entangled in the fighting around the conical hill to begin their move until about 12-30 p.m. Royall was also instructed to move back closer to the main line, but he sent only Meinhold's company, and his departure forced Royall to extend his forces still further.

Crook now prepared to resume his own offensive; the Shoshone were placed on the left, on the southern slopes of Crook Hill, with the Crow in reserve. The packers and the 50 Miontana miners, the latter armed with Sharp sporting rifles, were positioned on a rocky shelf about 400 yards west of Crook's centre. Crook believed that the Indian encampment which was his objective lay about 6 to 8 miles to the north, and ordered Captain Mills to take three companies of cavalry to move along a canyon, ignoring the Sioux forces, in order to take the village, which he was then to hold until Crook's main force came up.

The Sioux believed that Mills' move signalled the beginning of an American withdrawal, and reacted by launching a renewed charge from the north and west against the centre of Crook's position. One party galloped through the gap between Royall's men and Van Vliet's force occupying the southern bluffs, and briefly captured some horses, before being driven off by fire from Van VIiet's troops.

A cavalry platoon under Lieutenant Bourke and some Shoshone, supported by Randall's Crow on the left, counterattacked. Once more, the troops were unable to fire as the rival forces of Indians engaged in handtohand combat, which ended with the Sioux, having suffered and inflicted few casualties, withdrawing to the west. The Shoshone dismounted and fired at them, whilst Bourke and his men went in pursuit, but had to be extricated by the Crow when the enemy made a sudden charge.

At about 11 a.m., Crook ordered three infantry companies to advance in skirmish order in order to take the conical hill. Royall in the interim was trying to regain touch with the main force by retreating on foot in a south-westerly direction towards the next ridge on the south side of Kollmar Creek. He came under heavy fire, and direct attacks. Lieutenant Vroom's Company which was being used to hold the crest of a ridge covering the retreat, was surrounded, and Vroom and his men prepared to make a last ditch stand. They were extricated by the rest of Royall's men, who in turn were supported by the Shoshone, Crow and Burt and Burrowe's infantry companies who were at last coming up from the centre. Fierce fighting continued; Captain Henry was badly wounded, and narrowly rescued from the onrushing Sioux by some of the Crow.

The Indian auxiliaries continued to cover Royall's withdrawal as he cut his way through some parties of Sioux and eventually succeeded in rejoining Crook. Even at this stage, the vulnerability of the American position was underlined when a party of the enemy with impunity made a complete circuit of Crook's position.

At last realising his peril, Crook hastily recalled Mills and his men. On their return march Mills and his men made a wide circuit in order to avoid any enemy ambush, and were mistaken by the Sioux for a fresh enemy force coming to Crook's aid. The Indians in any case felt that they had frustrated Crook's attack on their camp and achieved enough; furthermore , as one of them later put it: "they were tired and hungry, so they went home." They may also have been running short of ammunition. By 2-30 p.m., fighting had come to an end.

Though Crook's men had fired some 25,000 rounds in the course of the battle, they appear to have inflicted relatively light casualties. Crazy Horse seems to have lost in the region of 36 dead and 63 wounded. Crook was vague regarding his own butcher's bill. He admitted to losing 9 dead and about 21 wounded, but casualties may actually have been higher.

After burying his dead, Crook withdrew to his base camp at Goose Creek. His Indian auxiliaries made off on the 19th, the same day that Crook's force arrived back at Goose Creek. From here, he "made very brief reports of the fighting, having little pride in our accomplishment." Though Crook endeavoured to claim a victory, in reality his force had only narrowly escaped disaster. Further offensive operations were for the moment abandoned, whilst the Indians were greatly encouraged by their victory over "Grey Fox", and prepared with renewed confidence to meet the threat presented by the remaining U.S. forces, most immediately the column led by General George Armstrong Custer.

More Crook Versus Crazy Horse

The Campaign
The Battle
Wargaming the Rosebud

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