Battle of Slim Buttes September 9~10, 1876
N 45° 32.625 W 103° 07.531
13T E 646333 N 5045065
Here the Oglala Chief American Horse was fatally wounded in a fierce two-day battle.
Waymark Code: WM1WZW
Location: South Dakota, United States
Date Posted: 07/23/2007
Views: 67
Following the disastrous battles of the Rosebud and the Little Big Horn (Custer) in Montana in June 1876, Crazy Horse and his band started to drift back to the agencies on the White and Missouri Rivers burning grass as they went.
Crook, Terry, and Miles started to hunt Indians, and were obliged to dispatch Captain Anson Mills to Deadwood with 150 men on the best horses for supplies on September 7, 1876. On September 8, Mills discovered a village on the eastern slope of the Slim Buttes and at dawn on the 9th attacked the teepees scattering the Indians.
After a six hour siege, with four warriors dead and the Chief fatally wounded, the Indians surrendered. That afternoon Crazy Horse made a show of force, but the balance of Crook's command came up and there was no battle. A great supply of valuable dried meat was captured, the village destroyed and on the 10th the command moved on to Deadwood on a diet of horse meat marking the end of the summer campaign.