Distinctly Montana Magazine

54 D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A M A G A Z I N E • S U M M E R 2 0 2 5 selves. Those actions provided incontrovertible evidence of the rider's courage and, arguably, the strength of his war med- icine. Crazy Horse, the great mystic warrior of the Oglalas, was particularly renowned for this practice. Baptiste ("Big Bat") Pourier, a respected guide and interpret- er, witnessed one of Crazy Horse's bravery runs during this bat- tle. Pourier had known Crazy Horse since at least the early 1870s and stated that he was "as fine an Indian as he ever knew," so the credibility of his observations is beyond reproach. According to Pourier, he saw "Crazy Horse at the Rosebud Creek charge straight into Crook's army, and it seemed every soldier and Indi- an we had with us took a shot at him and they couldn't even hit his horse." For Northern Cheyennes, one incident has always defined their experience in this engagement. Unscathed by previous bravery runs that he made in the Gap, Comes in Sight was sud- denly unhorsed, when his mount somersaulted, one hind leg shattered by a bullet. His sister, Buffalo Calf Road Woman, did not hesitate to ride straight into the teeth of enemy fire and res- cue Comes in Sight from what would have been almost certain death. To this day, Cheyenne oral tradition commemorates the Rosebud fight as the battle "Where the Girl Saved Her Brother." Eight days later, at the Little Bighorn, she distinguished her- self once again, when she used her revolver to engage Seventh Cavalry soldiers in a sustained exchange of gunfire. The saga of Buffalo Calf Road Woman did not end at the Greasy Grass. She survived General Randall MacKenzie's attack on Novem- ber 25, 1876, which destroyed the Northern Cheyenne village locat- ed on the Red Fork of the Powder River. She also endured the forced relocation of her people to Indian Territory in 1877 and, the follow- ing year, their heroic exodus and return to Montana. Sadly, this mother of two died from diphtheria in May 1879, at Fort Keogh, prior to her thirtieth birthday. In the final analysis, Rosebud was, at minimum, a strategic loss for Crook. Plenty Coups, however, recounted his experiences in this engagement to Frank Linderman and offered a much blunt- er assessment: "Three-stars was whipped! And as Washakie and I were with him, we all got whipped good on the Rosebud." After the Great Sioux War of 1876-1877 concluded, the area encompassed by the Rosebud battlefield was eventually opened to homesteading. Site ownership passed through the hands of several ranching families until Elmer "Slim" Kobold champi- oned its preservation as a state park. That objective was fulfilled in 1978, when the state of Montana acquired 3,052 acres of the Kobold ranch. Subsequent management practices restored the viewshed to one that Jerome Greene et al. (2003) describe as "unspoiled and unparalleled [among] Great Sioux War battle- field[s]." Rosebud Battlefield State Park is located approximately 20 miles east of present-day Lodge Grass, Montana, and 15 miles north of the Wyoming border. To visit the park, take U.S. 212 east from Crow Agency for 25 miles, then follow State Route 314 south for 20 miles and, finally, the park access road west for three miles. TO THIS DAY, CHEYENNE ORAL TRADITION COMMEMORATES THE ROSEBUD FIGHT AS THE BATTLE 'WHERE THE GIRL SAVED HER BROTHER.'

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