French MacLean

I am trying to determine names of warriors who may have fought there and later at  the LBH in 1876.  So far, I have the following names linked to the 1874  fighting…some are tenuous links, others can pretty accurately be demonstrated,  but I need anyone’s expertise here.  If you can confirm their presence in 1874 or if you know of other warriors that were there, please let me know their names and pertinent information:

Black Twin/Holy Eagle (Wakan) – Bad Face band/Oglala/Lakota

Braided Locks/Wrapped Braids – Northern Cheyenne

Crazy Horse (Tȟašúŋke Witkó) – Hunkpatila band/Oglala/Lakota

Eagle Elk (Wanbdi Herake)† – Oyuhpe band/Oglala/Lakota

Flying By/Struck/Struck Plenty (Keya Heyi) – Minneconjou/Lakota

Gall (Pizí) – Hunkpapa/Lakota

Good Weasel (Hitunkasan Waste)† – Bad Face band/Oglala/Lakota

Gray Earth Tracking/Sounds-the-Ground-When-He-Walks/Noisy Walking (Wahpekute) – Santee/ Lakota

High Bear (Sunka Mato) – Oglala/Lakota

Hump (Etokeah) – Minneconjou/Lakota

Inkpaduta/Red-End-of-Horn (He-inkpa-luta) – Santee/Lakota  

Iron Thunder (Wakiyan Maza) – Minneconjou/Lakota

Kicking Bear (Matȟó Wanáȟtake)† – Oyuhpe band/Oglala/Lakota

Little Killer (Ciqa Wicakte)† – Bad Face band/Oglala/Lakota

Little Wolf/Little Coyote (Ó’kôhómôxháahketa) # – Northern Cheyenne

Looking Horse† – Minneconjou/Lakota

Low Dog (Sunka Kyciyela)† – Oyuhpe band/Oglala/Lakota

Makes Room (Kiyukanpi) – Minneconjou/Lakota

Morning Star (Vóóhéhéve); Lakota name Dull Knife (Tamílapéšni)# – Northern Cheyenne

No Flesh – Oglala/Lakota

Red Hawk (Cetan Luta) – Minneconjou/Lakota

Shell Boy (Pankeska Hoksila)† – Oyuhpe band/Oglala/Lakota

Shell Necklace (Pankeska Napin) – Oglala/Lakota

Shoot the Bear (Mato Kutepi) – Hunkpapa/Lakota

Short Bull (Tȟatȟaŋka Ptecela)† – Bad Face band/Oglala/Lakota

Sitting Bull (Tȟatȟaŋka Iyotȟaŋka) – Hunkpapa/Lakota

Touch the Clouds (Maȟpíya Ičáȟtagya)# – Minneconjou/Lakota

White Earth Tracking (Oyemakasan) – Santee/Lakota

White Twin – Bad Face band/Oglala/Lakota

# inferred from Lakota oral tradition by Donovin A. Sprague Hump

+ inferred from membership in Hokší Hakákta, Last-Born Child Society

Red Hawk

Brigadier General Lester S. Willson

In 1874, William D. Cameron, a Civil War veteran, assumed command of the Big Horn Gun for the expedition.  He determined that what was needed was shrapnel filled projectiles, although in the Montana Territory there were probably none to be found.  Using his imagination, he discovered several cases of canned oysters in the Tuller, Rich and Willson General Store, owned by Lester S. Willson.  However, Lester S. Willson was no ordinary shopkeeper, not by a long shot.

Born in Canton, New York, on June 16, 1839, Willson enlisted in the Union Army in 1861, rising through the ranks in the Sixtieth New York Volunteers to become a colonel by 1865.  During the war, he fought at Antietam, was severely wounded at Chancellorsville, and fought at Lookout Mountain, Atlanta and Savannah.  Colonel Wilson received the surrender Savannah from Mayor Arnold and was the first officer to enter that city at the head of his own regiment.  Two years after the war, he received a brevet promotion to Brigadier General “for gallant and meritorious services under General Sherman, resulting in the fall of Atlanta, Georgia.  After the war, he traveled to Montana, where he became a prominent businessman and politician.  When Cameron told him what he needed, Willson knew just what the doctor ordered.

Cameron and Willson donated the oysters to the general public and filled the empty cans with nails, cut-up horse shoes and scrap iron.  They cut the tops of the cans – which were about eight inches tall – to form metal tabs around the edge and after the original lids were put back into place, crimped the tabs in place.  The pair also found a ream of blue flannel which the cut and sewed into powder charge bags.  Ten inches long and filled with black powder, the charge bags formed a snug fit, when rammed down the muzzle of the cannon, and ensured that the shrapnel canisters would fly a long way.

Each afternoon that the wagon train was on the move, Frank Grounds would personally select a campsite on high ground, with no higher terrain in the vicinity from which warriors snipers could fire down into the camp.  Each site was large enough for the men to place all the wagons in an oval and chain them together.  At dusk, the frontiersmen would drive all the livestock into the center of this oval, as if these animals were killed or driven off, disaster would follow.  In many places, this center position for the livestock was in a slight possession, where the animals could be corralled.

When the wagon train was halted for the night, Joe Cook stated that the men would dig a trench about two feet wide and two feet deep on both sides of the corral for breastworks for the protection of the pickets.  They would then dig holes out from two to three hundred yards from the camp.  Each man cut a “head log” from eight to ten inches in diameter and about three feet long.  They would lay these on the embankments and dig small post holes under the logs, so that the Indians could not shoot them in the head, while the frontiersmen were shooting.  Whenever any of these pickets fired a shot, all the others would come into camp as soon as possible.

Sharps Model 1874 .50 caliber

At the apex of buffalo hunting (1870-1884,) the Sharps rifle was a favorite among many buffalo hunters, because of its accuracy at long range.  Other rifles were available, such as the Ballard, the Springfield 1873 and the Remington Rolling Block, but the vast majority of frontiersmen who needed a large caliber rifle opted for the Sharps.  The company itself – the Sharps Rifle Manufacturing Company of Hartford, Connecticut – called the rifle, “Old Reliable.”  Buffalo hunters called it, “poison slinger.”  Historians have come to call it, “The gun that shaped American destiny.”   The original Sharps Model 1874 was actually introduced in 1871, but the model number was changed in 1874, when new owners purchased the company.  Reorganized as the Sharps Rifle Company, the business moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1876.  The change may have been intended to show prospective purchasers of Sharps rifles that the company had something new to offer.

What set the Sharps apart from other large-caliber rifles was the ammunition for which it was chambered.  The Sharps action was inherently strong and could withstand chamber pressures that would seriously damage other rifles.  One of the largest of these was the .50-170-700.  The most widely-used caliber for the buffalo hunters probably was the .50-90, basically a lengthened .50-70.  Another extremely popular cartridge was the .44-90, in essence a necked down .50-90 firing a 520 grain bullet.  Some hunters believed that with properly adjusted telescopic sights they could hit anything they aimed at up to 1,000 yards.  At these ranges, some experts believed the .45-125-550 was the ideal load.  As most plains buffalo hunters reloaded their ammunition with varying amounts of black powder to save money, cartridges like the .50-90 were not always referred to as such.  For this reason, Sharps (and ammunition-makers) referred to the standard cartridges by caliber and case length with most Sharps rifles marked as such.  The .50-90, for example, was designated .50-2½.   Many cartridges for Sharps rifles were bottlenecked; ones which were not included the .45-70, the .50-70 and the .50-90.  Before the expedition, Sharps Model 1874 rifles were chambered for the following cartridges and thus it would have been possible for these caliber Sharps to have been present: the .40-90 Bottleneck (2 5/8”) using 265 to 370 grain bullets, .the 44-77 Bottleneck (2 1/4”) with 380 or 405 grain bullets, the .44-90 Sharps Bottleneck (2 5/8”) with 450 or 500 grain bullets, the .50-70 Government (1 3/4”) with 425 to 500 grain bullets and .50-90 Sharps (2 1/2”) firing 425 or 473 grain bullets.  Many .50-70 Government cartridges were found by Don Weibert during his lengthy research on the positions along the expedition’s route.  However, this does not mean the other caliber Sharps Model 1874s were not there, as almost all buffalo hunters reloaded their ammunition and would have saved all their expended cartridges.