Book Review: "Washita: The U.S. Army and the Southern Cheyennes, 1867-1869"

Greene, Jerome A. Washita: The U.S. Army and the Southern Cheyennes, 1867-1869. Norman: Oklahoma University Press: 2004.

In Washita, Jerome Greene discusses several important topics related to the famous battle, which took place in late November 1868. The first of these topics is the political background for the events leading up to the battle. Following this, Greene introduces his readers to the military planning aspect of the battle. The final topic that Greene discusses is the actual battle and the aftermath. The manner in which Greene approaches the Battle of the Washita is not as simple as the three topics listed above. In many ways the army was responsible for creating the climate that led to the battle. Generals Hancock and Sheridan shared the desire to practice total war on the Indian tribes of Kansas, especially the Southern Cheyennes, for raids made on white settlements and transportation routes. Their views were contrary to what could be termed the congressional viewpoint as held by Senator James Doolittle of Wisconsin. Doolittle wanted only the perpetrators of the crimes to be held responsible by the United States; however, Doolittle’s peaceful intentions to the Cheyennes would be overshadowed much the same way that the Dog Soldiers in Black Kettle’s tribe ignored his desire for peace with the whites.

Washita begins with one of the most infamous massacres of the Great Plains, Sand Creek. This massacre is Greene’s jumping off point for his discussion of how the Battle of the Washita occurred almost four years later. According to Greene, Sand Creek took place out of a desire to punish the Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians of Eastern Colorado. At the time of this massacre the peace chiefs of the Southern Cheyenne tribe had persuaded most of their people to accept their view of peace on the Plains with the whites. The Dog Soldiers living among the Southern Cheyenne tribe believed in a policy of war toward the whites and following Sand Creek this segment of the tribe would be on the ascendancy. During the massacre at Sand Creek Colonel Chivington and members of the Third Colorado Volunteer Cavalry regiment killed approximately 150 Southern Cheyennes and Arapahos. Ironically, many of those Southern Cheyenne leaders killed at Sand Creek were some of the greatest advocates for peace and the impact on relations between their tribe and the United States government would be greatly impacted following their deaths.

The deaths of so many peace advocates led, as mentioned, to the ascendancy of the Dog Soldiers among the Southern Cheyennes. Greene’s discussion of the Dog Soldiers is not very detailed, but suffice it to say that they represented a separate tribe from the Southern and Northern tribes of the Cheyennes. Even in geographical terms the Dog Soldiers had laid claim to a separate territory from their Northern kin, along with members of the Southern Cheyennes, in the area between the South Platte and the Arkansas Rivers. The Dog Soldiers possessed a well-developed warrior complex and were composed of ethnic Cheyennes as well as Lakota peoples. The young warriors of the Dog Soldiers and the Southern Cheyennes would routinely fight members of the Kaw, Kiowa, and Kiowa-Apache tribes in Kansas and Indian Territory, out of a generations old tradition of proving themselves in combat and fixing territorial boundaries. In actuality, the reasons for such violent interactions on the Plains between warriors were much more complex than that brief description and the one provided in Washita; what is important to remember, and Greene points this out to his readers, is that intertribal conflicts upset the United States government immensely. When Indians went to war with each other, especially in a young western state like Kansas where many white settlers were present, there was a possibility for settlers becoming involved either by choice or chance. During the period examined by Greene, 1867-1869, the U.S. government and the governor of Kansas pursued a policy of forcing Indian tribes onto reservations to protect white settlements and migrants who were following transportation routes through Kansas.

This policy would eventually gain a large amount of support in Kansas following Indian raids by members of the Southern Cheyenne tribe and the Dog Soldiers on white settlements and other tribes. Once General Sheridan was appointed commander of the Division of the Missouri he kept records of Indian attacks on settlements in Kansas, which by the late summer of 1868 included 110 citizens killed and thousands of livestock stolen. With Indian agents seemingly unable to force the Southern Cheyennes and Arapahos onto the reservations established by the 1861 Treaty of Fort Wise, the 1865 Treaty of the Little Arkansas, and the 1867 Treaty of Medicine Lodge, several army expeditions were sent to punish them. Even those bands of the Southern Cheyenne that went to the reservation in Indian Territory were not safe from punishment, as Black Kettle’s people would discover on the morning of November 27, 1868 when they were attacked by Lieutenant Colonel Custer and the Seventh Cavalry. In their attempts at employing a policy of total war against the Southern Cheyenne the United States army killed between 130 and 150 men, women, and children in this battle.

Greene’s discussion of the Battle of the Washita is a superb relation of the action which took place. Greene utilized a wide variety of available primary sources and he synthesized relevant secondary materials found in larger, survey histories of the American West. The final account presented to the reader provides detailed troop movements, a map showing the supposed location of Black Kettle’s village, and eyewitness accounts of the fighting which took place. Greene also discusses the loss of Major Elliot who was cut off during the battle and surrounded by Indians and was later found dead with approximately 19 men. This is one of the most fascinating aspects of the Battle of the Washita, since the same thing would happen to Custer himself eight years later on the Little Bighorn River.

Following the Battle of the Washita there were two main impacts felt by the Southern Cheyenne tribe. The first was the loss of more skilled leaders such as Black Kettle and the loss of women and children. These human losses would force changes in the organization of the tribe’s structure, most notably among the surviving members of Black Kettle’s band. After the Battle of the Washita, Black Kettle’s band would cease to exist as an independent entity. The Southern Cheyenne also suffered catastrophic losses in terms of material goods, including horses, which were either seized by the army or destroyed. The loss of these goods forced many Indians to increasingly rely on handouts from Indian agents on reservations. For Custer and the army there would also be changes to face, especially in terms of the policy they had come to embrace during most of the late 1860s. Grant’s “peace policy” would replace the policy of total war against the Indians of the West. There were also many comparisons made by humanitarians in the East and by journalists between the Battle of the Washita and Sand Creek, a comparative view that many Americans today might also be able to see.

In terms of where this book fits into the historiography of the Indian Wars period, it can best be classified as belonging to the new western history movement that began during the 1960s. Greene takes an objective perspective in writing on such a sensitive topic as this one, which some classify as a massacre similar to Sand Creek. In discussing who is to blame for the events that led to this conflict Greene is careful to point out faults on the side of both Indians and whites. White citizens of Kansas were guilty due to their desire to see the Indians removed from their traditional homelands and placed on reservations, although Greene does explain that for the most part their motivations were rooted in genuine fears held by white citizens of Indian attacks. Indians, according to Greene, were guilty of making raids on white settlements; however, the raids were in response to the theft of Indian lands and therefore had their roots in a deep frustration held not only by the Cheyenne and Arapaho but also by many tribes of North America. The truly guilty party in Washita is the United States army and the policy makers of the 1860s. Men like Governor Evans of Colorado, Generals Hancock, Sherman, and Sheridan and Governor Crawford of Kansas are the focus of Greene’s study on policymakers who used their positions of power to force a conflict with the Indians.