Most Americans know of Crazy Horse’s reputation as a fierce combatant, but a close study of his character by the Lakota historian Joseph M. Marshall III over the last three decades suggests that this legendary warrior, who almost always outwitted his opponents, was a surprisingly humble man. He was an introvert prone to low moods and self-doubt, who dressed plainly and shied away from social gatherings and did not participate in the Lakota ritual waktoglakapi, in which warriors recounted their exploits. Such reticence makes him something of an elusive figure, for all his fame. Indeed, he sometimes seemed to think that he was good at little else besides warfare, as Marshall found by collecting oral histories and scouring archives. Oglalas considered him a great general, but he never donned the war bonnet, the honorific feathered headgear worn by military leaders, which he would have deserved many times over.
Intense fighting over the northern Great Plains solidified Crazy Horse’s position, along with his compatriot Red Cloud, as first among the Oglalas’ military leaders. Pious, generous with his possessions and brave in battle, Crazy Horse embodied the Lakota warrior ethos. A keen analytical observer, Crazy Horse saw how the Lakota world was rapidly changing and dedicated his life to helping Lakotas preserve their sovereignty and traditional way of living. The bison hide trade with the Americans was booming, and the Lakotas emerged as the dominant power in the heart of the continent, in the Black Hills or Paha Sapa, their mythical birthplace. Around the turn of the 20th century, Short Feather, an Oglala elder, told an American anthropologist that Oglalas of Crazy Horse’s period had been “more like the Great Spirits than any other of mankind.”
But despite a lucrative trading arrangement, the relations with Americans soon deteriorated. American settlers were already pushing into the west along the Oregon Trail, disturbing bison herds, polluting streams, spreading deadly germs and killing Indians. When gold was discovered in the Black Hills, full-blown war was inevitable.
By the mid-1870s, Crazy Horse had been fighting for more than a decade for the Oglalas and the Lakota Nation. He had blocked railroad surveys, killed invading settlers and inspired his fellow warriors in the Battle of Red Buttes, the Fetterman Fight, the Wagon Box Fight and many other hostile encounters with the U.S. Army. In these confrontations, Crazy Horse designed big, idiosyncratic maneuvers using decoys and counterintuitive battle plans that confused soldiers, securing years of relative safety for his people.