White Man Runs Him (''Mahr-Itah-Thee-Dah-Ka-Roosh''; – June 2, 1929) was a Crow scout serving with

George Armstrong Custer George Armstrong Custer (December 5, 1839 – June 25, 1876) was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the American Indian Wars. Custer graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point ...

's 1876 expedition against the

Sioux The Sioux or Oceti Sakowin ( ; Dakota/ Lakota: ) are groups of Native American tribes and First Nations people from the Great Plains of North America. The Sioux have two major linguistic divisions: the Dakota and Lakota peoples (translati ...

and

Northern Cheyenne The Northern Cheyenne Tribe of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation () is the federally recognized Northern Cheyenne tribe and a Plains tribe. The Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation is reservation located in southeastern Montana, that is ...

that culminated in the

Battle of the Little Bighorn The Battle of the Little Bighorn, known to the Lakota people, Lakota and other Plains Indians as the Battle of the Greasy Grass, and commonly referred to as Custer's Last Stand, was an armed engagement between combined forces of the Lakota Si ...

Early life

Also known as ''White Buffalo That Turns Around'', he was born into the Big Lodge Clan of the

Crow Nation The Crow, whose autonym is Apsáalooke (), are Native Americans living primarily in southern Montana. Today, the Crow people have a federally recognized tribe, the Crow Tribe of Montana, with an Indian reservation, the Crow Indian Reservati ...

, the son of Bull Chief and Offers Her Red Cloth. At the age of about 18, he volunteered to serve as a scout with the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

on April 10, 1876, in its campaign against the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne, traditional enemies of the Crow.

Service as a scout

White Man Runs Him enlisted on April 10, 1876, at the Crow Agency, Montana Territory, for two months in the 7th US Infantry. On June 21, 1876, he was transferred to Custer's 7th US Cavalry as part of a contingent of six Crow warrior/scouts, including Goes Ahead, Curly, Hairy Moccasin, White Swan, and Half Yellow Face, the leader of the scouts. He scouted for Lieutenant Charles Varnum's column in the days preceding the battle. In the early morning hours of June 25, 1876, he and other Crow scouts accompanied Varnum and Custer to the Crow's Nest, a high point on the Little Bighorn/Rosebud Creek divide, from which the Little Bighorn Valley could be viewed at a distance of about seventeen air miles. The scouts could see indications of a large horse herd and the smoke of many morning fires, though the encampment was hidden from view on the valley floor. The Crow scouts advised Custer that the encampment was vast. Custer prepared to attack, however. Custer was concerned that during the morning of June 25, Sioux/Cheyenne warriors had detected the presence of his 650-man force, and if he did not promptly attack, the villagers would scatter, thus denying the army the confrontation it sought with the Sioux/Cheyenne forces. According to White Man Runs Him's accounts, after sending Major

Marcus Reno Marcus Albert Reno (November 15, 1834 – March 30, 1889) was a United States career military officer. He served in the American Civil War where he was a combatant in major battles, and later under George Armstrong Custer in the Great Sioux War a ...

's column to attack the settlement first, Custer headed down Medicine Trail Creek to engage the Sioux and Cheyenne. White Man Runs Him recounts that he and the other Crow scouts intended to follow Custer down into battle but that their chief scout, Mitch Boyer, ordered them to rejoin the pack train instead. Another, more colorful version of the story relates that the Crow scouts were convinced they were about to die in battle against such a large force of Sioux, so they took off their uniforms and donned Crow war clothing. When Custer demanded to know why, they responded that they wished to die as warriors rather than soldiers. Custer was angered by what he perceived as

fatalism Fatalism is a belief and philosophical doctrine which considers the entire universe as a deterministic system and stresses the subjugation of all events, actions, and behaviors to fate or destiny, which is commonly associated with the cons ...

and relieved them from further service about an hour before engaging in the final battle. White Man Runs Him retired to a ridge along with Goes Ahead, Hairy Moccasin, and Strikes That Bear (an Arikara scout) to join Major Reno. They were engaged briefly in battle but survived the engagement. He then joined Colonel

John Gibbon John Gibbon (April 20, 1827 – February 6, 1896) was a career United States Army officer who fought in the American Civil War and the Indian Wars. Early life Gibbon was born in the Holmesburg, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Holmesburg section ...

's column.

Later life

After the battle, he lived on the Crow reservation near Lodge Grass, Montana. He was the stepgrandfather of Joe Medicine Crow, a Crow tribal historian who used his grandfather's stories as a basis for his later histories of the battle, and grandfather to Pauline Small, the first woman elected to office in the Crow Tribe of Montana. His status as a Little Big Horn survivor made him a minor celebrity late in life, and he even made a

cameo appearance A cameo appearance, also called a cameo role and often shortened to just cameo (), is a brief guest appearance of a well-known person or character in a work of the performing arts. These roles are generally small, many of them non-speaking on ...

in the 1927

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood ...

movie '' The Red Raiders''. White Man Runs Him lived the remainder of his life on the Crow Reservation in the Big Horn Valley region of

Montana Montana ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota to the east, South Dakota to the southeast, Wyoming to the south, an ...

, just a few miles from the site of the famous battle. He died there in 1929.

Legacy

White Man Runs Him was buried in the cemetery at the Little Big Horn Battlefield. His account of the battle is told in the work "The Custer Myth" by C. Graham, on pages 20 to 24," and also in ''It Is a Good Day to Die: Indian Eyewitnesses Tell the Story of the Battle of the Little Bighorn''. A

slough Slough () is a town in Berkshire, England, in the Thames Valley, west of central London and north-east of Reading, at the intersection of the M4, M40 and M25 motorways. It is part of the historic county of Buckinghamshire. In 2021, the ...

near Lodge Grass, Montana, is known as Baaishtashíilinkuluush Alaaxúa ("Where Whiteman Runs Him Hid"). A coulee, Baaishtashíilinkuluush Isalasáh te, which is named after him, is also known as "Whiteman's Creek".

References

* Harcey, Dennis; Croone, Brian R. White-Man-Runs-Him. Evanston Pub., Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.A., 1995. ()

External links

Photo of White Man Runs Him
The West, PBS
Photo of White Man Runs Him
from Custer's Last Fight: Remembered by Participants at the Tenth Anniversary June 25, 1886, and the Fiftieth Anniversary June 25, 1926, by Richard Upton {{DEFAULTSORT:White Man Runs Him 1850s births 1929 deaths Crow tribe People of the Great Sioux War of 1876 Native American United States military personnel People from pre-statehood Montana United States Army Indian Scouts Battle of the Little Bighorn People from Lodge Grass, Montana