Washita Attack

We have just passed the 140th anniversary of the Washita massacre.

The attack at the Washita was an attack upon a predominantly peaceful village. It may have contained a few warriors who had been involved in the recent depredations, but the majority of the village was innocent.

Black Kettle (who was over seventy years of age when he was killed at the Washita) wanted peace. When talking about Cheyenne raids carried out earlier in 1868, he said "I have always done my best to keep my young men quiet, but some will not listen... But we all want peace... I cannot speak [for] nor control the Cheyennes north of the Arkansas".

His fellow Chief, Little Rock (also killed at the Washita) said that "another small party [of the warriors who had carried out the 1868 attacks - not the whole war party] returned to Black Kettle's village".

Little Rock went on to say "I do not wish to be at war with the whites, and there are many of my nation who feel as I do, and who are in no way guilty, and do not wish to be punished for the bad acts of those who are guilty".

Following on from Little Rock’s comments, it is clear that the majority involved in the depredations actually went unpunished. To that extent, the attack was not only a travesty, but it failed to target those whom Sheridan and Custer allegedly wanted to punish.

Good online resources relating to the Washita include:

http://home.epix.net/~landis/washita.html

‘Lodge Pole (Washita) Massacre (November 1868) The Families' Stories’.

And this one, which has some of the contemporary reports, including Custer's report to Sheridan:

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~wynkoop/webdocs/bwashita.htm

Good balanced accounts of the attack are contained in Stan Hoig’s ‘The Battle of the Washita’, Jerome Greene’s ‘Washita’, Donald Berthrong’s ‘The Southern Cheyennes’ and Richard Hardorff’s ‘Washita Memories’. Also worth tracking down is 'The Eyes of the Sleepers' by Peter Harrison (Published by the English Westerners Society www.english-westerners-society.org.uk)

With regard to casualties, about 12 or 14 warriors were killed at the Washita. The figures vary, but most non-military estimates support these figures. There is evidence that some casualties were counted more than once. Hence the much higher figure of 103 given by Custer.

Custer reported that some women and a few children were killed. Ben Clark (Custer's scout who was married to a Cheyenne woman – see the earlier posts) estimated a total of 75 women and children casualties. Other non-military estimates for women and children killed vary from about 20 to about 40. Most non-military sources agree that more women and children than warriors were killed. A good summary of these figures is contained in Hardorff's 'Washita Memories'.

Custer called the officers together after the attack and asked them for estimates of Cheyenne casualties. It is of course likely that more than one of the officers had seen the same casualties. Their estimates were however totalled to provide a figure of 103 warriors killed. This it is now generally accepted to be an exaggeration

Soldiers were killing women and children. Ben Clark reported this to Custer "and asked him if it was his wish that these people should be killed". It was only then that Custer told Clark to "give his compliments" to the officer in charge and "ask him to stop it".

Twenty-two soldiers were killed at the Washita. A total of eighteen in Elliott's detachment; Elliott, Sergeant Kennedy and sixteen troopers. They were killed chasing a group of mainly women and children who had fled towards the other camps. The warriors who killed Elliott and his men came from the other camps. They were not from Black Kettle's camp. Captain Hamilton was killed at Black Kettle's village, together with two troopers. A third trooper died of his injuries.

Two white captives were killed at the time of the attack upon Black Kettle’s village; Clara Blinn and her young son, Willie. The circumstances of their deaths are however shrouded in contradictions. There is no evidence that Clara and Willie Blinn were killed by the Cheyennes. There is evidence that both were killed by cavalry fire. Indeed, the army went to great pains to deny this at the time, but the military accounts of their deaths are contradictory.

The allegation usually made in relation to the deaths of the Blinns is in fact that they were killed by the Arapahos or Kiowas, not the Cheyennes; they were not in the Cheyenne village. Indeed, the military accounts of the discovery of their bodies and wounds are contradictory. There is a growing body of thought that they were in fact killed by the troops.

Jesse Leavenworth and Albert Boone, agents for the Comanches and Kiowas, reported that their enquiries indicated that the troops had killed the Blinns. Leavenworth and Boone’s involvement resulted from the fact that Custer and Sheridan blamed the Kiowas or the Arapahho, not the Cheyennes, for killing the Blinns.

There was a very good analysis of the the deaths of Clara and Willie Blinn by Joe Haines in the Summer 1999 volume of Chronicles of Oklahoma. After sifting through the evidence, Haines concluded that "[t]he most believable scenario has Clara and Willie Blinn in Black Kettle's village at the time of Custer's attack. As they attempted to flee from the village, they were pursued and killed by one of Custer's men".

It was alleged that four white scalps were found in the village. There is however no evidence to support this. It is based upon an unsubstantiated claim by Sheridan. It was not mentioned in Custer's reports on the attack. Even if the scalps were found, they do not prove that the whole village was hostile. Indeed, they would not even prove that the person in possession of the scalps was responsible for taking them.

As for the question: was it a battle or a massacre? It is interesting to note that Captain Benteen felt the need to use inverted commas when writing to a friend about "our 'battle of the Washita' ". In his ironic account of the aftermath of the battle, he talks of the dead bodies of a [Cheyenne] woman and a child. No mention is made of warrior casualties. Benteen clearly did not think that it was an heroic victory.

There was no excuse for the killing of women and children by the troops. Or the murder of Pilan, the Mexican trader who was in the village at the time of the attack. He surrendered to the troops and was then shot. In fact, he was treated very similarly to Jack Smith, John Simpson Smith's mixed race son, who was murdered at Sand Creek.