January 8:

1877 : Crazy Horse fights last battle

On this day in 1877, Crazy Horse and his
warriors--outnumbered, low on ammunition and forced to
use outdated weapons to defend themselves--fight their
final losing battle against the U.S. Cavalry in
Montana.

Six months earlier, in the Battle of Little Bighorn,
Crazy Horse and his ally, Chief Sitting Bull, led
their combined forces of Sioux and Cheyenne to a
stunning victory over Lieutenant Colonel George Custer
(1839-76) and his men. The Indians were resisting the
U.S. government's efforts to force them back to their
reservations. After Custer and over 200 of his
soldiers were killed in the conflict, later dubbed
"Custer's Last Stand," the American public wanted
revenge. As a result, the U.S. Army launched a winter
campaign in 1876-77, led by General Nelson Miles
(1839-1925), against the remaining hostile Indians on
the Northern Plains.

Combining military force with diplomatic overtures,
Nelson convinced many Indians to surrender and return
to their reservations. Much to Nelson's frustration,
though, Sitting Bull refused to give in and fled
across the border to Canada, where he and his people
remained for four years before finally returning to
the U.S. to surrender in 1881. Sitting Bull died in
1890. Meanwhile, Crazy Horse and his band also refused
to surrender, even though they were suffering from
illness and starvation.

On January 8, 1877, General Miles found Crazy Horse's
camp along Montana's Tongue River. U.S. soldiers
opened fire with their big wagon-mounted guns, driving
the Indians from their warm tents out into a raging
blizzard. Crazy Horse and his warriors managed to
regroup on a ridge and return fire, but most of their
ammunition was gone, and they were reduced to fighting
with bows and arrows. They managed to hold off the
soldiers long enough for the women and children to
escape under cover of the blinding blizzard before
they turned to follow them.

Though he had escaped decisive defeat, Crazy Horse
realized that Miles and his well-equipped cavalry
troops would eventually hunt down and destroy his
cold, hungry followers. On May 6, 1877, Crazy Horse
led approximately 1,100 Indians to the Red Cloud
reservation near Nebraska's Fort Robinson and
surrendered. Five months later, a guard fatally
stabbed him after he allegedly resisted imprisonment
by Indian policemen.

In 1948, American sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski began
work on the Crazy Horse Memorial, a massive monument
carved into a mountain in South Dakota. Still a work
in progress, the monument will stand 641 feet high and
563 feet long when completed.

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1642 : Astronomer Galileo dies in Italy

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1815 : The Battle of New Orleans

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