Watching Big Foot

Posted on November 3, 2025 by Sam Russell

The Camp of Observation on the Cheyenne River

Adapted from remarks delivered by 
Colonel Samuel L. Russell, U.S. Army retired
to the Order of the Indian Wars Annual Assembly
at Rapid City, South Dakota, September 5, 2024

“Big Foot advi[sed that] no one enlist as scouts that they continue [dan]cing and if interfered with in their religious meetings to fight.”
—Capt. A. G. Hennisee, 8th Cav.

(Click to enlarge) “At the Dance. Part of the 8th U.S. Cavalry and 3rd Infantry at the Great Indian Grass Dance on Reservation. Photo and copyright by Grabill, ’90.” According to Jensen, Paul, and Carter’s Eyewitness at Wounded Knee, 14, John C. H. Grabill took this photograph of Big Foot’s band in August 1890.

In August of 1890, five months before a single shot initiated the tragedy at Wounded Knee that annihilated Big Foot’s band of Miniconjou Lakota, those same Indians performed a ceremonial grass dance near their village on the Cheyenne River. The audience for these festivities included soldiers from the 3rd U.S. Infantry and 8th U.S. Cavalry regiments. The moment was captured by a young photographer from Deadwood, S. Dak., John C. H. Grabill. The Cheyenne River Indians had not yet been indoctrinated with the new Indian religion and its associated Ghost Dance that was spreading rapidly throughout the reservations across the western frontier. The photo is a haunting reflection, knowing most of the Indians pictured would be killed before the end of 1890. Grabill’s photograph prompts a number of questions, such as, why were the soldiers there months before the events that led to that winter’s campaign in the Dakotas, and what might they have seen that could shed light on this ill-fated band. The correspondence from a camp of observation that the Department of Dakota established on the Cheyenne River in the spring of 1890 provides answers to these questions and more. Those observations, recorded by a cavalry officer, have remained buried in the National Archives, unseen and never analyzed by Wounded Knee scholars and historians. Portions of those observations are recorded here for the first time.

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Private Walter R. Crickett, I Troop, 7th Cavalry—Campaign Letter

Posted on July 16, 2023 by Sam Russell

The man that stood next to me was shot down in the first discharge. I fired at the Indian at the same time but only struck him in the leg. He returned my fire and struck my revolver which knocked me down, which saved me.

One of the troopers in Capt. Nowlan’s I Troop penned a fifteen-page letter in the summer of 1891 detailing his experiences during the campaign. Private Walter R. Crickett was a carpenter by trade and a recent emigrant from England, where his mother and siblings still resided, one of whom was the recipient of his campaign narrative. Crickett’s letter has been quoted by a number of historians, most notably by Christer Lindberg in his 1990 article, “Foreigners in Action at Wounded Knee,” and William S. E. Coleman in Voices of Wounded Knee. Lindberg provides four brief excerpts while Coleman quotes most of Crickett’s letter piecemeal over the length of his book. Presented here is a transcript of Pvt. Crickett’s complete letter along with images of each page, reproduced with permission from the American Museum at Bath, England, where the original letter is archived. It is followed by a brief biographical sketch of Walter Crickett and his tragic death. As a veteran of Wounded Knee, he was perhaps haunted by the demons of war.

With the 7th Cavalry from Ft Riley to Pine Ridge Agency, South Dakota 1890 & 91

(Click to enlarge) The Walter R. Crickett letter is archived at the American Museum & Gardens in Bath, England. This 15-page letter is presented here with express permission from the museum registrar.[1]

We got the order on the 23rd Nov., 90, that our regiment was for the front, the place being Pine Ridge, S.D., where the Indians had broken out and gone on the war path and committing all sorts of outrages. It was morning when the order came, and by four that afternoon we was all a board the train, had all our horses and transportation along. That is what takes the time to load.

We traveled all night and next day untill we got to a place in Nebraska called Lincon about six P.M. where we took the stock off, watered and fed. Started again about twelve, and got into Rushville at five the day following (morn) that being the nearest town to P.R. There we unloaded every thing and left that afternoon for the Agency.

Camped that night at White Clay creek about twelve miles from Rushville. At five the next morning was up had a cup of coffee, and a few biscuits, struck camp and was in the saddle a little after six, and then made strait in. Got there about four and was into camp where we stayed untill the 26th December when order came for the first battalion to go to Wounded Knee creek to stop Big foot’s band going into the bad lands. It took about two hours to strike tents and pack up all our things having to go on mules as waggons could not haul in the bad lands. Continue reading →

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Private Harvey H. Thomas, I Troop 7th Cavalry—Wounded in Action

Posted on June 10, 2023 by Sam Russell

They fired two shots at me. One went through me, and the other struck on the top of my head and glanced off.

At the beginning of December 1890, a troop’s worth of recruits were transferred from Jefferson Barracks, Missouri—where the Army conducted entry training for the cavalry branch—to the 7th Cavalry Regiment in the field at the Pine Ridge Agency. Captain E. S. Godfrey, of D Troop, was en route to rejoin the regiment from Fort Leavenworth. Reflecting on that winter’s campaign later in life, Godfrey wrote, “Upon my arrival at Chadron Creek, [Nebraska] I found a detachment of recruits from Jefferson Barracks for the 7th Cavalry and a wagon train of supplies for the troops, awaiting escort. I assumed command of the detachment and supply train, and about the middle of December arrived at the Pine Ridge agency, where I joined my troop.” Godfrey arrived with sixty-seven recruits on December 6. Nine of the recruits were assigned to Capt. Nowlan’s I Troop, and of those, four had just joined the Army in October.[1]

One of the newest recruits was twenty-five-year-old Private Harvey Thomas, a cook from Jamesburg, New Jersey, who had joined the Army at New York City two months before Wounded Knee. He was the only I Troop recruit to become a casualty during the campaign. While convalescing in the post hospital at Fort Riley the following spring, Thomas wrote to the superintendent of the New Jersey reform school where he spent his formative teenage years. The letters appeared in the school’s newspaper, The Advance, in May, and were later reprinted as a single composite letter in The New Brunswick Daily Times.[2]

Fort Riley, Kansas, March 21, 1891.

Dear Sir,–It is some time since I was in Jamesburg, having enlisted in the army October 11, 1891.

When the Indians broke out in South Dakota last Fall, I was sent out with a detachment and assigned to the Seventh Cavalry at Pine Ridge Agency, South Dakota. You have probably read something of the Sioux campaign, in which a number of our soldiers were killed and wounded. I was one of the latter, having been shot through the left chest, the ball entering nearly in the middle of the back, and came out just below the edge of the collar-bone.

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Posted in Newspaper Articles, Personal Letters | 3 Comments