Indian Scouts

Curley (Curly), a Crow Scout with Custer

NPS- Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument collection

Although American Indians had been used to scout as far back as the founding of the American colonies, it was after the Civil War that the usage of Indian scouts became standard.

With a frontier army of less than 20,000 men to safeguard millions of square miles of land, the U.S. government authorized the United States Army to form a force of up to 1,000 scouts for reconnaissance and combat duty on August 1, 1866. Indians from more than a dozen tribes, including tribes that the United States conflicted with such as the Apache, Nez Perce and the Lakota were enlisted to assist the Army during the Indian Campaigns of the Great Plains and American Southwest.

During the three-pronged Plains campaign of 1876, George Crook’s force of 1,300 included 260 Crow and Shoshone scouts; John Gibbon’s 400-man column included almost 30 Crow scouts, and George Custer’s 7^th Cavalry included almost 30 Arikara and a half-dozen Crow scouts.

Crook’s Crow and Shoshone scouts saved his army from a crushing defeat at the Battle of the Rosebud on June 17, 1876, courageously attacking a larger Lakota/Cheyenne force until Crook could form his units in a defensive position. More than 10 Crow and Shoshone scouts were killed at the Rosebud.

Of the 35 Indian scouts who rode with Custer’s 7^th cavalry, six scouts including the Arikaras Bloody Knife, Custer’s favorite scout, Sergeant Bobtail Bull, and Little Brave, and Mitch Bouyer, a half-Lakota, half-French scout who was married to a Crow woman, were killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

The era of the Indian Scouts ended officially in the 1920s. Before its conclusion, 16 Indian scouts had received the Medal of Honor for their service.