Battle of Little Muddy Creek

Also called the Lame Deer Fight, this clash unfolded over two days, May 7 and 8 in 1877, pitting American troops and their scouts against a camp of Miniconjou Lakota. The fighting took place along Little Muddy Creek in Montana Territory, close to what is now Lame Deer in Rosebud County.

Background

Colonel Nelson A. Miles set out from Fort Keogh on May 1, 1877, commanding a combined force drawn from his own 5th Regiment along with the 22nd Regiment and the 2nd Cavalry Regiment. His objective was to locate Miniconjou Lakota forces under Lame Deer. Along the Tongue River, scouts working with the column discovered tracks leading westward toward Rosebud Creek, and Miles pressed onward in pursuit at the head of 471 officers and enlisted men.

Battle

Colonel Miles caught sight of an encampment of sixty one lodges along Little Muddy Creek and left his infantry behind, pushing forward instead with cavalry led by Captain Edward Ball and mounted infantry commanded by Lieutenant Edward W. Casey. By 4:30 in the morning, before the sun had risen, the mounted troops had closed in on Lame Deer's village while its occupants still slept. The engagement opened when Lieutenant Lovell H. Jerome's Company H of the 2nd Cavalry, alongside Casey's mounted infantry, launched a charge on horseback straight into the camp. Hump, an Indian scout serving with the army, shouted out to the Lakota and Cheyenne that Miles wished to talk terms rather than fight.

Lame Deer walked toward Miles, joined by his nephew Iron Star and two other men. Miles instructed him to set down his rifle, and Lame Deer complied, though the weapon remained cocked and pointed ahead. Trouble began when White Bull, one of the scouts working for Miles, attempted to seize Iron Star's rifle, causing it to discharge; the round passed through White Bull's coat. Lame Deer then snatched up his own weapon from the ground and fired at Miles, narrowly missing him but striking down his orderly, Private Charles Shrenger, instead. What followed was pure disorder. Gunfire wounded a number of soldiers and Lakota alike, and Lame Deer himself fell after being struck by seventeen rounds fired together by soldiers of Company L, 2nd Cavalry. In the aftermath, Companies F, G, and L of the same regiment turned on the now undefended village, tearing it apart and seizing roughly 450 horses, half of which they slaughtered on the spot.

Aftermath

In the fighting, the army counted four dead and ten wounded, while Lakota losses ran higher still: somewhere between five and fourteen killed, roughly twenty wounded, and forty taken prisoner.

Recognition for the soldiers' conduct that day came in the form of five Congressional Medals of Honor. First Sergeant Henry Wilkens of Company L, 2nd Cavalry, received one, as did Sergeant William H. Jones, also of Company L. Corporal Harry Garland and Private William Leonard, both serving in that same company, were likewise honored. Rounding out the group was Private Samuel D. Phillips of Company H, 2nd Cavalry.

Decades later, on January 27, 1933, David L. Brainard received a Purple Heart for his part in the engagement, one of just twelve such awards ever given for actions during the American Indian Wars.