commanders in chief. watchers in history, with top college professors digging into america's past. gold --america, archive archival films. in hd, likee just us on facebook, and follow us on twitter. >> up next, author and national parks service historian jerome greene talks about his book, "american carnage, wounded knee, 1890." the book takes a comprehensive look at the south dakota massacre, the causes and the aftermath. in this talk he recounts , firsthand recollections from lakota indians about the day in which the u.s. cavalry fired on their camp. killing about 300. the kansas city public library hosted this program. >> i am curious how many of you have heard of wounded knee? i suspect virtually everyone has. it is probably, next to the

battle of little big horn, the one army-indian encounter most people have heard of. my knowledge comes from high school, junior high school. i grew up in new york state. i remember reading in the magazines of the day, this is way back in 1958, 1959, probably most of you were not even around then. i remember reading in "true west," "frontier times," the pulp magazines of the day that provided fodder for my interests. i know they each carried articles on wounded knee. i remember asking my grandmother, who was born in 1881, she was a young girl, nine

years old when wounded knee occurred, and about 1958, 59 i approached her and i can remember being in the room him in the house and i asked her if she remembered anything about hearing about wounded knee. i believe she told me that she thought vaguely that it sounded familiar to her. but that was a long time ago and she was an old lady. my first visit to the site came in 1969 when i was a graduate student at the university of south dakota. wounded knee is a big story, has a very important story, but it is not a pretty story. my purpose with american carnage was not only to clarify the mechanics of the event as it unfolded out of the ground, but to show how it indeed became a

massacre. i wanted to show why it happened at all. and to explain what transpired afterwards as it respects the lakota people who survived it. briefly stated, the book starts in 1938, washington, d.c. nearly 50 years after the massacre. as lakota survivors sought government recognition and compensation for what had happened to them in 1890. the story then flashes back to discuss lakota existence on the plains, and the wars with the u.s. government, and the succession of treaties, notably, the fort laramie treaty of 1868

and the establishment of the great sioux reservations and what is now essentially all of south dakota west of the missouri river. it also deals with the repeated government reductions of that land, including the taking of the black hills, which contained gold. together with the increasing inroads of white settlements, all of this was accompanied by gradual cultural disruption among the lakota people , including growing dissension that arose between the progressive and traditionalists elements among them. this was further aggravated over time by the arrival of drought and epidemics of sickness, all of which was succeeded by surprise cutbacks in government rations.

by late 1889, this devastated and overwhelmed the lakota people. this led to the lakota's uncertainty regarding their continued existence as a people. fostering a devastation that led -- a desperation that led many of them to turn to the ghost dance as a way to rejuvenate culturally and to ensure their survival as a people. the coming of the ghost dance became the direct catalyst and precursor for the military occupation of the sioux reservations that in due course culminated in the death of sitting bull. and determined the resulting flight of chief bigfoot and his people south of the cheyenne river to their doom on wounded knee creek.

all of this is thoroughly chronicled in the book, for those of you who have seen the book, i think you can appreciate the amount of research that went into it. also, the roles of the principal leaders like red cloud, sitting bull, american horse. also the foremost ghost dance leaders, short bull and kicking bear. and the roles of indian agents like james mclachlan and military leaders like major general nelson miles. he was the overall commander of operations in south dakota. brigadier general john brooke, especially colonel james forsyth, who commanded the seventh calvary and the first

artillery contingents at wounded knee. among the controversies related to wounded knee and interest -- and addressed at length are the following, the so-called and perhaps aptly named crook commission and the part played by major general george crook in financing an agreement where the -- finessing an agreement where the sioux surrendered millions more acres of their land in 1889. the contributory role of on-site press representatives in fomenting rumors about inflamed fears among settlers who believe that a full-fledged indian war was either imminent or ongoing. the issues surrounding the death of sitting bull two weeks before

wounded knee, to include the dubious role of buffalo bill cody and seeking the medicine man's arrest on the standing rock reservation. the long enduring question of army premeditation for the massacre at wounded knee. the means by which the wounded knee confrontation involves into -- indeed evolved into a full-fledged massacre of men, women, and children. the army killings of the oglala woman and her three children at whitehorse creek that same day , just five miles from the massacre at wounded knee. the question of seventh calvary vengeance at wounded knee as revenge for the massacre of

-- for the destruction of custer's force at the little big born 14 years earlier. and the award of medals of honor to some of the soldiers at wounded knee. there is full discussion of the collateral army-indian fighting that followed wounded knee elsewhere on the pine ridge reservation. this is not just a military account, it is the story of the lakotas. i included a lot of their -- as much of their own narrative as i could determine, to make the book genuinely all-encompassing. came from their own accounts of what happened. as i mentioned, the book further explains what happened to the lakota survivors of wounded knee and the matter of their fight for government recognition and compensation for the human losses they endured all the way into the 1930's and 1940's.

you may be interested to know that some of the wounded knee survivors lived until the late 1970's. can you imagine that? still alive. of course, they were babes and toddlers at the time in 1890. they were still living on this earth while you and i were here. wipes me out. little known is the fact that general miles in retirement became a champion or compensating the sioux for what had happened to them at wounded knee. as early as 1891, miles had turned the event into the most -- had termed the event, and i am quoting, the most abominable criminal military blunder and a horrible massacre of women and

children. that is nelson miles who was in command of operations there. he wrote that to his wife just a day or two after. it was a curator is asian, however, -- it was a characterization, however, that his superiors in washington, d.c. did not embrace. i greatly appreciate the fine effort that went into the book's production by the editors and staff of the university of oklahoma press. they are top-notch in my book. literally. [laughter] it contains 16 chapters, nearly 50 illustrations and six maps , all-new maps, together with complete notes, nine appendices, a conference of index, and a -- a comprehensive index, and a thorough bibliography. one appendix comprises the entirety of the fort laramie

treaty of 1868 which is indeed a critical reference regarding the lead up to wounded knee. as i mentioned, i would like to share with you a reading from the book, but first i want to orient you a little bit to the map that you see to my right. right? or to my left. it is to your right. this site is quite small and quite concentrated. it occupies only a quarter section. scarcely 160 acres. this is on the sioux reservation of pine ridge, south dakota. the sites i would like you to be aware of, this is wounded knee

creek which runs along the eastern periphery of the area. you can see a ravine that runs down to wounded knee creek. this was very critically important to what happened at wounded knee. this is a very deep ravine. it is some 25 feet deep, 25-30 feet deep. it is as wide as 150 feet in places. it is a dry ravine, it does not have water. it probably does at different times of the year, but it certainly did not on december 29, 1890. a portion of the ravine is called the pocket. do you see the pocket up here?

i will be referring to the pocket. that was of utmost significance to what happened. the roads, this is a road to the pine ridge agency. about 18 miles to the south, southwest, west and the southwest. this road called fast course horse road runs in the northwest direction towards other tribal communities in that vicinity. the army camp is located up here where the two bivouac areas are, i am showing the tents. and, the troops were scattered around in different places, this is a line of x's down here. this represents a chain guard, troops who surrounded the camp

the night before wounded knee. these people were all brought in the day before wounded knee and they had been captured by major with science unit. -- major with side -- major unit, or battalion. they were brought to wounded knee and the second squadron of the seventh calvary was sent for at pine ridge, 18 miles driving around midnight. -- arriving around midnight. they came in surreptitiously, probably moving around like this rather than coming right up through the area to alarm the people who were in the camp here, the indian camp. this is a temporary feature, this is not a village, this is a camp. next to the army camp, you see these guns up here.

these are hotchkiss guns. they fired percussion shell and a shell that imparted balls against the people. this was an anti-personnel type of weapon. the guns were trained on the camp, there were four of them. they could deliver about 20 rounds altogether per minute. so, in 1890, this was a pretty significant technology. right up in the area above the village, you can see two rows of troops. these are troops b and k. troops b and troop k. the seventh calvary. they were brought down from up above as a reserve force when the indians began leaving this

council area at their own whim, they were ordered to bring in their weapons and some of them did not come back and so the army put these two troops down to keep them in place, or from heedlessly leaving and going back to the camp to the teepees. the council area is where the shooting breaks out on december 29. i'm curious how many of you have actually been to wounded knee. wow. pretty impressive. i'm impressed. every people has impressions about events that have shaped

them and the lakota sioux are no exception, testimony of wounded knee as given by participants in the proceedings of december 29 of 1890 in the form of immediate and reminiscent statements constitutes important renderings with personal insights into what occurred to those who survived that date as well as to their family members, other relatives, friends, and those who did not. taken together, the accounts of the people signify how it deadly the action became as it intensified from the initial shooting into a defensive reaction by troops, climaxing in an unchecked and devastating slaughter of innocents. one hesitates to use the term bloodlust in explaining what happened at wounded knee, but

did the tribesmen involved in particularly those noncombatant women, children, and elderly men who became circumstantially targeted after the violence erupted, the expression would assuredly connote a substantive and literal overtone. regarding lakota oral history, it must be understood that by 1890, many of those people, following more than two decades of reservation living, had become increasingly conversant in english, through education as well as through day-to-day contact with whites over their predecessors of the 1860's and 70's in the wilds of dakota, wyoming, and montana. the competency that perpetuated thereafter. furthermore, by their closer physical proximity to whites, their statements were more easily sought out and conveyed

than before. as a result, as time passed from wounded knee, lakota survivor accounts of the event, while necessarily translated expressions, have provided a generally clear declarations replete with richer volume and content over recollections from the earlier days. importantly, beyond heartfelt assertions, the evident redundancy regarding aspects of the event exemplifies the people's honesty and further ensures the validity of the accounts. the following largely composite narrative based on sioux reminiscences to convey a -- incorporates testimony of lakota survivors of wounded knee

to convey a measured assessment of their harrowing experiences at that place. joseph horn cloud, from cheyenne river reservation, described the initial shooting. it was just like a hailstorm with shots in all directions. in the confusion, all we thought about was to get away, the morning was cloudy and damp and the smoke from the guns did not rise but settled right on us. from then on, nothing could be seen very plain. the soldiers were rushing around shooting all of us that they could see to shoot. high back was hit in the hand as he dashed blindly through the cloud. in the combat, iron hail armed with only a knife sought to get a gun and rush the soldiers so closely that the man fired his

carbine right next to the warrior's ear, momentarily deafening him. in the rising smoke, the indian yanked the gun away, stabbing the man who grabbed iron hand by the throat before the lakota knifed him repeatedly until he died and then took his gun and ran towards the ravine behind the camp. iron hail was wounded before he got there, an injury that severely debilitated his right arm. he finally shot a soldier, but received a flesh wound in the leg as he entered the gulch. others who broke through the soldiers raced with the women and children into the ravine, and then ran in either direction. iron hail experienced several encounters with soldiers and other fleeing tribesmen as he headed west up the dry wash where he ultimately witnessed his own mother being killed.

soldiers on both sides of the ravine shot at her and killed her, he said. i saw lots of women and children lying along the ravine, some alive, and some dead. i told some young men to take courage and do all they could to defend the women. an awful fire was concentrated on them now, and nothing could be seen for the smoke. in the bottom of the ravine, the bullets raise more dust than there was smoke so that they could not see one another. horn cloud recalled that some with babies excavated hollows inside the ravine in which to hide them. women and infants were killed

together. one mother lay dead, he said, her breasts covered with blood and her little child was standing by her nursing. alice ghost horse was a 13-year-old girl from cheyenne river. she remember the calvary man shooting at every lakota that was running and it did not matter if you were a child or a woman. they shot at you anyway. we fled into the ravine, where the bushes were thickest. we dived in like frightened rabbits. the gunfire was pretty heavy and people were hollering for their children and the children were crying everywhere. her father went back to help the others, but soon returned wounded in the leg. he took alice's young brother and moved down the ravine, telling alice that her mother, he would return for them. soon afterwards, my father came crawling back and said, they killed my son and started to

cry. so, we cried a little bit. my father said, we should move to a better hiding place, but my mother objected again saying we should all die here together. she told me to stand up so i would get hit, but my father pulled me back down. they crawled to a deeper part of the ravine and then alice's father left again to help others. more people took shelter in the ravine. four of them died right there, but there was nothing that anybody could do. one man who arrived told us my father was killed instantly. and we all cried for little bit to cause the soldiers were still -- because the soldiers were still firing their rifles at anything that moved. alice and her mother remained hidden in the brush in the deep recesses of the ravine until late afternoon.

when the sounds of gunfire finally slackened. the wounded high-back also made it to the ravine where he crawled beneath the bodies of other casualties seeking protection. though he still took more bullets. peter one skunk, struck in the head during the soldiers opening volley, also made his way to the ravine and hid. he eventually caught a horse and broke free from the turmoil, but the mount was killed and one skunk played dead and was left alone by the troops. in time, he found another horse and got away. elsewhere, as the action continued, some of those who headed west in the ravine found protection from the soldiers in the subordinate gulch area known as the pocket.

the included horn cloud, several of his brothers and several cousins, along with two old men, a woman named helena longbow, and her small son. one brother, william horn cloud, was killed in the pocket. several more received wounds there. and brother named white plants was badly injured but subsequently recovered. iron hail said he killed at least five soldiers while in the pocket. when a hotchkiss gun was brought down, brought forward to fire directly at those who had found shelter there, he said. it became a storm of thunder and hail. there went up from these dying people, he related, a medley of death songs that would make the hardest heart weep. the death song is expressive of their wish to die. it expresses that the singer is

anxious to die, too. at this time, i am unable to do anything more and it took telling my rest , brothers to keep up courage. the cannon were now pouring their shots and breaking down the banks which were giving protection. the soldiers were pretty close to the edge. these kept up a continual fire. even if there was no more shooting, the smoke was so thick that the wounded could not live for it. it was suffocating. the hotchkiss had been shooting rapidly, and one indian had gotten killed by it. his body was penetrated in the pit of the stomach by a shell which tore a hole through his body six inches in diameter. the man was insensible but breathed for an hour before he died.

at the same time this man was shot, a young woman was shot through between the shoulders. i heard a laugh and she was smiling while unconscious that she was wounded. the next moment, a young man was shot down right in front of this woman. when the man fell, his bow and arrows fell all around on the ground. iron hail shortly regained his strength and moved farther up in the pocket. he found women and children all wounded in a dugout pit seeking shelter from the troopers shooting at them from above. in the same place, he recounted was a young woman with a pole in her hand and a black blanket on it. when she lifted it up, the soldiers would whistle and yell and pour volleys into it.

recalling his own baby, iron hail told the women he would fight for them, and he cared not if he died there. the infants were all killed now and he would like to die among the infants. he managed then to shoot and kill yet another soldier and to knock still one more from his horse. iron hail stayed in the pocket for a time and as the sun went down, cautiously crept out and away while soldiers intermittently fired at him from distant points. meantime, joseph horn cloud had somehow escaped from the pocket and he related the many women and children ran west along the road where they became targets for nearby cavalrymen who killed some there. others managed to traverse a nearby fence field where more

were shot down. horn cloud moved fluidly through the area, collected numerous courses that he distributed to -- horses that he distributed to others to aid their escape. he then continued about fighting the troops in the area to the west. iron hail eventually encountered several of the pine ridge oglalas and horses. he went with them, soon meeting his brother, who told him his father was also dead. of 11 family members at wounded knee, horn cloud and iron hail lost their mother, yellow leaf, and father, a head man named horned cloud, and two brothers, sherman and william. iron hail lost his wife, killed

aswhere's evil, also known whiteface, at the scene and would lose his infant son. he would die from illness contracted during the massacre. iron hail's cousin, pretty enemy, who lived with the family and was essentially a sister to them, also died there. iron hail suffered two wounds, while another brother received four. iron hail and one cloud -- horn cloud proceeded west from the turmoil at wounded made to a point near the holy rosary catholic mission before heading north to join the stronghold people along white creek. as they withdrew from the area of the pine ridge agency. when they arrived, those people were crying and singing death songs and shook hands with them. as night descended back at

wounded knee, small knots of surviving lakotas made their way north. through creek bottoms in the gathering chill. other women participants included nelly knife. and mrs. ross feather -- rough feather. nelly knife was packing that morning when the men attended the council. all at once, i heard an awful noise. as the shots were fired, the women and children ran for a safe place to hide. as i ran, i saw many people were already killed. i was running with a young girl named brown ear horse but she got shot. i went on and left her. i passed the wife of one skunk who was also wounded and screaming. i could not help her as the bullets were flying thick and i wanted to get to a safe place.

after the firing stopped, i returned to see if i could find any of my people. my mother in law, my sister in law, and many brothers were dead. my father in law, little bull, was alive but his leg was broken. likewise, after the gunfire opened, mrs. rough feather saw all of the people on the ground bleeding. in sheer terror, she ran for safety with the others to the ravine south of the camp. following them up the gulch. as she said, bullets flew all around us. i was not hit one time. but my father, my mother, my grandmother, my older brother, and my younger brother were all killed. my son, who was two years old, was shot in the mouth and that later caused his death.

by their individual and family perspectives, the lakota record dramatically personalizes what happened while imparting important knowledge on how the people reacted, as well as what and how they endured. the accounts further offer rich augmentation and often differing conclusions to the records contained in government documents. more than anything, they give strength and broader dimension and provide empathetic value of what they experienced. they cover all aspects, beginning with the night of the indian arrival to wounded knee, to the search for multiple weapons, to the outbreak of shooting, the killing on the plains.

and then the driver dream. avine. dry r the opening of the hotchkiss guns, and the fighting in the pocket. to the departure of soldiers from the field, followed by the exodus of survivors. of the 370 lakota people arrested by major woodside east withside east of porcupine butte and escorted to wounded knee, as many as 160 died violently there or elsewhere from wounds received. within days, 146 bodies were gathered and hastily interred. following december 29, family members retrieved others for burial elsewhere. shortly thereafter, 14 more bodies, including those succumbing from wounds of the -- at the episcopal church in

pine ridge -- were taken. , pine ridge, where they were taken, boosted the number of positively known dead to 160, although measured estimates have raised the figure to at least 200. efforts to chronicle the names and exact numbers of fatalities have proceeded over the decades since. yet beyond the above figure and well considered approximations, the precise number of lakota dead at wounded knee has been impossible to determine and will likely remain unknown. thank you very much. [applause] >> jerry, we have time for questions and i would direct people to use the microphone. i will start it off with, how

did this start? who fired the first shot? >> all of the evidence i've seen and i will tie this into the question of premeditation because a lot of things have come out saying that it was all premeditated. it was not premeditated. there are a lot of documents, telegrams in fact, most notably, about bringing trains to gordon, nebraska and the plan was to remove these so-called difficult indians from the scene, to get them out of there. they want to get the leaders out of there and they want to get any of their followers out of there. the plan underway was to get the trains up to gordon and then following the disarmament at wounded knee, forsyth would go back to pine ridge where there were other indians coming in from a place called the

stronghold. he was needed there. major withside would march the other people down to gordon, nebraska. they would be put on board the train and they would be taken safe and away all together. taken to fort omaha. as for the outbreak of the shooting, it appears that the first shot, and this comes from both army sources at the time as well as some lakota remembrances that there was a single shot that broke out and it seems to have been a young man, a young lakota man.

some sources name him as black fox. this is a fairly common name. there was a medicine man named black fox who was also involved in there. this young man apparently was apparently deaf. he saw there was a lot of action going on. apparently there was a couple of sergeants, possibly one sergeant, some say two, struggled to get this arm away from this young man. he apparently didn't understand what was going on and the shot went off and once that shot went off, that triggered everything. finally, there was a huge explosion of gunfire as the lakotas fired at the soldiers, only at about 25 feet and the soldiers fired back at the lakotas at the same time.

spontaneously. then, that had killed many of the so-called warriors, they were warriors, in the council area. those that survived tried to break through the soldiers. to get to that ravine that was , their only salvation at that point. but, when the indians fired that those troops, once they killed about 30 soldiers, or once those men fell, those bullets kept going into the camp. the first casualties among noncombatants appeared to have been from the indians themselves, which is compounding the tragedy.

that seems to be the way -- i encourage you to read the detailed account in the book, "american carnage." [laughter] >> where did you find these accounts and where can they be found today? >> the book is heavily footnoted with very thorough footnotes. you can get the accounts there. many of them are quoted at length. they should be relatively easy to get that way. but, they came from a multitude of sources, which i cannot rattle off to you immediately. yes? >> we had the opportunity to go to the stronghold, it is considered holy ground by those people.

can you tell us a little bit about the winter that they experienced following the massacre and the survivors? >> well, you mean the winter, following wounded knee? the balance of the winter? >> yes. >> well, it is been something of a mild winter of that point, in fact, the photos that you see of the dead lying in snow, the snow came a day or so after the massacre. so, a lot of the photographers that came out and took pictures of the dead people, they were under snow and were flipped over. that is why, if any of you have seen these photos, they are in very grotesque positions. that is because they were lying

face down and were flipped over. but the weather intensified. it became a much more powerful winter than it had been up to that point. and it is quite possible had the troops never come on to the reservation, the ghost dance, and many people projected that just leave them alone and they will just die out because it just gets so cold up there in the winter, that probably nothing will happen. >> how long did the massacre last? several days? >> no. i would say the first part of it, the fight in the counsel circle, and driving, breaking through the people into the

ravine and starting up the ravine and the beginning of the firing into the ravine, lasted about half an hour. then, a lot of people don't realize that the guns could not fire down into where the fighting was going on while the troops were down there. so, they had to wait and one of the accounts that i had was that of an artillery man up on the hill. this is as far as i know has not been used before. he describes the view from his perspective. he was saying the that we are waiting there, holding the mechanism in hand to begin firing but they couldn't fire because they were waiting for that to clear out. once they did, they leveled their guns towards the camp, and really decimated the camp

itself and anything that was alive. there was one account of a wagon. they used farm wagons. there was a farm wagon, a family trying to get through the ravine on to the other side. and an exploding projectile hit that and blew it up and somebody said it was just like a bunch of rags had gone up. it killed everybody except one baby or toddler, i believe. >> i know today that the medal of honor requires a citation. an explanation for why it is awarded. i believe there were 20 awarded that day? >> yes. >> do you know what the explanation was for the actions?

>> there's a section in the book dealing with the medals of honor and the issuing of the medals of honor and the controversy involved. at the time, according to the army regulations, it was officers and men would get a medal of honor. and this is it, literally, for distinguished service. that is all it said. so, it was not as strict as it is today, that it requires one to put their life on the line. in those days, it did not happen. it has been very controversial. i know that many lakotas resent the fact that it was like adding insult to injury to award men medals of honor. but at the time there was no distinguished service medal, no distinguished service cross or a

purple heart for that. those did not come on until later in the 20th century. so, at the time, officers could justify writing recommendations these medals. two officers did initially and i remember reading an editorial in a junction city republican newspaper right afterwards. the editor was complaining that only two officers had bothered to put their men in and the others ought to get off their duff and get to work, words to that effect, and exert a little work to honor other men, too. probably it would be easier to repeal the medals that this was -- if this were a unit citation

rather than to specific individuals as the medal of honors are given. >> were there any mutilation of the bodies? >> any mutilation? >> yeah, scalping? >> i have heard there was a scalping and it might be mentioned in the book someplace. but there was not a lot of that. many of the wounded indians in fact were taken into pine ridge along with the soldiers and the director of the episcopal church -- rector of the episcopal church offered the church as a hospital. they removed the pews, and all of the women and children were placed in there and stayed in there for several weeks. yes? >> good morning -- good afternoon, sir.

i have done research in this area from a masters degree and have our own from your sources, so i greatly appreciate all the scholarship and work you have done in this area. i am curious though, how did you evaluate the various sources between the army's official aecords compared to the lakot records and accounts? were there discrepancies or did you see glaring inconsistencies? >> there are certainly inaccuracies, as i am sure you are aware of. when, other than accounts of people who were there that are just kind of stating what happened to them, tose are little difficult determine as to credibility. but if you get more than one source that says or suggests the

same thing, like the young man with the gun that i was talking about -- i had heard that, but i did find that several sources referenced that. incidentally, i think i used your master thesis. [laughter] colonel russell? >> no, sir. [laughter] >> all right. >> unless you got it in the less four months. quick color, thank you. it was good, even if you did not do it. [laughter] the seventhg calvary personnel at wounded knee, is there any idea how many men at wounded knee also participated in the little big court campaign? >> yes, it is in the book -- [laughter] i cannot remember it specifically, but i was interested in finding that out myself. i want to say off the top of my and 11w, three officers

enlisted men, but i am kind of guessing. i think that is right. but it is in the book, i promise you. [laughter] >> i guess i will have to read the book. [laughs] thank you. >> thank you for the presentation, and thank you for this look. can we thank him one more time? [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] you're watching american history >> tv. all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. to join the conversation, like us on facebook at c-span history. >> next, university of michigan history professor joel howell