White Man Runs Him

Also known as White Buffalo That Turns Around, he was born into the Big Lodge Clan of the Crow Nation, the son of Bull Chief and Offers Her Red Cloth. At the age of about 18, he volunteered to serve as a scout with the United States Army on April 10, 1876, in its campaign against the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne, traditional enemies of the Crow.

White Man Runs Him "enlisted on April 10, 1876 at the Crow Agency, Montana Territory, for six months in the 7th United States Infantry."[1] On June 21, 1876, he was transferred to Custer's Seventh U.S. Cavalry as part of a contingent of six Crow warrior/scouts, including Goes Ahead, Curly, Hairy Moccasin, White Swan, and Half Yellow Face, the leader of the scouts. He scouted for Lt. Charles Varnum's column in the days preceding the battle. In the early morning hours of June 25, 1876, he and other Crow scouts accompanied Varnum and Custer to the Crow's Nest, a high point on the Little Bighorn/Rosebud Creek divide, from which the Little Bighorn valley could be viewed at a distance of about seventeen air miles. The scouts could see indications of a large horse herd and the smoke of many morning fires, though the encampment itself was hidden from view on the valley floor. The Crow scouts advised Custer that the encampment was very large. Custer prepared to attack, however. Custer was concerned that during the morning of June 25, Sioux/Cheyenne warriors had detected the presence of his 650-man force, and if he did not promptly attack, the villagers would scatter, thus denying the army the confrontation it sought with the Sioux/Cheyenne forces.

According to White Man Runs Him's own accounts, after sending Major Marcus Reno's column to attack the settlement first, Custer headed down Medicine Trail Creek to engage the Sioux and Cheyenne. White Man Runs Him recounts that he and the other Crow scouts intended to follow Custer down into battle, but that their chief scout, Mitch Boyer, ordered them to rejoin the pack train instead.[2]

Another, more colorful version of the story relates that the Crow scouts were convinced they were about to die in battle against such a large force of Sioux, so they took off their uniforms and donned Crow war clothing. When Custer demanded to know why, they responded that they wished to die as warriors rather than soldiers. Custer was angered by what he perceived as fatalism and relieved them from further service about an hour before engaging in the final battle.

White Man Runs Him retired to a ridge along with Goes Ahead, Hairy Moccasin, and Strikes That Bear (an Arikara scout) to join Major Reno. They were engaged briefly in battle, but survived the engagement. He then joined Colonel John Gibbon's column.

Crow Scouts visit Custer Battlefield about 1913. Left to right: White-Man-Runs-Him, Hairy Moccasin, Curley, Goes Ahead

After the battle, he lived on the Crow reservation near Lodge Grass, Montana. He was the stepgrandfather of Joe Medicine Crow, a Crow tribal historian who used his grandfather's stories as a basis for his later histories of the battle, and grandfather to Pauline Small, the first woman elected to office in the Crow Tribe of Indians. His status as a Little Big Horn survivor made him a minor celebrity late in life, and he even made a cameo appearance in the 1927 Hollywood movie Red Raiders.

Granddaughter Pauline Small carrying the flag of the Crow Nation.

White Man Runs Him lived the remainder of his life on the Crow Reservation in the Big Horn Valley region of Montana, just a few miles from the site of the famous battle. He died there in 1929.

White Man Runs Him was buried in the cemetery at the Little Big Horn Battlefield. His account of the battle is told in the work "The Custer Myth" by C. Graham, on pages 20 to 24,"[1] and also in It Is a Good Day to Die: Indian Eyewitnesses Tell the Story of the Battle of the Little Bighorn.[3]

A slough near Lodge Grass, Montana, is known as Baaishtashíilinkuluush Alaaxúa ("Where Whiteman Runs Him Hid"). A coulee, Baaishtashíilinkuluush Isalasáh te, which is named after him, is also known as "Whiteman's Creek."[4]

• Harcey, Dennis; Croone, Brian R. White-Man-Runs-Him. Evanston Pub., Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.A., 1995. (ISBN 1-879260-16-6)

• Photo of White Man Runs Him, The West, PBS
• Photo of White Man Runs Him, from Custer's Last Fight: Remembered by Participants at the Tenth Anniversary June 25, 1886 and the Fiftieth Anniversary June 25, 1926, by Richard Upton