Battle of Washita River - The Role of Indian Noncombatants in Custer's Strategy

The Role of Indian Noncombatants in Custer's Strategy

The Southern Cheyenne encampment on the Washita River comprised a key component in Custer's field strategy – Indian noncombatants.

Women, children, the elderly or disabled were targeted for capture to serve as hostages and human shields. Custer's battalions intended to "ride into the camp and secure noncombatant hostages" and "forc the warriors to surrender".

Custer demonstrated the value of a strategy that utilized "capture women and children" to "neutralize" the Southern Cheyenne superiority in numbers at the Battle of the Washita.

Author James Donovan describes the fifty-three women and children seized at the Washita as "captives" or "prisoners" and they fit the definition of human shields in that they were used to insure the escape of the Custer's regiment as Cheyenne forces from nearby villages began "pressing his position".

Historian Jerome Greene spelled out their function: "…fifty-three women and children taken captive at the Washita served as assurance against attack from the downriver during Custer's extrication of his command from the scene late on November 27.".

As Custer advanced with his regiment in a mock assault – mounted women and children hostages riding among his troops – the warriors dispersed, "afraid that shots directed against the column might hit the prisoners".

Larry Sklenar, in his narrative of the Washita battle, describes the role of "hostages" as human shields:

Custer probably could not have pulled off this tactical coup had he not had in his possession the fifty-some women and children captives. Although not hostages in the narrowest meaning of the word, doubtlessly it occurred to Custer that the family-oriented warriors would not attack the Seventh with the women and children marching in .

Custer provided the military logic for tactical use of human shields in his book My Life on the Plains, published just two years before the Battle of the Little Big Horn:

Indians contemplating a battle, either offensive or defensive, are always anxious to have their women and children removed from all danger…For this reason I decided to locate our camp as close as convenient to village, knowing that the close proximity of their women and children, and their necessary exposure in case of conflict, would operate as a powerful argument in favor of peace, when the question of peace or war came to be discussed.

General Phil Sheridan, commander of the Department of the Missouri, issued orders for the Washita River expedition, including the following: "…to destroy villages and ponies, to kill or hang all warriors, and to bring back all woman and children ."

The purpose of this "total war" strategy, envisioned by Sheridan, was to make "all segments of Indian society experience the horrors of war as fully as the warriors".

Benjamin "Ben" Clark, the highly regarded scout and guide attached to the Seventh Cavalry, recalled the execution of these orders at the Washita: "he regiment galloped through the tepees…firing indiscriminately and killing men and women alike." One cavalry unit was seen pursuing "a group of women and children" shooting at them and "killing them without mercy". Lieutenant Edward Godfrey observed that soldiers made no effort "to prevent hitting women" during the attack.

Ben Clark reported "the loss of seventy-five warriors dead, and fully as many women and children killed". Greene noted "…all warriors who lay wounded in the village – presumably no matter the extent of their injuries" were (according Clark's testimony) "promptly shot to death". This was consistent with Sheridan's orders to kill or summarily hang all warriors.

The Seventh Cavalry's application of a strategy that included tactical engagement of noncombatants contributed to the effective "destruction" of Black Kettle's village – it "ceased to exist".

Colonel Ranald Mackenzie, with elements of the Fourth Cavalry, emulated the success – and methods – of the Battle of the Washita in the lead up to the Red River War at the battle of North Fork, near McClellan Creek, Texas, in 1872. Applying tactics similar to Custer's at the Washita, Mackenzie's command of 284 men attacked a Comanche village of 262 lodges and 500 warriors, capturing 130 women and children. The captives served both as human shields, as Mackenzie withdrew to his supply base, and as hostages, offered as a "bargaining tool to force the off-reservation Indians back to reservation, and to force them to free white captives".