Dorman and Sitting Bull
Dorman's last stand at the Little Bighorn is documented in Stanley Vestal's Sitting Bull-Champion of the Sioux (Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1932), "Isaiah Dorman and the Custer Expedition" by Ronald McConnell, (Journal of Negro History, 33 (July 1948), and Troopers with Custer: Historic Incidents of the Battle of the Little Big Horn by E. A. Brininstool, 1925, 1989. Vestal relates that Dorman was shot and wounded by the Indians on the field of battle. The Sioux chief Sitting Bull recognized the black interpreter and stopped during the fighting to give him a last drink of water. According to Vestal:
- "The Negro asked for water and Sitting Bull took his cup of polished black buffalo horn, got some water and gave him to drink."
Connell holds that Dorman and Sitting Bull most likely knew each other, but doubts the veracity of the Sioux chief's drink offer, noting that similar stories of European style chivalry were common at the time. Some writers on Sutting Bull repeat the account as credible however, suggesting that it had little to do with sentimental notions of grand chivalry, but rather a practical gesture by the Sioux leader towards a doomed man. The water given and the 'stop order' was therefore a temporary reprieve, one last acknowledgement of the interpreter the medicine man had once personally known.
A 2008 biography of Sitting Bull by former US Park Service Ranger R. Utley, notes the incident in more detail. According to Utley, Dorman fell, badly wounded in the chest, and several warriors gathered around to finish the job. Dorman made a final plea in the Sioux language to "my friends", asking that they not count coup on him, since he was already dead. Sitting Bull rode up and said "Don't kill that man, he is a friend of mine." The Sioux leader then dismounted, poured water into a buffalo-horn cup and gave it to the black man. His obligation thus discharged, Sitting Bull mounted up once more, and rode on. Eagle Robe, a Hunkpapa woman scouring the battlefield, dispatched Dorman with a rifle shot, and others following mutilated the body. This was done so that the enemy would not look good in the spirit world. Whatever the exact details most writers agree that Dorman was friendly with the Indians, but this did not save him once the battle was joined.
Read more about this topic: Isaiah Dorman
Famous quotes containing the words sitting and/or bull:
“After sitting in my chamber many days, reading the poets, I have been out early on a foggy morning and heard the cry of an owl in a neighboring wood as from a nature behind the common, unexplored by science or by literature.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Not only the bull attacks his enemies with curved horn, but also the sheep, when harmed fights back.”
—Propertius Sextus (c. 50–16 B.C.)