Swan Valley Museum

White Swan , or Mee-nah-tsee-us in the Crow language, was one of six Crow Scouts for George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry Regiment during the 1876 campaign against the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne. At the Battle of the Little Bighorn in the Crow Indian Reservation, White Swan went with Major Reno's detachment, and fought alongside the soldiers at the south end of the village. Of the six Crow scouts at the Battle of the Little Bighorn White Swan stands out because he aggressively sought combat with multiple Sioux and Cheyenne warriors, and he was the only Crow Scout to be wounded in action, suffering severe wounds to his hand/wrist and leg/foot. After being disabled by his wounds, he was taken to Reno's hill entrenchments by Half Yellow Face, the pipe-bearer of the Crow scouts, which no doubt saved his life. On the 27th, after the battle, Half Yellow Face made a special travois for White Swan and moved him to the Far West steamship so he could get medical care. White Swan was treated in a temporary Army hospital at the junction of the Bighorn and Yellowstone rivers. At the Crow encampments on Pryor Creek, other returning scouts reported that White Swan had died, but he survived his wounds. Following the Battle of the Little Bighorn, White Swan continued for five years to serve as a scout with the U.S. Army, though he was significantly disabled. He had a severely deformed right wrist and hand, and he limped from the wound in his foot/leg from wounds received at the Battle on the Little Bighorn. In photographs White Swan also had a scar on his forehead where he been struck with a war club in a separate battle with a Sioux warrior. Either from this blow or from other sources White Swan could not hear and thus was unable to speak in his later life. Eventually he was awarded a small army pension. In White Swan's later life he lived at the Crow Agency, after it had been moved in 1884 to its present site in the Little Bighorn valley in Montana, close to the site of the battlefield. When he could no longer be an Army scout White Swan began to produce drawings that represented key events in his life, including events of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. These drawings were bought by visitors to the Crow Agency and the nearby Custer Battlefield, providing White Swan with a welcome source of income. These drawings have now been discovered by collectors and their artistic value has been recognized. They have recently become the subject of collectors, exhibitions, books and university theses, and prints of his drawings are now commercially produced. While living at Crow Agency, White Swan was painted by the artist J.H. Sharp, who knew him and described him as Jolly, good natured and a general favorite. White Swan's wife had died when he was only 23 before he became an army scout, and he did not remarry. He lived for a time with an aunt, Strikes By The Side Of The Water who was also the mother of Curly, another Crow scout, and he and Curly were known in the Crow Agency community as brothers, though their personalities were said to be the opposite of each other. He died in 1904, leaving no direct descendants. He is buried in the National Cemetery at the Little Bighorn Battlefield. Although his early death, and his inability to hear and speak left him out of the limelight that later fell on the other surviving Crow scouts, his outstanding bravery during the battle and his artistic ability established an enduring legacy.
Continue reading...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.