Chief Gall

Gall (c. 1840 – 1895) (Lakota "Pizí", [Pronounced as / p^hi-zí /. See Lakota language.] "gall bladder") [cite book| last = Buechel| first = Eugene| coauthors = Paul Manhart| title = Lakota Dictionary: Lakota-English/English-Lakota| origyear = 1970| edition = New Comprehensive Edition| year = 2002| publisher = University of Nebraska Press| location = Lincoln and London| isbn = 0-8032-1305-0| oclc = 49312425] was a battle leader of the Hunkpapa Lakota and was one of the commanders who took part in the Battle of Little Bighorn.

Born in present day South Dakota around 1840, Gall, a giant of a man weighing close to 300 lbs, was recognized as an accomplished warrior during his late teens and became a chief in his twentiesFact|date=June 2007. He served under Sitting Bull during the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, and later fled to Canada with him until his surrender. Gall settled down in the Dakotas as a farmer and Judge of the Court of Indian Affairs on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, and became friendly with local settlers in his later yearsFact|date=June 2007. Eventually he turned against Sitting Bull, who had become involved with the Ghost Dance movement, and whom he called a coward and a fraudFact|date=June 2007.

Gall lived on the Standing Rock Agency until his death December 5, 1895.

Gall at the Battle of the Little Big Horn

Based on the modern historical, archeological reassessment of the Battle that had begun in the early the 1980s, with battlefield excavations after a major grass fire and an analysis of participating Native accounts, Gall has been given increased credit for several crucial tactical decisions that sealed the fate of the five companies of cavalry personally led by Custer of the 7th Cavalry at the Battle of Little Bighorn. After Gall's two wives and several children who were directly in the path of Major Marcus Reno's attack on the southeast end of the village were killed, and, as Gall describes it, "My heart was very bad that day," Gall was one of the few Natives during the opening phase of the battle after Major Marcus Reno's three companies of Cavalry were repulsed from an attack on the south-eastern end of the large multi-tribe village along the Little Big Horn River to suspect that the Custer's attack was probably a two-pronged one and that the location of the other half of Custer's attacking force was imperative to the defense of the village.

On his own initiative, crossing the river and riding north east, Gall spied Custer's chief scout, Mitch Bouyer, returning to Custer from an overwatch of the Indian village after locating the main element of Custer's five companies; Gall correctly determined that they probably intended to force a river crossing and an entrance into the northern end of the village. Riding back down from the bluffs north of the Little Bighorn River, Gall informed Sioux and Cheyenne forces returning from Reno's repulse of his suspicions, and with Crazy Horse, led his forces north across the river to drive Company E and F due north up what is now called Calhoun Couley and up to what is now known as Finley Ridgee from where three of Custer's company's fought a largely defensive battle.

Within minutes, Gall and his forces, which had taken a position north east of Finley Ridge and poured a withering fire down on Companies C, I and L, charged through an opening between Lt Calhoun's Company L and Company I that had been forced by the sudden surprise right envelopment attack by Crazy Horse and his warriors. Gall and his men finished off Companies C and L and forced the remaining survivors and some of Company I to flee towards Custer and his men north of the so-called "Last Stand Hill." Soon Custer's remaining companies C and E and K were wiped out with the the last approximately 28 survivors making a dash south for the river. They were trapped in the box canyon that is called "Deep Ravine" and their deaths signaled the end of the Battle and the complete annihilation of Custer's 5 companies.

In later years, Gall would give an account of the role he played in the Battle which was largely accurate except for his mistaken conclusion that the survivors of Custer's 3 south eastern companies fled northwest to Custer because they ran out of ammunition. In fact, the horse soldiers basically ran out of the will to fight, yielded to the flight instinct and many men simply ran and even abandoned loaded rifles that were picked up by the Indians and used effectively against them when they drove off the soldiers' horses, depriving them of their key tactical mobility advantage against the largely footbound Native attacks from the south east on Greasy Grass Ridge and Gall's enfillading fire from the Northeast. [ Micheno, Gregory F, "Lakota Noon, The Native Narrative of Custer's Defeat. Mountain Press Publishing Company, Missoula, Montana, 1997 pg 78 ]

References

Resources

*Grant, Bruce. "The Concise Encyclopedia of the American Indian", 3rd ed., Wings Books: New York, 2000.
*Shumate, Jane. "Chief Gall Sioux War Chief", Chelsea House Publishers:1995.

Footnotes