Bloody Knife (Sioux: Tȟamila Wewe; Arikara: NeesiRAhpát; ca. 1840 – June 25, 1876) was an American Indian who served as a scout and guide for the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment. He was the favorite scout of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and has been called "perhaps the most famous Native American scout to serve the U.S. Army."
First years as a scout
After working for the American Fur Company, Bloody Knife accompanied Brigadier General Alfred Sully in 1865 as a scout on his Sioux expedition. Bloody Knife proved useful to the group of Galvanized Yankees, prisoner soldiers from the Confederate States Army who served the Union in the American West instead of serving time in a prisoner-of-war camp at Fort Berthold. He also worked as a messenger, helping the troops to communicate with other military units in the area, which was still mainly controlled by the Sioux. In late 1865, Bloody Knife met with Captain Adams Bassett of Company C, Fourth U.S. Volunteer Infantry, whom he told that Gall had recently arrived near Fort Berthold, that Gall was not peaceful and had killed white men along the Missouri River. Bassett sent a lieutenant with a platoon and Bloody Knife to capture Gall or kill him if he would not surrender. Bloody Knife led the soldiers to the Hunkpapa village, south of the fort where Gall was staying. The men attempted to arrest Gall upon arrival, but when Gall tried to escape he was bayoneted and forced to the ground, and was twice stabbed with bayonets. The story goes that Bloody Knife took aim to administer a killing shot to Gall's head, but the officer in command knocked the shot wide, claiming Gall was already dead. Bloody Knife argued furiously with the officer to no avail. He departed, leaving Gall alive to become a Sioux war chief.]]
In 1866, President Andrew Johnson authorized the formation of a force of Indian scouts when he signed the Indian Scout Enlistment Act. Bloody Knife enlisted as a corporal at Fort Stevenson in May 1868, but his early service was not without issue. Bloody Knife had a problem with alcohol that may have led to him deserting his post in September 1868. By 1872, the year of his involvement in the Yellowstone Expedition, he became a lance corporal. Bloody Knife blamed the death of his son on Gall. Many of the Arikara on the expedition wanted to avenge the attack and when they found signs of a band of Sioux in the Black Hills, they began to sing war songs and adorned their horses and themselves with war paint. Custer was not interested in solving tribal feuds and ordered the scouts not to attack any Sioux unless fired upon first. shot the bear twice with his Remington rifle, hitting it in the thigh, and Bloody Knife and William Ludlow helped with the kill. The bear was an old male with broken teeth, covered in scars, and weighed . and 2002 biography The Custer Companion states that the coup de grâce was a cut to the jugular vein by Bloody Knife.
While most Indian scouts earned $13 a month, the same amount of pay as the troops received, Custer arranged a job for Bloody Knife with the quartermaster as a guide, where he earned $75 ($ at today's prices) per month. Bloody Knife was one of three Arikara scouts assigned to Reno to die during the battle; the others were Little Brave (also known as Bear's Trail or Little Soldier) and Bobtail Bull. The US Army suffered a huge defeat.
Bloody Knife was decapitated by the Sioux. According to Bloody Knife's sister, her daughters had found his body on the battlefield, and unaware that it was the body of their uncle, cut off his head and took it to the Hunkpapa village where it was displayed on a pole. When she saw the head and recognized it as that of her brother, Bloody Knife's sister was horrified. According to David Humphreys Miller, an interviewer who talked with many of the participants and witnesses from the battle, she cried out: "Gall has killed him at last!" However, other accounts do not mention Gall nor the sisters' reactions at their discovery of the head's identity.
Legacy
Bloody Knife had wed an Arikara woman named Young Owl Woman, or She Owl, in 1866. He fathered at least three children, a daughter and two sons. The daughter died of an illness on December 28, 1870, and was buried at Fort Buford.