He led the response to Reno’s charge.

He had personal reasons to fight that day: his wives and children had been killed in the opening moments of the attack.

The Lakota and Cheyenne warriors did not fight the way the U.S.

Army expected.

They were not passive defenders waiting to be overwhelmed by military superiority.

They swarmed around Reno’s flanks, poured out of the camp in numbers that far exceeded what the Army had anticipated, and within minutes had turned Reno’s charge into a desperate retreat.

Reno’s battalion fell back across the river, scrambled up a bluff on the eastern bank, and dug in on high ground in a defensive position that they would hold, under siege, for the next day and a half.