What happened there was disturbing to Victorian American sensibility and has been described in ways that range from honest to sensationalized in the historical literature.

Women and elderly noncombatants went to the battlefield, as was common practice in Plains warfare.

They recovered weapons and equipment.

They sometimes treated the bodies of fallen enemies in ways that had specific cultural meaning — counting coup on dead soldiers, taking scalps or other trophies, in some cases mutilating bodies.

This was not random violence.

It was culturally structured behavior with meaning within the Lakota warrior tradition.

Counting coup — touching an enemy, whether living or dead — was one of the primary measures of warrior valor.