By turning Crook back, Crazy Horse’s force prevented Crook from coordinating with Custer’s column, leaving Custer to approach the encampment without the reinforcement that was supposed to be there.

Crazy Horse’s tactical sophistication at the Rosebud — the ability to engage a much larger and better-armed force in terrain that neutralized the Army’s firepower advantages — was the same quality that made him effective throughout the resistance.

Sitting Bull’s Vision And The Coalition

The gathering of Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho people in the summer of 1876 — which produced both the Rosebud and the Little Bighorn — was the result of Sitting Bull’s religious and political leadership as much as Crazy Horse’s military leadership.

Sitting Bull had conducted a sun dance in which he had a vision of soldiers falling headfirst into camp.