Burning it all was not a military action in the narrow sense of degrading an enemy’s fighting capacity.

It was an attack on the survival infrastructure of an entire population.

The sources describe the villages in the canyon as including more than 200 tipis, depending on which account is consulted.

Some accounts say more.

The supply destruction included dried meat, hides, equipment, weapons stocks, personal possessions, tools — everything that could not be carried in the immediate flight from the canyon.

The families who escaped had what they could carry or what they could grab in minutes.