Did you know the Long Haired Chief?

Sitting Bull-No.

What! Had you never seen him?

Sitting Bull-No. Many of the chiefs knew him.

What do they think of him?

Sitting Bull- He was a great warrior.

Was he brave?

Sitting Bull- He was a mighty chief.

(At this point the interviewer produced a map of the battlefield and briefed Sitting Bull on it's major points.)

Sitting Bull- We thought we were whipped.

Ah! Did you think the soldiers were too many for you?

Sitting Bull- Nat at first; but by-and-by, yes. Afterwards, no.

Tell me about the battle, where was the Indian camp first attacked?

Sitting Bull- Here (pointing to Reno's crossing on the map).

About what time in the day was that?

Sitting Bull- It was some two hours past the time when the sun is in the center of the sky.

What white chief was it who came over there against your warriors?

Sitting Bull- The Long Hair.

Are you sure?

Sitting Bull- The Long Hair commanded.

But you did not see him?

Sitting Bull- I have said that I never saw him.

Did any of the chiefs see him?

Not here, but there. (pointing yo Medicine Tail Coulee- Ford B).

Why do you think it was the Long Hair who crossed first and charged you here at the right side of the map?

Sitting Bull- A chief leads his warriors.

Was there a good fight here, on the right side of the map? Explain it to me.

Sitting Bull- It was so; I was lying in my lodge, some young men ran into me and said: The Long Hair is in the camp. They are firing in the camp. I said, all right, and jumped up and stepped out of my lodge.

Where was your lodge?

Sitting Bull- Here, with my people. (pointing to the group of Uncpapa lodges, designated as abandoned lodges on the map).

So the first attack was made, then, on the right side of the map, and upon the lodges of the Uncpapas?

Sitting Bull- Yes.

Here the lodges are said to have been deserted.

Sitting Bull- The old men, the squaws, and the children were hurried away.

Toward the other end of the camp?

Sitting Bull- Yes. Some of the Minneconjou women and children also left their lodges when the attack began.

Did you retreat at first?

Sitting Bull- Do you mean the warriors?

Yes, the fighting men.

Sitting Bull- Oh, we fell back, but it was not what warriors call a retreat; it was to gain time. It was the Long Hair who retreated. My people fought him here in the brush (designating the timber behind which the indians pressed Reno) and fell back across here (placing his finger on the line of Reno's retreat to the northern bluffs).

So you think that was the Long Hair whom your people fought in the timber, and who fell back afterwards to those heights?

Sitting Bull- Of Course.

What occurred afterward? Was there any heavy fighting after the retreat of the soldiers to the bluffs?

Sitting Bull- Not then; not there.

When? Where?

Sitting Bull- Why, down here (pointing at Ford B). That was where the big fight was fought a little later. After the Long Hair was driven back to the bluffs he took this road (tracing with his finger the line of Custer's march on the map), and went down to see if he could not beat us there.

When the fight commenced here (pointing to the spot where Custer advanced behind the Little Big Horn) what happened?

Sitting Bull- Hell!

You mean I suppose, a fierce battle?

Sitting Bull- I mean a thousand devils.

The village was by this time thoroughly aroused?

Sitting Bull- The squaws were like flying birds; the bullets were like humming bees.

You say that when the first attack was made off here on the right of the map, the old men and squaws and the children ran down the valley towards the left. What did they do when this second attack came from up here toward the left?

Sitting Bull- They ran back again to the right, here and there (pointing to the abandoned lodges reference on the map).

And where did the warriors run?

Sitting Bull- They ran to the fight, the big fight.

So that in the afternoon, after the first fight, on the right hand side of the map, was over, and after the big fight on the left side began, you say the squaws and children all returned to the right hand side, and that the warriors, the fighting men of all the Indian Camps, ran to the place where the big fight was going on?

Sitting Bull- Yes

Why was that? Were not some of the warriors left in front of the intrenchments on the bluffs, near the right side of the map? Did not you think it necessary, did not your war chiefs think it necessary,- to keep some of your young men there to fight the troops who had retreated to these intrenchments?

Sitting Bull- No.

Why?

Sitting Bull- You have forgotten.

How?

Sitting Bull- You forgot that only a few soldiers were left by the Long Hair on those bluffs. He took the main body of his soldiers with him to make the big fight down here on the left.

So there were no soldiers to make a fight left in the intrenchments on the right hand bluff?

I have spoken! It is enough. The squaws could deal with them. There were none but squaws and papposes in front of them that afternoon.

Well then, did the Cavalry, who came down and made the big fight; fight?

Sitting Bull- They fought. Many young men are missing from our lodges. But it is there an American squaw who has her husband left? Were there any Americans left to tell the story of that day?