Grey Beard

[1] He was involved in a skirmish with Edwin Vose Sumner's troops at the Kansas River in 1857, and gained recognition among whites in 1867 for battling soldiers under Winfield Scott Hancock and George Armstrong Custer in an attempt to prevent the building of the Kansas Pacific Railroad across tribal lands.

[1] He refused to sign the failed Medicine Lodge Treaty, and continued fighting until 1871, when his people settled on a reservation in Indian Territory.

[1] After participating in the Second Battle of Adobe Walls, Grey Beard and his followers went into hiding in what is now the Oklahoma Panhandle.

[2] The girls were freed after a military surprise attack on his camp on November 8, 1874, near present-day McClellan Creek National Grassland,[3] after which his band scattered across the plains and was pursued for two days across 96 miles by 120 soldiers from the United States Cavalry before escaping.

Convinced that he and fellow prisoners were going to be killed by the Americans, he asked his captor, Captain Richard Henry Pratt, to write a letter conveying to his people that they should settle peacefully and cooperate with the United States government.