However, not long after being present at the death of Crazy Horse, Touch the Clouds transferred with his band back to the Cheyenne River Agency.

Born between 1837 and 1839, Touch the Clouds was the youngest son of the influential headman Lone Horn, leader of a Minneconjou band called the Wakpokinyan (Flies Along the Stream).

Lieutenant Henry R. Lemly, who met Touch the Clouds in 1877, described him as a Minneconjou "of magnificent physique, standing 6 feet 9 inches in his moccasins, and without an ounce of surplus flesh, weighing 300 pounds".

[2] By the time Touch the Clouds reached his thirties, he had earned the respect of his peers and had been selected as the head of one of the tribe's warrior societies.

White Bull later recalled an occasion in 1872 when Touch the Clouds led a horse-raiding party but decided to turn back upon discovering that they were greatly outnumbered by the Crow.

[4] The crisis over the increasing European-American presence on the northern Great Plains caused growing dissension among the various Lakota bands as they debated what to do.

[5] After Lone Horn died in 1875, the mantle of leadership fell to his son,[1] just as the US Army was beginning its campaign against the non-treaty Cheyenne and Lakota bands.

Shortly after word of Custer's defeat at the Little Bighorn reached the reservation, Touch the Clouds pleaded with army officers at the nearby post: "Have compassion on us.

In late September 1876, suspicious of the Army's intentions, Touch the Clouds led a breakout of Minneconjou and Sans Arc who fled the agency, abandoning their lodgepoles and other possessions in their hurried flight north.

The arrival of these refugees, including Touch the Clouds, Roman Nose, Bull Eagle, Spotted Elk and other headmen, introduced a more moderate element into the leadership of the northern villages.

After Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull departed with their bands, representatives of the Minneconjou met with Colonel Nelson Miles to discuss the possibility of surrender.

Touch the Clouds accompanied his friend back to Camp Robinson, where Crazy Horse was fatally bayonetted when army soldiers attempted to force him into the guardhouse.

His oldest son, Amos Charging First, succeeded his father as a community leader,[17] the next in the dynasty of Minneconjou headmen starting with the great Lone Horn.