Did the Crow Indians and Plenty Coups fight in the war against the white man?
About 60 years after Lewis and Clark came to the area where the Absaaloga lived, the Indians and the whites began to fight over the land that the Indians used for hunting grounds. Some Indian tribes chose to fight while others, like the Absaaloga, choose to be helpful. One of the most famous battles of this time was with General George Custer. Plenty Coups' vision of the chickadee and the wind storm had taught the Absaaloga to use the white man's knowledge instead of fighting him. The era when Plenty Coups became a warrior and a chief was an unsettled time. During the Bozeman Trail era in the 1860s, the Sioux, Cheyenne and the Arapaho began fighting to try to keep the white man from their hunting area located in Wyoming and Montana. This era is called the Indian Wars period with The Red Cloud Wars in the 1860s and the battles with Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse in the 1870s. In the Battle of the Rosebud in 1876, General Crook's forces battled and eight days later General Custer was defeated by the same combined Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho forces.

Plenty Coups was one of the major leaders of the Crow at that time. He was specifically involved in the Battle of the Rosebud as one of the leaders of 120 Crow Indian warriors who were serving as scouts for General Crook. There were also approximately 90 Shoshone warriors under Chief Washakie who were assisting General Crook. There were other Crow Indians who were scouting for General Custer at the Little Bighorn Battle.

In this battle, General Crook's forces came north from the Sheridan, Wyoming area to Rosebud Creek where the combined Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho forces attacked them. History reflects that had it not been for the Crow and Shoshone warriors who saw this attack coming. They made a counter attack which allowed General Crook to get many of his 1,200-man force rallied to defend themselves. Without the warriors' warning, General Crook and his forces possibly could have been defeated in the same way that Custer's forces were defeated eight days later. They essentially fought to a draw by the end of the day. General Crook's forces retreated to the Sheridan, Wyoming area along with the Crow and Shoshone warriors. The Indian forces then went back to their camping areas along the Little Bighorn, and it was General Custer who attacked them there eight days later. From: Chief Plenty Coups State Park Museum Tour Content