08/05/2023
Goes Ahead was a Crow Native American scout for George Custer's 7th Cavalry Regiment during the Black Hills war. He was valuable for his accounts of the Battle of Little Bighorn, in which he participated. The reason for cooperating with the white man was due to the historical enmity between the Crow and the Lakota, as well as their Northern Cheyenne allies. He was born in 1851 near the Platte River. At the age of 16, Goes Ahead married Pretty Shield, a medicine woman with whom he would have 7 children. At the age of 25 he volunteered to serve as a scout along with 5 other Crow. He was very useful to Custer, as he and the other scouts knew the Little Bighorn and Rosebud drainage pretty well. They spotted a large Lakota encampment on the morning of the battle and informed Custer about its size. As Custer thought that the enemy would retreat, he ordered an attack on the Lakota, and so the Crow scouts prepared to fight. They took off their military issued uniforms and put on their traditional clothing, seeking help from the spiritual world should they be killed. Custer was enraged by this, as he saw this as fatalism and promptly dismissed the Crow. The scouts were then assigned to another unit and saw action during the battle. Goes Ahead's wife later said that he saw where and how Custer died. After the war he went on to live a peaceful life at the Crow reserve until his death in 1919
