Crazy Horse (, , ; 1840 – September 5, 1877) was a Lakota war leader of the Oglala band in the 19th century. He took up arms against the United States federal government to fight against encroachment by white American settlers on Native American territory and to preserve the traditional way of life of the Lakota people. His participation in several famous battles of the Black Hills War on the northern Great Plains, among them the Fetterman Fight in 1866, in which he acted as a decoy, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, in which he led a war party to victory, earned him great respect from both his enemies and his own people. In September 1877, four months after surrendering to U.S. troops under General George Crook, Crazy Horse was fatally wounded by a bayonet-wielding military guard while allegedly resisting imprisonment at Camp Robinson in present-day Nebraska. He was honored by the U.S. Postal Service in 1982 with a 13¢ Great Americans series postage stamp. Early life Sources differ on the precise year of Crazy Horse's birth, but most agree he was born between 1840 and 1845. According to Šúŋka Bloká (He Dog), he and Crazy Horse "were both born in the same year at the same season of the year," which census records and other interviews place in 1842. Ptehé Wóptuȟ’a (Encouraging Bear), an Oglala medicine man and spiritual adviser to Crazy Horse, reported that Crazy Horse was born "in the year in which the band to which he belonged, the Oglala, stole One Hundred Horses, and in the fall of the year," a reference to the annual Lakota calendar or winter count. Among the Oglala winter counts, the stealing of 100 horses is noted by Cloud Shield, and possibly by American Horse and Red Horse owner, as equivalent to the year 1840–41. Oral history accounts from relatives on the Cheyenne River Reservation place his birth in the spring of 1840. On the evening of his son's death, the elder Crazy Horse told Lieutenant H.R. Lemly that the year of birth was 1840. Immediate family Crazy Horse was born to parents from two different bands of the Lakota division of the Sioux, his father being an Oglala and his mother a Miniconjou. His father, born in 1810, was also named Tȟašúŋke Witkó (Crazy Horse). Crazy Horse was named Čháŋ Óhaŋ (Among the Trees) at birth,