Undaunted by the threatening prospect and unmoved by the savage shouts and jeers, although some of the scouts who knew the Sioux language retorted in kind, the troops deployed, and at as rapid a pace as they could manage, started for the hills. The artillery was exposed and unlimbered, and the shells thrown into the Indian position caused great surprise and consternation. The key to the position was a high elevation upon the left. The Indians who held it were led by Big Crow, the chief medicine man. As the battle began he exposed himself freely between the lines, dressed in a magnificent Indian war shirt and bonnet, running up and down and yelling like a fiend. Miles massed a little column against Big Crow and the warriors defending the eminence. At the same time he ordered a general escalade of the cliff along the whole line. Under a heavy fire, which, however, like most plunging fires down the sides of mountains or slopes, did but little damage, the troops slowly toiled up the icy, snow-covered bluffs.[105] Led by Major Casey and Captains McDonald and Baldwin, the charge was delivered with the utmost resolution. It was not a dash. No men, encumbered as were those soldiers, could move rapidly up icy cliffs, covered, wherever the sharpness of the acclivity permitted, with from one to three feet of snow. It was rather a slow, dogged, determined crawl, with a stop every few moments to fire at some Indian silhouetted above them on the gray sky-line of that winter morning. The fighting for the high cliff on the left of the line was spirited and desperate. Finally, the men came to a hand-to-hand struggle. The Indians clung tenaciously to the post until Big Crow was shot, when the soldiers succeeded in dislodging them. This bluff commanded the lines. It was occupied by the troops, who poured an enfilading fire upon the army of Crazy Horse. The Indian position, therefore, became untenable, and fighting sullenly and stubbornly, they withdrew in good order, though closely pursued by the troops. In the latter part of the advance snow began to fall, and before the battle was closed the combatants were fighting in the midst of a blinding storm. Miles says that the moment at which the Indians turned their backs and began the retreat was one in which he felt relief scarcely to be expressed, so desperate had been the fighting, so difficult the ascent, and so doubtful the result.