Forget every cavalry vs. Indian show you ever saw—get it out of your consciousness. The Ponca story is not like them.
There’d never, ever been a hostile problem with the Poncas. They’d signed a treaty sixty years before, so when the mounted cavalry from Ft. Randall came riding into the Ponca villages, no Ponca had ever seen the army before. Can you imagine?
The wailing that whole night was robust. No one wanted to leave. The next morning, in come these fighting men with guns and swords.