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The Powder River Country, northeast of the Bighorn Mountains and south of the Yellowstone River, is shown in red in the western United States

'Red Cloud's War' (also referred to as the Bozeman War) was an armed conflict between the Sioux and the United States in the Wyoming Territory and the Montana Territory from 1866 to 1868. The war was fought over control of the Powder River Country in north central Wyoming, which lay along the Bozeman Trail, a primary access route to the Montana gold fields.

The war is named after Red Cloud, a prominent chief of Oglala Sioux who led the war against the United States following encroachment into the area by the U.S. military. The war, which ended with the Treaty of Fort Laramie, resulted in a complete victory for the Sioux and the temporary preservation of their control of the Powder River country.^[1]

The discovery of gold in 1863 in the area of Bannack, Montana, created an incentive for white settlers to find an economical route to reach the gold fields. While some emigrants went to Salt Lake City and then north to Montana, pioneer John Bozeman is credited with discovering the Bozeman Trail from Fort Laramie north through the Powder River country east of the Bighorn Mountains to the Yellowstone, then westward over what is now Bozeman Pass. The trail passed through the Powder River hunting grounds of the Lakota or Western Sioux. A second trail, the Bridger Trail, passed west of the Bighorns but was longer and therefore less favored.

The Powder River country encompasses the numerous rivers (the Bighorn, Rosebud, Tongue and Powder) that flow northeastward from the Bighorn Mountains to the Yellowstone. As more of the northern plains was occupied by white settlement, this region became the last unspoiled hunting ground of the various bands of the Lakota.

In 1865, Maj. Gen. Grenville M. Dodge ordered the Powder River Expedition against the Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho. Troops commanded by Patrick E. Connor defeated the Arapaho at the Battle of the Tongue River. The battle wrecked the Arapaho ability to wage war on the Bozeman Trail, but the expedition did little against the Sioux and served as a forerunner for further conflicts.

In late spring 1866, a council between the Sioux and the U.S. government was called at Fort Laramie to discuss a treaty to obtain a right of way through the Powder River country and the establishment of military posts to protect the road. While the conference was in session, Col. Henry B. Carrington, of the 18th U.S. Infantry arrived at Laramie with the Second Battalion of that regiment and construction supplies. He had orders to establish forts in the Powder River country.

Red Cloud, who was present at the council, was outraged that the army was bringing in troops before the Lakota had agreed to a military road through the area. Eventually, Red Cloud and his followers left the council promising resistance to any whites who sought to use the trail or occupy the Powder River country.

Despite these warnings, Colonel Carrington moved into the Powder River country and restored Fort Reno. He then proceeded north and founded Fort Phil Kearny on Piney Creek in what is now northwest Wyoming. A third post, Fort C. F. Smith was established on the Bighorn River approximately 90 miles (145 km) north of Fort Phil Kearny.

A coalition of various bands of Lakota, Northern Cheyennes and Arapahos under the leadership of Red Cloud invested the troops at both Forts Phil Kearny and C.F. Smith. The Indians effectively closed travel on the Bozeman Trail. Wood parties, mail carriers, emigrants and traders became the regular targets of Indian resistance.

Carrington was an engineer, not a cavalryman. He spent a great deal of energy building his fortifications rather than fighting Indians. This was due in part to his arrival in the region in mid-July. Given the severity of the Wyoming winters, this strategy was not unreasonable, but it infuriated many of his junior officers. Most of these officers were Civil War veterans who believed the Indians could be easily defeated and viewed Carrington's apparent unwillingness to fight Indians as a form of cowardice. On the other hand, Carrington respected the fighting capacity of his foe, their better knowledge of the terrain, and their vastly superior numbers.

In December 1866, Captain and Brevet Lt. Col. William J. Fetterman arrived at Fort Phil Kearny from the 18th Infantry Regiment's First Battalion. Unlike Carrington, Fetterman had extensive combat experience during the Civil War, but no experience fighting Indians. Fetterman disagreed with Colonel Carrington's strategy; it is said that he considered it "passive" and boasted that, given "80 men," he "would ride through the Sioux nation." He drilled his men incessantly and waited for an opportunity to defeat the Indians.

On December 6, Second Lieutenant H. S. Bingham was killed by Indians while skirmishing outside the fort. Carrington worried about the propensity of his officers to blindly follow Indian decoy parties; Fetterman was further outraged by what he considered the ineffectiveness of Carrington's leadership.

The battle near Fort Philip Kearney, Dakota Territory, December 21, 1866.

On December 21, 1866, the wood train was attacked. A relief party under Captain James Powell—composed of 49 infantrymen from 2nd Battalion U.S. 18th Infantry Regiment and 27 U.S. 2nd Cavalry Regiment troopers under Lieutenant George W. Grummond—was ordered to relieve the wood train. However, Fetterman, claiming seniority, assumed command of the relief party. Colonel Carrington ordered Fetterman not to cross Lodge Trail Ridge, where relief from the fort would be difficult. Fetterman was joined by Captain Frederick Brown, the post quartermaster. Again, Carrington ordered Grummond (who left the fort after Fetterman and the infantry had already departed) to remind Fetterman not to cross over Lodge Trail Ridge. The relief party numbered 79 officers and men. Two civilians, James Wheatley and Isaac Fisher, who joined Fetterman, brought the total up to 81.

Within the hour, an Indian decoy party which included the Oglala warrior Crazy Horse, appeared on Lodge Trail Ridge. This bait was too tempting to Fetterman, especially since several of the decoys stood upon their ponies and insultingly waggled their bare buttocks at the troopers. Fetterman and his troop rode up and over the Ridge in pursuit and down into the Peno Valley where an estimated 1,000-3,000 Indians awaited Fetterman's command. When the trap was sprung, there was no avenue of escape and no survivors.

Evidence from the burial party sent out a few days later to collect the remains showed that the soldiers had most likely died in three groups. The most advanced and probably the most effective centered around the two civilians, who were armed with 16-shot Henry repeating rifles. Up slope from them were the bodies of the cavalrymen, armed with 7-shot Spencer carbines, but encumbered by their horses and without cover. Further up slope were Fetterman, Brown and the infantrymen, armed with Civil War surplus single shot muzzleloaders. These soldiers fought from cover for a short while, until their ammunition ran out and they were overrun.

At the time of the battle, Carrington heard the gunfire and sent out a relief force under Captain Ten Eyck. However, Ten Eyck took a roundabout route and did not reach Fetterman in time. Ten Eyck suffered severe criticism for not marching straight to the sound of the battle.

A historian set forth Carrington's claim that Fetterman and Brown shot each other to avoid capture, though Army autopsies recorded Fetterman's death wound as a knife slash, with no gunshot wounds. It remains a subject of debate. Severe mutilations were committed upon the bodies of nearly all the soldiers and were widely publicized by the newspapers. The only body left untouched was that of a young bugler, Adolph Metzler, who was believed to have fought several Indians with only his bugle. His body was left untouched and covered in a buffalo robe by the Indians. The reason for this act remains unknown, though it could have been a tribute to his bravery. The battle, named the Battle of the Hundred Slain by the Indians and the Fetterman Massacre by the soldiers, was the worst army defeat on the Great Plains until the disaster on the Little Big Horn ten years later.

Fort Phil Kearny prepared for a last stand that never came. Colonel Carrington was unfairly blamed for the defeat and was relieved of his command in January 1867. He eventually resigned his commission in 1870. He spent the rest of his life defending his actions and condemning Fetterman's recklessness. The shock of the Fetterman defeat resulted in calls for a reassessment of the government's Indian policy.

It is believed that Red Cloud was not present during the Fetterman battle, but he certainly was the inspirational leader in the same way that Sitting Bull would be for the Great Sioux War in 1876. He was present in August 1867 for the Wagon Box Fight, where a small army detachment held off several thousand Lakota for five hours with their new breech-loading rifles.

While the army had been constantly demanding that Colonel Carrington take offensive action against the Indians, his successor at Fort Kearny, General Wessels, never launched a major offensive against the Indians. By late summer 1867, the government decided that the transcontinental railroad then pushing through southwestern Wyoming toward Salt Lake City, and the use of the Bridger Trail, were better alternatives than trying to maintain an expensive and unproductive military presence in the Powder River country.

Peace commissioners were sent to Fort Laramie in the spring of 1868. Red Cloud refused to meet with these individuals until the Powder River strongholds, Forts Phil Kearny and C. F. Smith, were abandoned. In August 1868, Federal soldiers abandoned these forts and proceeded on toward Fort Laramie.

Red Cloud did not arrive at Fort Laramie until November. He signed the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1868 which created the Great Sioux Reservation, including the Black Hills. The reservation covered what is now all of western South Dakota. In addition, the Powder River country was declared to be Unceded territory as a reserve for Lakota who chose not to live on the new reservation and as a hunting reserve for all the Lakota.

Red Cloud became the only Indian leader to win a major war against the United States. But he was more than merely a great war leader - when the inevitable happened, and the limitless numbers and technology of the United States overwhelmed the Sioux, Red Cloud adapted to fighting the Indian Bureau for fair treatment for his people. His famous statement about treaties best sums up his attitude towards the word of the people negotiating with him: "I have listened patiently to the promises of the Great Father, but his memory is short. I am now done with him. This is all I have to say."

After 1868, he lived on the reservation and became an important leader of the Lakota as they transitioned from the freedom of the plains to the confinement of the reservation system. He outlived all the major Sioux leaders of the Indian wars and died in 1909 on the Pine Ridge Reservation, where he is buried.

Fetterman, Brown and the rest of the soldiers killed in 1866 are buried in the U.S. National Cemetery at Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, near Crow Agency, Montana.

1. ^ *Brown, Dee (1970). Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, ch. 6. Bantam Books. ISBN 0-5531-1979-6. 

• National Park Service: War Shirt worn by Red Cloud
• Treaty of Fort Laramie
• Shattering the Myth of the Fetterman Massacre