Red Cloud's War

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

History

Early source of conflict

The discovery of gold in 1863 in the area of Bannock, 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 Major General 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 to come.

Council at Fort Laramie

In the 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 troops and 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 country.

Carrington proceeds north

Despite these warnings, Col. 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 fort, Fort C. F. Smith was established on the Bighorn River approximately 90 miles 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.

Col. 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 that 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 superior numbers.

The Fetterman Massacre

In November 1866, Brevet Lt. Col. William Judd Fetterman arrived at Fort Kearny. He disagreed with Col. Carrington's "passive" strategy against the Indians. He said that if he were 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, Fetterman's friend, Second Lieutenant H. S. Bingham was killed by the Indians. While Col. Carrington worried about the propensity of his officers to blindly follow Indian decoy parties, Lt. Col. Fetterman was further outraged by the ineffectiveness of Col. Carrington's leadership.

On December 21, 1866, the wood train was attacked. Fetterman was sent out to relieve the wood train. However, Col. Carrington ordered Fetterman not to cross Lodge Trail Ridge where relief from the fort would be difficult. Fetterman was joined by his friend, Frederick Brown, the post quartermaster. Col. Carrington ordered out further troops under the command of Lieutanant Grummond to reinforce Fetterman. Again, Col. Carrington ordered Grummond to remind Fetterman not to cross over Lodge Trail Ridge. With Grummond's reinforcements, the army contingent comprised 79 officers and men. When two civilians left the fort and joined Fetterman, he had his eighty men.

Within the hour, an Indian decoy party led by the Oglala warrior, Crazy Horse, got Fetterman to cross Lodge Trail Ridge into the Peno Valley where approximately 3000 Indians awaited Fetterman's command. When the trap was sprung, there was no avenue of escape. Carrington heard the gunfire and sent out a relief force under Capt. Ten Eyck. However, the force could not reach Fetterman. The so-called Fetterman Massacre was the single largest army defeat on the Great Plains to that time.

Col. Carrington was relieved of his command and would spend the rest of his life defending his actions and condemning Fetterman. The shock of the Fetterman defeat would result 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 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 contingent held off several thousand Lakota with new breech-loading rifles.

Treaty of Fort Laramie

While the army had been constantly demanding that Col. 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 transcontinenal 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 treat with these individuals until the Powder River forts, Phil Kearny and C. F. Smith were abandoned. In August, 1868. as soldiers abandoned these forts and proceeded toward Fort Laramie, they could see the forts for which they had given a great deal in sweat and blood go up in smoke from Indian torches.

Red Cloud did not arrive at Fort Laramie until November. He signed the Fort Laramie Treaty 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 Indian Country as a reserve for Lakota who chose not to live on the new reservation and as a hunting reserve for all the Lakota.

Aftermath

Red Cloud became the only Indian leader to win a major war against the United States.

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, dying 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 Big Horn National Monument, near Crow Agency, Montana.

External links

National Park Service: War Shirt worn by Red Cloud
Red Cloud
Treaty of Fort Laramie