Battles and Massacres of the Indian Wars in the American West

Battles & Massacres of the Indian Wars - Page 6

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Connor Battlefield - On August 28, 1865, the U.S. Cavalry under the command of General Patrick Connor attacked Chief Black Bear's Arapaho along the Tongue River outside present day Ranchester, Wyoming. The warriors made a stand while their families scattered. Connor's troopers destroyed the village, then were driven back by an Indian counterattack. Only the use of artillery saved the soldiers from disaster. This attack caused the Arapaho to join forces with the Sioux and Cheyenne. The battle site is located in the Ranchester City Park about five miles from Dayton, Wyoming.

Dull Knife Fight (1876) - At the Red Fork of the Powder River in the winter of 1876 the Army defeated Dull Knife and his Cheyennes, who had helped defeat Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn the previous summer.

Beginning the retaliatory campaigns, General George Crook marched from Fort Fetterman in present day Wyoming back into the Powder River country.

General Patrick Connor

At dawn on November 25, 1876, Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie's 4th Cavalry surprised Dull Knife's winter camp. In the end, some 25 Indians were killed and the troops destroyed the bulk of the Indians' shelter, food, and clothing. Most of the survivors, recognizing the futility of holding out any longer, surrendered in the spring at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, along with Crazy Horse and his people.

Today, the battlefield is a picturesque setting among rugged hills on a privately owned ranch. It is is marked by a stone monument, on the side of a hill. It is located in Johnson County, just off an unimproved road, about 23 miles west of Kaycee.

Fetterman Massacre (1866) - The Fetterman battle was fought near Fort Phil Kearny, Wyoming Territory on December 21, 1866. Angered at white interlopers traveling through their country, Sioux and Cheyenne forces continually harassed the soldiers at Fort Phil Kearny, constructed to provide emigrant protection along the newly opened Bozeman Trail.

Early in December, 1866 Sioux and Cheyenne warriors, including Crazy Horse, executed an elaborate decoy maneuver to draw soldiers out of the fort. They were very successful and killed several officers and severely wounded several other soldiers. In the next weeks an ambush was carefully planned and a location for a trap was chosen. Two thousand warriors moved south and set up camp two miles north of the chosen trap location. Ten young warriors were selected from the different tribal groups represented for the most dangerous job of decoying the soldiers. These decoys performed elaborate maneuvers to lure the soldiers into the trap. When they were all inside the trap, the decoys signaled to the concealed warriors who rose up and killed all 80 of the soldiers. Nonetheless, casualties among the Indians were great because they were poorly armed to compete with the new repeating rifles of the soldiers. The Indians named this battle The Battle of the Hundred Slain. The whites knew it as the Fetterman Massacre because the soldiers were led by Captain Fetterman, who had boasted that he could defeat the entire Sioux Nation with a single company of cavalrymen. The State of Wyoming operates the site.

The Fetterman Massacre by Harold von Schmidt,

courtesy Vonsworks.com

Contact Information:

Fort Fetterman State Historic Site
752 Hwy. 93
Douglas, Wyoming 82633
307-684-7629

Grattan Fight (1854) - The Grattan Fight marked the beginning of 3½ decades of intermittent warfare on the northern Plains. On a summer afternoon in 1854 a young lieutenant, belligerently seeking to arrest a Sioux Indian for a trivial offense, forced a fight. See full article HERE!

A replica of Guinard's Bridge at Fort Caspar today,

Kathy Weiser, September, 2009.

Battle of Platte Bridge Station (1865) - The predecessor of Fort Caspar (1865-67) was Platte Bridge Station, established in 1858 as one of a series of fortified stations on the Oregon-California Trail. Located on the south side of the North Platte River at a crossing point and emigrant campground, the Platte Bridge post protected wagon trains, mail stages, and the supply-communication lines of the Mormon Expedition to Utah (1857-58). Adjacent to the fort, at a place known as Mormon Ferry, emigrants crossed the river by ferry, operated by some Mormons in the years 1847-50 and thereafter by a private company. Regular troops abandoned the station in 1859, the same year a 1,000-foot toll bridge was completed across the river. This bridge supplemented one a few miles to the east, built in 1853.

In 1862, during the Civil War, to counter increased Indian hostilities along the Oregon-California Trail and to guard the telegraph lines, Volunteers reoccupied Platte Bridge Station. The Indian threat reached a peak in the summer of 1865, when 3,000 Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho descended on the trail from the Powder River country. On July 26, on the north side of the North Platte River, they ambushed a detachment of Kansas Cavalry under Lieutenant Caspar W. Collins riding out from Platte Bridge Station to escort an eastward-bound Army wagon train, guarded by Sergeant Amos J. Custard and 24 men. The troops managed to fight their way back to the bridge, but Collins and four men lost their lives. The Indians then attacked the wagon train, killing Custard and 20 other soldiers. Through an error, the Army renamed Platte Bridge Station as Fort Casper, the spelling adopted by the city that grew up adjacent to it. Troops enlarged and rebuilt the fort in 1866, but the following year evacuated it and moved to Fort Fetterman, Wyoming. Almost immediately the Indians burned the buildings and the bridge.

A replica of Fort Casper (now called Fort Caspar) at the southwestern edge of Casper marks the site of the original log fort. Constructed in the 1930's by the Works Progress Administration (WPA,) it is owned by the city and administered by the Fort Caspar Commission.

Sawyer Fight - On August 31, 1865, a expedition was surveying the route of the Bozeman Trail. The group, led by Colonel James Sawyer, was attacked by Arapaho Indians in retaliation for the attack on Black Bear's village (Connor Battle.) The party was besieged for thirteen days until the surveyors were rescued by General Conner's Powder River Expedition Force. The battlefield monument is alongside U.S. Hwy 14 about three miles from Dayton where the Bozeman Trail crosses the present highway.

Fort Phil Kearny today, photo by Gilles Coudert,

July, 2007, courtesy Wikipedia

Wagon Box Fight - On August 2, 1867, Captain James Powell with a force of 31 men survived repeated attacks by more than 1,500 Lakota Sioux warriors under the leadership of Chiefs Red Cloud and Crazy Horse. The soldiers, who were guarding woodcutters near Fort Phil Kearny, Wyoming, took refuge in a corral formed by laying 14 wagons end-to-end in an oval configuration. The Sioux began their attack in the early morning by sending a wave of about 500 braves rushing toward the wagon box circle. Powell ordered his men to await firing until the warriors were very close. After several successive waves of warriors were sent in for attack, the Sioux re-gathered for a massive attack. However, just then reinforcements from Fort Phil Kearny arrived with a howitzer in tow. The Lakota fled. The battle lasted five hours with Powell's losses including five men killed and two wounded. Powell reported killing 60 Indians and wounding 120.

The battle lasted five hours with five of Powell's men killed and two wounded. Powell reported killing 60 Indians and wounding 120. The disproportionate casualties, and the soldiers' survival, was primarily due to the recent addition of breech-loading weapons, that had been supplied as a direct result of the Fetterman Massacre.

The site is operated by the Wyoming State Parks.

Contact Information:

Fort Phil Kearny State Historic Site
528 Wagon Box Road
Banner, Wyoming 82832
307-684-7629

Compiled by Kathy Weiser/Legends of America, updated September, 2011.

Primary Source: National Park Service

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ALSO SEE:

Frontier Skirmishes between the Pioneers & the Indians

Indian Campaigns

Indian Fighters

Indian Wars of the Frontier West

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From the Rocky Mountain General Store

Native American Founding Fathers - It is too often forgotten that the first to settle America were the Native Americans. They, along with their chiefs and heroes should be commemorated just like like the colonists that formed our Constitution. Utilizing our great vintage photos, we have created a montage to recognize these great founders.