Adventures on the Bozeman Trail

Adventures on the Bozeman Trail

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The trail followed the Union Pacific construction up the Platte. It was monotonously dull, plodding along beside the train. And there were no variations in the monotony when the train left the railway line and swung up to Fort Laramie. But at Fort Laramie the pilgrims left the beaten path. They were planning to take the Bozeman Trail from there into Montana, and the condition of the country ahead of them made it necessary that they travel with a big outfit.

At Fort Laramie other freighting outfits were waiting for reinforcements, the government authorities having again issued a warning to small groups of emigrants of the immediate and certain danger from the Indians unless strongly guarded and moving in large numbers.

Crossing the Wyoming grasslands.

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At the fort this small group of freighters found a stockman with three thousand head of cattle from Texas to be taken into the Gallatin Valley for feeding, and also with a wagon train of groceries to be sold in the mining camps of Montana. The forces all united, starting for the Powder River country, the Big Horn, Bozeman and Virginia City. Had this combination of trains been always used, the depredations on the trail would have decreased, and human lives, cattle, supplies and ammunition and guns been saved. Along the trail the government was erecting a chain of military posts. General Carrington, who afterward negotiated the removal of Chariot on the Bitter Root, was in command of the troops engaged in the construction. One post, Fort Reno, had been completed. The building of Fort Kearny was in process. The posts further north had been located but not built. Some of them never were built.

The train moved on without serious incident. The country was alive with Indians. There were signs of fighting-burned wagons and dead stock in places, and at times the Story outfit would spy Indians at a distance. But it was not until within about ten miles of Fort Reno that there was any open hostility toward the train. That was probably due to the keen outlook which Story kept and to his intimate knowledge of the country. There were thousands of Indians within striking distance of the train, but the train was not molested until it reached a point so close to the new post as to seem safe. In the edge of the Bad Lands the train was attacked. There was a brisk engagement, but it didn't last long; probably the Indians who had been spying on the train were merely trying it out, or perhaps they could not resist the stealing of the stock cattle that were being driven with the train. However as it was, the reds swooped down on the travelers with a flight of arrows, but nobody was killed. The cattle were finally recaptured and messengers sent to Fort Reno for an ambulance.

An hour before the train had its brush with the Indians, it met a Frenchman and his boy with a trapper's outfit, the two making camp for the night. Though the large train invited the Frenchman to unite with the larger band, the old man refused the offer, saying his fear for the white men was greater than that of the Indians. The next day proved the fallacy of the lone emigrant and hunter, for the scalps of both were taken; their bodies, badly mutilated, their wagons were burned, food scattered over the prairie, and their horses stolen.

Leaving Fort Reno the train pushed north and west toward Fort Phil Kearny, where General Carrington was surveying and actively assisting in the construction of the main fortification that was to be built on the Bozeman Trail. The soldiers from the fort came down three miles to meet the train, forbidding further advance to the fort, as the meadows around the site of the fort were reserved for government stock. Further instructions were given not to attempt to go further north, as there were danger signals about Indians north of the fort.

“We were camped about three miles from the post, so far that the soldiers could not have rendered us any assistance if we were attacked; we were forbidden to proceed, as the soldiers couldn't leave their building operations to escort us; we just had to sit still and twirl our thumbs. While waiting, the freighters built two corrals, one for the work cattle, one for the Texas stock. One night after two weeks of impatient waiting for permission to advance, the entire train oxen, wagons, cattle and men disappeared moving on beyond the fort in the silence and darkness of night. The Indians were more afraid of the twenty-seven men of the train than they were of the three hundred soldiers at the partially built fort on the Piney. The troops had the old style Springfield rifles, while the freighters had Remington breech loaders, a style of gun not introduced on the plains for the forts until the following year. Twenty-seven of these Remingtons were enough to stand off three thousand reds with bows and arrows after we got them scared."

The success of traveling by night convinced the train that this was a safer method of travel than going by day, hence, they rested during the day and traveled after sundown. The train was attacked only three times, this being during the day, and the Indians were easily stood off, the men being on their guard. As the train moved further north, the Indians became less numerous, an estimation placing the number of red men around Fort Phil Kearny on October 22nd, when the train was near the fort, as three thousand. Two months from this date occurred the Fetterman fight, the initial big fight with Indians in the Powder River country.

These night marches brought the train finally to the site of Fort C.F. Smith, around which the Crows had their villages. From this point the party journeyed to the northwest, forded the Yellowstone at the place where there was to have been built another Bozeman Trail fort, to be called Fort Fisher. For lack of adequate soldiers, General Carrington was not able to construct the needed and promised fortification. Down Emigrant Gulch the train slowly made its way to Bozeman, no Indian troubles being encountered, when at last the end of the trail was reached at Virginia City."

The principal freighting to the Bozeman Trail forts was done by oxen, for the reason that the red men did not care for cattle, the country through which the trail passed being full of wild game of many kinds. What the Indians coveted were the white man's horses and mules for which he was willing to make tremendous sacrifices. There were no regular stage lines on the Bozeman Trail; all of the mail was carried by the military forces from the Platte to Fort C. F. Smith. Mail for Fort Ellis, Bozeman, and beyond to Virginia City was received by the river route from Fort Benton or by the Virginia City Stage Road from Salt Lake City.

During those months when the Missouri was open to navigation there was not heavy freighting over the Bozeman Trail west of Fort C.F. Smith, the supplies being shipped to Fort Benton or to Benson's Landing at the head of navigation on the Yellowstone, about thirty miles southeast of Fort Ellis, from these two points being redistributed to the various camps and cities in Montana.

Freighting by John Graybill around 1890.

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In the fall of 1866 at Bozeman, Nelson Story took his oxen and wagon team filled with flour and vegetables to Fort C.F. Smith where he sold the supplies to the government for the soldiers at the fort. From that date until the old trail was abandoned in 1868, Story continued to regularly supply this fort with food though not any traffic was carried on east of the fort, where the hostilities were constant from the Sioux. The hostile Indians, the Sioux, Cheyennes and Arapahoes were seldom troublesome west of Pryor's Creek. The hostilities in that part of the country crossed by the Bozeman Trail were carried on by the Blackfoot Indians.

If the Santa Fe Trail was a road of commerce, the Oregon Trail, the path of the home seeker, the Overland Trail, the route of the mail and express, the Bozeman Trail was the battleground of the fighting Sioux.

Added August, 2007

The Bozeman Trail can still be seen in some areas, such as here in the Norris, Montana area. July, 2008, Kathy Weiser.

About the Authors:

Grace Raymond Hebard and Earl Alonzo Brininstool were both western historians in the early 20th century. This account was excerpted from their book, The Bozeman Trail: Historical Accounts of the Blazing of the Overland Routes Into the Northwest, published by the Arthur H. Clark Company in 1922. The article that appears on these pages is not verbatim, as it has been very briefly edited, primarily for spelling and grammatical corrections.

Also See:

The Overland Stage and Telegraph Lines

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