Battle at Warbonnet Creek, Nebraska

Indian Attack by Charles Marion Russell

Indian Attack by Charles Marion Russell

The Battle at Warbonnet Creek, Nebraska, was an encounter between the 5th U.S. Calvary and a group of Cheyenne Indians on July 17, 1876.

Three weeks after Custer’s defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the Fifth U.S. Cavalry, commanded by Colonel Wesley Merritt, skirmished with Cheyenne Indians from the Red Cloud Agency on July 17, 1876, in northwest Nebraska. The cavalry aimed to block an Indian supply trail from Nebraska’s Red Cloud and Spotted Tail agencies to the Powder River country of northeastern Wyoming and southeastern Montana. When the Cavalry learned that 1,000 Cheyenne had left the Spotted Tail and Red Cloud Agencies to join the triumphant Sioux and were encamped at Warbonnet Creek, they attacked and forced them back to the reservations.

Fighting in the skirmish was William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody, who was working as a scout. He claimed to have taken “the first scalp for Custer” by killing a warrior named Yellow Hair, an episode that novelists and Cody publicity agents later turned into a legend. However, Cody’s claim has long been disputed. The battle signaled the army’s ultimate victory in the Great Sioux War of 1876-77.

Buffalo Bill Cody, 1872

Buffalo Bill Cody, 1872

The battle site in Sioux County, Nebraska, is on an unimproved road, about 17 miles northeast of Harrison, on privately owned land. According to a helpful Legends reader, there are two monument markers here, one to the right inside the gate and another on a roundtop ‘hill.’

 

By Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, updated March 2023.

Also See:

Indian Wars, Battles & Massacres

Indian Wars of the Frontier West by Emerson Hough 

Nebraska Indian War Battles & Massacres

Winning The West: The Army In The Indian Wars