Fetterman Battlefield is the site of the U.S. Army’s worst defeat by Plains Indian groups with the exception of the Battle of Little Big Horn. On Dec. 21, 1866, Capt. William J. Fetterman, sent to assist a wagon train in peril, was lured by Crazy Horse and other Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne warriors over Lodge Trail Ridge just north of Fort Phil Kearny.
Fetterman had been ordered not to go over the ridge and out of sight of the fort. He has long had a reputation for brashness, reportedly having boasted that with 100 men he could “ride through the whole Sioux Nation.” But historians are beginning to suspect the situation was more complex.
North of the ridge the troops encountered more than 1,000 Cheyenne, Lakota and Arapaho fighters. In only 30 minutes, all 81 U.S. soldiers were killed.
Today, visitors can see the exact locations where battle maneuvers took place, about three miles from Fort Phil Kearny and 20 miles south of present-day Sheridan, Wyo. More than 30 interpretive signs tell the story of this conflict from the perspectives of both the military and Indian groups.
Fetterman Battlefield is the site of the U.S. Army’s worst defeat by Plains Indian groups with the exception of the Battle of Little Big Horn. On Dec. 21, 1866, Capt. William J. Fetterman, sent to assist a wagon train in peril, was lured by Crazy Horse and other Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne warriors over Lodge Trail Ridge just north of Fort Phil Kearny.
Fetterman had been ordered not to go over the ridge and out of sight of the fort. He has long had a reputation for brashness, reportedly having boasted that with 100 men he could “ride through the whole Sioux Nation.” But historians are beginning to suspect the situation was more complex.
North of the ridge the troops encountered more than 1,000 Cheyenne, Lakota and Arapaho fighters. In only 30 minutes, all 81 U.S. soldiers were killed.
The build up to this cataclysm is vital to understand its significance. As the Civil War ended, the U. S. Army was called upon to protect civilians traveling on the Bozeman Trail to gold mines in Montana Territory from a growing number of so-called hostile American Indians led by Red Cloud. Grossly underestimating the strength and determination of the Indian forces, the army sent Col. Henry B. Carrington, a lawyer who spent the Civil War far removed from battle, in command of the partially recruited 18th Infantry Regiment to guard the trail.
In the spring of 1866, General William T. Sherman, commander of the region, met with Carrington before his expedition departed and encouraged officers to take their wives and families along, assuring them “a pleasant garrison life in the newly opened country, where all would be healthful, with pleasant service and absolute peace.”
By mid-July 1866 Carrington had established three posts on the Bozeman Trail, with headquarters at Fort Phil Kearny on the east flank of the Bighorn Mountains near present Story, Wyo., about 230 miles northwest of Fort Laramie. While the troops went about cutting wood and building their fort, Red Cloud’s followers gathered a few miles north of the post in a camp of as many as 2,000 warriors and their families—larger than the city of Omaha at the time.
The Indians harassed the fort at every opportunity. The civilian contractors who cut the fort’s lumber in a pine stand a few miles west were a prime target and required a military escort at all times. By mid-December, nearly 70 soldiers and civilians had been killed in over 50 skirmishes practically within view of the post; Sherman’s “pleasant service and absolute peace” had become what is now known as Red Cloud’s War.
Capt. William Judd Fetterman arrived at Fort Phil Kearny on Nov. 3, 1866, as the Indian attacks were peaking. Seven weeks later, on Dec. 21, 1866, Fetterman and 79 soldiers and civilians were killed in a lopsided battle that was soon mythologized as the Fetterman Massacre. For over a century, the legend of this battle was shaped by two women who accompanied the soldiers to the fort—the first and second wives of Colonel Carrington, both of whom wrote books that were published in an attempt to exonerate their husband from accusations that his inept leadership was the underlying cause of the catastrophe.
Much has been written about the atmosphere at the fort being rife with insubordination toward Carrington because he was not taking offensive measures, but by the time Fetterman arrived, the officers were well aware of the military superiority of the Indians and appreciated the precariousness of their situation. Carrington even authorized Fetterman to attempt a few offensive tactics during his first days at the post, but within a few weeks Fetterman had been involved in a half-dozen deadly skirmishes, and he acknowledged, “This Indian war has become a hand-to-hand fight, requiring the utmost caution.” Yet the story that evolved portrays Fetterman as openly contemptuous of Carrington and desperate to prove his superiority in battle, proclaiming “give me 80 men and I can ride through the whole Sioux Nation.”
On the day of the disaster, Fetterman is said to have insisted “by his rank” on taking command of the detail going out to relieve a party of woodcutters who were under attack—a fact frequently cited to demonstrate Fetterman was desperate to fight. Carrington claimed he reluctantly gave Fetterman the assignment but was so concerned about the officer’s overzealous nature that he gave explicit, detailed orders that under no circumstance was Fetterman to cross Lodge Trail Ridge in pursuit of Indians.
Witnesses were uncharacteristically unanimous that Fetterman did not proceed west to the wood train per Carrington’s supposed orders—he went northeast directly toward the southern end of Lodge Trail Ridge. After Fetterman quickly inspected his men and marched out of the fort, Lt. George W. Grummond requested permission to lead a small cavalry detail to support the infantry detachment. Carrington approved the request but very publicly ordered Grummond to report to Fetterman and “implicitly obey orders, and not leave him.” Carrington had good reason to be concerned about Grummond, whose military record included recklessness in battle, insubordination and a series of violent, drunken incidents culminating in being court-martialled and publicly reprimanded.
Two weeks earlier, on December 6, Carrington and Fetterman led an offensive where Grummond had disobeyed Carrington’s direct orders and led four soldiers directly into a trap that cost two of the men their lives—clearly inspiring the ambush tactic that the Indians would execute so well on December 21. It is a testament to Carrington’s desperate shortage of officers that he approved Grummond’s request to support Fetterman’s command.
Grummond and 27 cavalrymen caught up to the infantry about a half-mile out. The contingent was soon joined by the post quartermaster, Capt. Fred Brown, and two of his civilian employees, James Wheatley and Isaac Fisher. Fetterman’s command was exactly 80 men—a striking coincidence with the number of men with which he supposedly claimed he could ride through the whole Sioux Nation. The force was in pursuit of a group of Indians, including the Lakota warrior, Crazy Horse, lingering around the crest of Lodge Trail Ridge acting as decoys to lure the soldiers into a trap.
Coupled with what we now know about Grummond’s rash and insubordinate background in battle it seems clear that the mounted men, led by Grummond, raced out more than a mile ahead of the infantry in pursuit of Crazy Horse and other Indians—well beyond the crest of Lodge Trail Ridge.
Once Fetterman and the infantry were beyond the ridge and inside the trap, they were quickly overwhelmed. In what they called the Battle of the Hundred in the Hand, the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Northern Arapaho executed a plan they had been developing for weeks. The Indians incurred extensive friendly-fire casualties as they shot arrows from both sides of the sprung trap and hundreds simply watched the battle from the adjacent hillsides.
In retaliation for atrocities visited upon Arapaho and Cheyenne families in the Sand Creek Massacre two years earlier, the dead soldiers were stripped and mutilated. The Indians did not spend a lot of time in the area, however. As soon as Carrington at the fort heard the gunfire, he sent a detachment under Capt. Tenodor Ten Eyck, and when taunts could not lure the soldiers to come down to the battle site, the Indians left the field.
Assuming the soldiers had their mountain howitzer with them, the Indians quickly retreated to their camps to treat the injured and mourn their dead. Ten Eyck’s group was only able to bring back about half of the bodies of the fallen soldiers. The next day, under dark clouds portending the blizzard that would isolate the fort for several weeks, Carrington and a small group of brave volunteers went to the field and brought back the remaining frozen corpses to prepare for burial.