Ten years before the Battle of Little Bighorn, referred to also as Custer’s Last Stand, the U.S. military suffered its greatest military defeat yet in the 1866 Fetterman Massacre.
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Dee Brown’s The Fetterman Massacre: Fort Phil Kearny and the Battle of the Hundred Slain. View the book on Amazon here.
Years ago when I had to write an essay on U.S. Military failures in North America for an U.S. History class, I was struggling to find something substantial to use and the deadline was hours away. The Battle of Little Bighorn for many of us comes to mind almost immediately, but what else?
Almost 2 hours and two energy drinks later I had found it. Enter The Fetterman Fight, also known as The Fetterman Massacre. On December 21, 1866 a small force of 81 men under the command of Captain William Fetterman was led into an ambush and massacred. None survived.
American expansion into the northwest territories of Wyoming and Montana was in full swing since the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851. The Laramie Treaty, named after the fort in which the signing took place, was a peace agreement between the U.S. government and the eight tribes of the Great Plains territories.
However, the tribes who had agreed to maintain peace in the area went back on their arrangement and invaded the lands which were largely Crow lands in Wyoming.
Crows were soon after attacked by the Lakota and Cheyenne tribes and as a result there was displacement of the largely peaceful Crows with the more hostile tribes to American travelers. Had the eight tribes stuck to the agreement the Fetterman Massacre and even Custer’s Last Stand might have been avoided.
To summarize the Fetterman Massacre:
- Immigrants and gold rushers headed West in 1860’s were being killed and mutilated by Native American Indians.
- As a result U.S. Civil War colonel of the 18th Infantry Henry B. Carrington was sent to build three forts along the Bozeman Trail.
- Carrington was an academic and criticized for being too soft in his retaliations to Indian attacks on American civilians in Wyoming.
- Chief Red Cloud, encouraged by a vision a Lakota hermaphrodite soothsayer had, led Carrington’s enlisted men into an ambush on December 22, 1866.
- Colonel Carrington was furious that his captain Fetterman refused his direct order not to go after the Indians and stray so far from Fort Phil Kearny.
- 81 U.S. Army soldiers and civilians were massacred as a result. Their bodies were mutilated beyond all recognition for all to see.
Fetterman Massacre
European-American immigrants traveling along the Bozeman Trail passed through Fort Phil Kearny, Wyoming. Indian attacks were on the rise and the U.S. goverment took notice. They dispatched the 18th Infantry of the U.S. Army to Fort Phil Kearny, led by Colonel Henry B. Carrington. Since the outfit was already positioned there since the Civil War it was naturally a solid choice to pick them for the expedition.
Before the battle Red Cloud brought out the Lakota hermaphrodite soothsayer to predict the outcome of the plan he had laid in order to destroy the troops stationed in Fort Phil Kearny. The wise man allegedly saw 100 blue coats in each hand in a vision he claimed to have, thus the battle would be called by the indians as “the battle of 100 hands”.
U.S. Colonel Carrington
Henry B. Carrington had been a United States colonel in service of the 18th Army Infantry during the American Civil War. A lawyer and professor by trade, Carrington was more of an academic than possessing the hard character required by the U.S. Commander of the Mountain District to which he was appointed.
During the course of Carrington’s command of the fort he built along the Bozeman Trail, Fort Phil Kearny, his response to frequent Indian attacks reflected the careful calculations of a professor or lawyer.
After every incursion with the Indians whether at night or if not as often, during the day, colonel Carrington tightened security and imposed new restrictions on his enlisted men and civilians staying under his protection alike.
As a result of the Fetterman Massacre of 1866, Carrington was almost brought to court martial by none other than Ulysses S. Grant. Instead he was exonerated of all blame. But Carrington had been relived of his command. The disaster had been career-ending for him.
Source 2
The Fetterman Massacre: Fort Phil Kearny and the Battle of the Hundred Slain. Dee Brown.
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