Battle of the Hundred-in-the-Hands

Background

Under the terms set at Fort Laramie in 1851, this stretch of land had been recognized as belonging to the Crow, a boundary the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho initially honored. As bison grew scarcer, however, these three peoples drifted from the agreed lines and pursued game onto Crow ground. Their encroachment proved lasting: by 1860 they had wrested control of the hunting territory west of the Powder River from the Crow, longtime rivals of theirs.

Colonel Henry B. Carrington set out from Fort Laramie in June 1866, moving into the Powder River region that by then served as hunting grounds for the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Northern Arapaho. He had been tasked with safeguarding white settlers making their way west along the Bozeman Trail. His force numbered 700 soldiers alongside 300 civilians. Along the route he built three military posts, anchored by his headquarters at Fort Phil Kearny, situated close to what is now Buffalo, Wyoming, even though every one of these installations sat within land the treaty had assigned to the Crow. The army justified this under a treaty provision allowing it to "establish roads, military and other posts." Fort Phil Kearny itself held roughly 400 troops along with the bulk of the civilian population.

Carrington takes the offensive

On November 25, 1866, General Philip St. George Cooke, who stood above Carrington in the chain of command, directed him to abandon defensive tactics and strike back against what Cooke called the Indians' "murderous and insulting attacks." The chance to act on this order came on December 6, when lookouts stationed on Pilot Hill spotted trouble: an Army wood train was under assault four miles to the west of the fort. Carrington dispatched Fetterman westward with a cavalry company and a mounted infantry squad to break up the attack, while he himself took charge of a separate mounted force, swinging north in hopes of blocking the warriors' escape route. Amid this maneuver, Lieutenants Grummond and Bingham, along with a handful of other men, drifted away from the main body and left Carrington encircled by roughly a hundred warriors. Reinforcement arrived quickly in the form of Fetterman, and the surrounding Indians pulled back.

Grummond eventually reappeared, riding hard with seven pursuers on his heels, but he made it back safely to Carrington and Fetterman. Hours afterward, searchers discovered the mutilated remains of Bingham and a sergeant. Separately, four soldiers suffered wounds when they chased another decoy straight into a trap. Carrington claimed ten Indians had been killed in the fighting, yet the engagement left both him and Fetterman troubled by how poorly organized and disciplined their mostly green troops had proven to be. Fetterman summed it up by declaring that the conflict with the Indians had turned into close combat demanding the greatest possible care. Jim Bridger, the celebrated mountain man serving as Carrington's guide, put it more bluntly, remarking that the soldiers had no real understanding of how to fight Indians.

The episode reinforced Carrington's instinct toward caution, prompting him to step up drilling for both officers and enlisted men and to reorganize them into six companies. He also doubled the escort assigned to wood trains and made sure the fort's remaining fifty sound horses, a reduced number after losses in earlier raids, stayed saddled and combat ready from sunrise until nightfall. When another wood train came under attack on December 19, Carrington chose Captain Powell, known for his careful temperament, to lead a cavalry company and mounted infantry out to its rescue, with strict instructions against chasing the attackers past Lodge Trail Ridge, located two miles north of Fort Phil Kearny. Powell obeyed these orders to the letter, completed the relief mission, and brought his men back without incident. Carrington used the moment to remind his command once more that restraint remained the rule until Fort Laramie could send reinforcements along with fresh horses and supplies. Then, on December 20, he rejected a plan put forward by Fetterman and Captain Brown, who had wanted to lead fifty civilian employees in a strike against the Lakota village roughly fifty miles away along the Tongue River.

Trap

Buoyed by their recent victories, Red Cloud and the other chiefs resolved to strike a heavier blow against Fort Phil Kearny before the winter snows made it necessary to abandon their sprawling camp on the Tongue River. Since luring soldiers into an ambush had succeeded on December 6, the leaders planned to repeat the ruse, but this time with enough warriors gathered to wipe out whatever detachment came after them. More than a thousand fighters may have assembled roughly ten miles north of the post. After scouting the area, they settled on a stretch of the Bozeman Trail beyond Lodge Trail Ridge as the ideal killing ground, hidden from view yet barely four miles from the fort itself. Cheyenne and Arapaho fighters positioned themselves along the trail's western side while the Lakota held the east. Among those picked to lure the troops forward was the young Oglala fighter Crazy Horse.

December 21, 1866 dawned clear and bitterly cold. Around ten in the morning, Carrington sent a wagon train toward the "pinery," the timber source about five miles to the northwest that supplied both lumber and fuel for the fort. Nearly ninety soldiers were assigned to escort it. Within the hour, lookouts stationed on Pilot Hill signaled with flags that the train had come under attack. In response, Carrington ordered a rescue column made up of forty-nine foot soldiers from the 18th Infantry along with twenty-seven mounted men of the 2nd Cavalry, placing Captain James Powell in charge. Fetterman, however, invoked his rank as brevet lieutenant colonel and secured command for himself instead, leaving Powell behind. Command of the cavalry fell to Lieutenant George W. Grummond, another officer known for criticizing Carrington, since no one had led those troopers since Bingham died earlier in December. Captain Frederick Brown, recently the post's quartermaster and likewise no admirer of Carrington, rode along too, as did civilians James Wheatley and Isaac Fisher, swelling Fetterman's command to eighty-one men in all. The foot soldiers set out ahead of the horsemen, who first had to gather their mounts before catching up.

Carrington later insisted that his instructions had been unmistakable: the relief force was under no circumstances to cross Lodge Trail Ridge in pursuit. Grummond's wife backed up this account in her later writings, recalling that Carrington issued the order twice, once at the gate and again from the sentry walk as the men departed, loud enough for everyone nearby to hear. Yet once outside the fort, Fetterman turned north onto the Lodge Trail Ridge path instead of following the route northwest toward the endangered wagons. Carrington believed his intent was to come at the attacking Indians from behind. Soon after, the signal changed, showing that the assault on the wood train had ended. A group of about fifty Indians then appeared close to the fort itself, though a handful of cannon rounds sent them scattering. These warriors, joined by others, harried Fetterman's column as it climbed the ridge and vanished from the sentries' sight.

Close to midday, those remaining at the fort heard the crack of heavy gunfire echoing from the north. Carrington quickly organized some seventy-five men under Captain Ten Eyck and sent them on foot to locate Fetterman's party. Moving cautiously up Lodge Trail Ridge, Ten Eyck and his soldiers reached the crest around 12:45 p.m. and looked down to find an enormous body of Indian warriors filling the Peno Creek valley, some of whom advanced to jeer at the troops. Carrington, meanwhile, dispatched another forty-two men to reinforce Ten Eyck's position. Gradually the warriors below withdrew and melted away. As Ten Eyck's men pressed forward with care, they discovered the bodies of Fetterman and every one of his soldiers scattered through the valley, all stripped bare and mutilated. Wagons were sent out that same afternoon to carry the fallen back to Fort Kearny.