Then Colonel Henry B. Carrington arrived with troops.
His orders were to move north and establish the military presence needed to secure the Bozeman Trail.
To American officials, the two policies could coexist.
They could negotiate while preparing to protect the road.
To Red Cloud and other leaders who opposed the route, the soldiers offered a different message.
Negotiations were taking place while the Army was already moving to occupy the disputed country.
An older National Park Service history preserves a Native reaction to the contradiction: the government appeared to be asking permission for a road while soldiers were already going north to take it. Red Cloud and other opponents left the talks rather than accept the arrangement. (NPS History)
Carrington continued north.
Fort Reno was strengthened.
Fort Phil Kearny was constructed near the Bighorn Mountains.
Fort C.F. Smith followed farther north.
The National Park Service records that Fort C.F. Smith was begun in August 1866 and that the Bozeman Trail passed immediately beside the post. (Dịch vụ Công viên Quốc gia Hoa Kỳ)
The Army had created the three forts that Article XVI would later force it to abandon.
The conflict surrounding them became known as Red Cloud's War.
The name is useful, but it can also oversimplify the Native coalition.
Red Cloud was an important Oglala Lakota leader and a major figure in resistance to the Bozeman Trail. Other Lakota leaders and warrior groups also played important roles. Northern Cheyenne and Northern Arapaho warriors participated as well. Different bands did not function as one modern army under a single commander.
Army historical research has emphasized this point. Red Cloud's importance in the effort to close the road is not seriously disputed, but historians have questioned older stories that credited every major tactical decision to either Red Cloud or Crazy Horse. (Trung Tâm Lịch Sử Quân Đội Hoa Kỳ)
The war was a coalition struggle.
That made it difficult for American commanders to solve through the removal of one leader.
The forts immediately created new problems
Fort Phil Kearny required enormous amounts of timber.
The timber stood outside the post.
That meant woodcutters had to leave the defensive walls.
The woodcutters needed wagons.
The wagons needed animals.
The animals needed guards.
The guards needed relief if attacked.
A simple task such as collecting firewood could therefore draw dozens of soldiers away from the fort.
Native warriors understood the pattern.
Instead of wasting lives attacking heavy walls, they targeted the moving pieces.
Wood trains were attacked repeatedly.
Herds were threatened.
Small parties were isolated.
Messengers disappeared.
Supply traffic became dangerous.
WyoHistory notes that by mid-December 1866, nearly 70 soldiers and civilians had already been killed in more than 50 skirmishes around Fort Phil Kearny. (WyoHistory)
A National Historic Landmark study gives an even broader measure of the pressure. It records 51 hostile actions during the final five months of 1866, with significant losses of people and livestock around the fort and trail system. (NPGallery)
The numbers show why the phrase “under siege” appears so often in later histories.
The fort itself did not need to be surrounded continuously.
Its outside life could still be restricted.
Every wagon that left the gate became a military operation.
That was the environment Captain William J. Fetterman entered when he arrived at Fort Phil Kearny in November 1866.
Fetterman arrived only seven weeks before his death
William Judd Fetterman had Civil War experience.
He reached Fort Phil Kearny on November 3, 1866, while pressure around the post was increasing. He quickly became part of a command filled with tension over how aggressively soldiers should respond to Native attacks. (WyoHistory)
For generations, popular accounts presented Fetterman as a reckless officer who boasted that he could ride through the entire Sioux nation with eighty men.
The famous story fit the ending perfectly.
An arrogant officer underestimated Native warriors.
He ignored orders.
He crossed a ridge.
He died with eighty men.
Modern historical work has made that story less certain.
WyoHistory notes that the evidence behind some of the most familiar claims about Fetterman's behavior came from later accounts connected to Colonel Carrington and his family, who had strong reasons to defend Carrington after the disaster. Other evidence suggests that Fetterman's movement on December 21 may have begun as an intended offensive action rather than simple insubordination. (WyoHistory)
The distinction matters because the Native victory does not require Fetterman to have been foolish.
The ambush was more impressive if experienced soldiers could be drawn into it through a believable tactical situation.
Native accounts collected later also support a more complicated interpretation.
The Smithsonian's catalog for historian John H. Monnett's Eyewitness to the Fetterman Fight summarizes evidence from Lakota and Northern Cheyenne participants, including White Bull, Black Elk, American Horse, Wooden Leg, Two Moons, and others. That scholarship argues that the victory depended on deliberate planning, knowledge of terrain, and a well-organized ambush rather than merely an American officer making one irrational mistake. (Bảo tàng Smithsonian)
December 21 began with another wood-train emergency
The winter morning of December 21, 1866, did not begin as a planned major battle for the garrison.
A wood train outside Fort Phil Kearny came under attack.
This was familiar enough to require an established response.
A relief force would leave the fort, move toward the threatened wagons, and drive the attackers away.
Fetterman received command of the detachment.
Additional cavalry under Lieutenant George Grummond joined him.
Captain Frederick Brown accompanied the force, as did two civilians, James Wheatley and Isaac Fisher.
The standard total given by the National Park Service is 79 soldiers and two civilians, making 81 men. (Cục Công Viên Quốc Gia Mỹ)
The men leaving Fort Phil Kearny were not all armed in the same way.