The War for the Bozeman Trail

The War for the Bozeman Trail (or Red Cloud’s War) began soon after the Minnesota Uprising ended. Land was again the central issue of this conflict, but it was the mining fever that brought increased traffic to the lands of the Teton Lakota in what is now Montana and Wyoming.

In 1862, after having traveled to Montana’s goldfields, the explorer John Bozeman followed a direct route through Teton lands back to the Oregon Trail in Wyoming rather than travel a longer way around to the east or west. Other migrants and miners followed along this new route. The various Teton bands—the Oglala under Red Cloud, the Hunkpapa under Sitting Bull, and the Brule under Spotted Tail—resented the trespassing.

Sioux warclub

So did their allies, the Northern Cheyenne under Dull Knife and the Northern Arapaho under Black Bear.

In 1865, the Indians began attacking military patrols and wagon trains as well as other travelers along both the Bozeman and the Oregon Trails. General Patrick Connor sent in three different columns that year to punish the militant bands. Their only success against the elusive warriors, who attacked swiftly and then disappeared into the wilderness, was the destruction of a camp of Northern Arapaho under Black Bear.

Some of the chiefs rode into Fort Laramie in 1866 to sign a treaty. Red Cloud insisted that no forts be built along the Bozeman, however. When the army refused to comply, the chief rode off with his warriors to make preparations for war.

Troops under Colonel Henry Carrington reinforced Fort Reno and built two new posts in northern Wyoming and southern Montana to keep the Bozeman Trail open. The Indian guerrillas used hit-and-run tactics to harass the soldiers. Crazy Horse, the young Oglala, began establishing his reputation as a fearless fighter and master strategist at this time. In 1866, he used a decoy tactic to trap an entire cavalry outfit. He had several warriors attack a woodcutting party and flee. When Captain William Fetterman led an 80-man cavalry unit after them, 1,500 concealed warriors attacked them, wiping them out.

After the Fetterman Fight, the army sent in fresh troops with new breech-loading rifles. In two battles in 1866, the Hayfield Fight and the Wagon Box Fight, the Teton lost many warriors to these modern weapons, but they succeeded in driving the soldiers back to their posts.

The insurgents kept up their raids. The federal government, realizing the high cost of maintaining the Bozeman forts, yielded to Red Cloud’s demands. In the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, the government agreed to abandon the posts if the Indians would cease their raids. When the army evacuated the region, the Indians celebrated by burning down the Bozeman forts. The Sioux and their allies had won this round of warfare on the Great Plains. But the whites would keep entering their domain. In the meantime, the southern and central Plains tribes—the COMANCHE, KIOWA, Southern Cheyenne, and Southern Arapaho—had forced concessions out of the whites in the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867.