| Camp Merritt | |
|---|---|
| Rosebud County, Montana, near Lame Deer, Montana | |
| Type | Military Camp |
| Site history | |
| Built | 1891 |
| Built by | United States Army |
| Demolished | 1899 (abandoned) |
| Garrison information | |
| Garrison | 1st U. S. Cavalry |
Camp Merritt was a United States Army camp established in December, 1891 at the Northern Cheyenne Agency. It was named for Brevet Major General Wesley Merritt, and abandoned in 1899.
Throughout the 1880s soldiers from Fort Keogh on the Yellowstone River had been periodically stationed near the Northern Cheyenne Agency on the Tongue River, but in 1891 after several Cheyenne's were arrested for stealing cattle, Brigadier General Wesley Merritt ordered a permanent military camp to be established at Lame Deer Agency. Camp Merritt, named after the general who ordered its construction was established in December of that year, and the Fort Keogh troops who garrisoned it were on a three-month rotation basis. As a sub-post of Fort Keogh, there were still soldiers stationed at the camp in 1899. [1]
Camp Merritt is located in present-day Rosebud County, Montana near Lame Deer.
Municipalities and communities of Rosebud County, Montana, United States | ||
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| Indian reservation | ||
| Ghost town | ||
| Footnotes | ‡This populated place also has portions in an adjacent county or counties | |
The Cheyenne are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. Their Cheyenne language belongs to the Algonquian language family. Today, the Cheyenne people are split into two federally recognized nations: the Southern Cheyenne, who are enrolled in the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes in Oklahoma, and the Northern Cheyenne, who are enrolled in the Northern Cheyenne Tribe of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana.
The Tongue River is a tributary of the Yellowstone River, approximately 265 mi (426 km) long, in the U.S. states of Wyoming and Montana. The Tongue rises in Wyoming in the Big Horn Mountains, flows generally northeast through northern Wyoming and southeastern Montana, and empties into the Yellowstone River at Miles City, Montana. Most of the course of the river is through the beautiful and varied landscapes of eastern Montana, including the Tongue River Canyon, the Tongue River breaks, the pine hills of southern Montana, and the buttes and grasslands that were formerly the home of vast migratory herds of American bison.
Little Wolf was a Northern Só'taeo'o Chief and Sweet Medicine Chief of the Northern Cheyenne. He was known as a great military tactician and led a dramatic escape from confinement in Oklahoma back to the Northern Cheyenne homeland in 1878, known as the Northern Cheyenne Exodus.
The Sioux Wars were a series of conflicts between the United States and various subgroups of the Sioux people which occurred in the later half of the 19th century. The earliest conflict came in 1854 when a fight broke out at Fort Laramie in Wyoming, when Sioux warriors killed 31 American soldiers in the Grattan Massacre, and the final came in 1890 during the Ghost Dance War.
Patrick Edward Connor was an Irish American soldier who served as a Union general during the American Civil War. He is most notorious for his massacres against Native Americans during the Indian Wars in the American Old West.
The Powder River Expedition of 1865 also known as the Powder River War or Powder River Invasion, was a large and far-flung military operation of the United States Army against the Lakota Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Indians in Montana Territory and Dakota Territory. Although soldiers destroyed one Arapaho village and established Fort Connor to protect gold miners on the Bozeman Trail, the expedition is considered a failure because it failed to defeat or intimidate the Indians.
Morning Star was a great chief of the Northern Cheyenne people and headchief of the Notameohmésêhese band on the northern Great Plains during the 19th century. He was noted for his active resistance to westward expansion and the United States federal government. It is due to the courage and determination of Morning Star and other leaders that the Northern Cheyenne still possess a homeland in their traditional country in present-day Montana.
Spotted Tail was a Sichangu Lakota tribal chief. Famed as a great warrior since his youth, warring on Ute, Pawnee and Absaroke (“Crow”), and having taken a leading part in the Grattan Massacre, he led his warriors in the Colorado and Platte River uprising after the massacre performed by John M. Chivington's Colorado Volunteers of the peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho camping on Sand Creek, but declined to participate in Red Cloud's War.
The Northern Cheyenne Tribe of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation is the federally recognized Northern Cheyenne tribe. Located in southeastern Montana, the reservation is approximately 690 square miles (1,800 km2) in size and home to approximately 6,000 Cheyenne people. The tribal and government headquarters are located in Lame Deer, also the home of the annual Northern Cheyenne pow wow.
Fort Keogh is a former United States Army post located at the western edge of modern Miles City, in the U.S. state of Montana. It is situated on the south bank of the Yellowstone River, at the mouth of the Tongue River.
Powderville, also Elkhorn Crossing is an unincorporated community in northeastern Powder River County, Montana, United States, along the Powder River. It is a small cluster of buildings that lies along local roads northeast of the town of Broadus, the county seat of Powder River County. Its elevation is 2,828 feet (862 m).
The Great Sioux War of 1876, also known as the Black Hills War, was a series of battles and negotiations that occurred in 1876 and 1877 in an alliance of Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne against the United States. The cause of the war was the desire of the US government to obtain ownership of the Black Hills. Gold had been discovered in the Black Hills, settlers began to encroach onto Native American lands, and the Sioux and the Cheyenne refused to cede ownership. Traditionally, American military and historians place the Lakota at the center of the story, especially because of their numbers, but some Native Americans believe the Cheyenne were the primary target of the American campaign.
The Northern Cheyenne Exodus, also known as Dull Knife's Raid, the Cheyenne War, or the Cheyenne Campaign, was the attempt of the Northern Cheyenne to return to the north, after being placed on the Southern Cheyenne reservation in the Indian Territory, and the United States Army operations to stop them. The period lasted from 1878 to 1879.
Camp Poplar River was established during the Indian wars in the Department of Dakota by U.S. Army to maintain order, keep non-agency Indians away, and help capture the Indians who disturbed the peace and would not conform to reservation boundaries of the Fort Peck Agency, which in 1878, was relocated to its present-day location in Poplar because the original agency was located on a flood plain, suffering floods each spring. The post was located one-half mile north of the then called, Poplar River Agency, or 2 miles north of the Missouri River on the south bank of the Poplar River and normally consisted of only two companies of infantry. This tiny post has disappeared except for the fact that the town of Poplar, Montana, on the site, bears the same name.
The Battle of Platte Bridge, also called the Battle of Platte Bridge Station, on July 26, 1865, was the culmination of a summer offensive by the Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne Indians against the United States army. In May and June the Indians raided army outposts and stagecoach stations over a wide swath of Wyoming and Montana. In July, they assembled a large army, estimated by Cheyenne warrior George Bent to number 3,000 warriors, and descended upon Platte Bridge. The bridge, across the North Platte River near present-day Casper, Wyoming, was guarded by 120 soldiers. In an engagement near the bridge, and another against a wagon train guarded by 28 soldiers a few miles away, the Indians killed 29 soldiers while suffering at least eight dead.
Fort Howes was a civilian redoubt established in 1897 in what was then Custer County, Montana, United States in response to the murder of a sheepherder. Today the site is within Custer National Forest and is occupied by a Bureau of Land Management Fire Station.
The Darlington Agency was an Indian agency on the Cheyenne and Arapaho Indian Reservation prior to statehood in present-day Canadian County, Oklahoma. The agency was established in 1870. The agency established at Fort Supply the previous year was moved to a more accessible location for the tribes. Brinton Darlington, a Quaker for whom the agency was named, was the first United States Indian agent at the agency, a position he held until his death in 1872.
The Mizpah Creek incidents, were a series of incidents that occurred from April 5 – June 8, 1879, between United States soldiers and civilians, and eight Northern Cheyennes, that resulted in the death of one U.S. soldier, and the capture of the eight Cheyenne, three of whom committed suicide in prison at Miles City, Montana Territory. The incidents occurred near Mizpah Creek, a tributary of the Powder River, in Montana Territory.
The Battle of Little Muddy Creek, also known as the Lame Deer Fight, was fought on May 7–8, 1877, by United States soldiers and scouts against a village of Miniconjou Lakota and Northern Cheyenne. The battle occurred near Little Muddy Creek in Montana Territory, near present-day Lame Deer, Rosebud County.
Porcupine was a Cheyenne chief and medicine man. He is best known for bringing the Ghost Dance religion to the Cheyenne. Raised with the Sioux of a Cheyenne mother, he married a Cheyenne himself and became a warrior in the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers.