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 Battle of the Rosebud took place on June 17, 1876, in the Montana Territory between the United States Army and its Crow and Shoshoni allies against a force consisting mostly of Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne Indians during the Great Sioux War of 1876. The Cheyenne called it the Battle Where the Girl Saved Her Brother because of an incident during the fight involving Buffalo Calf Road Woman. General George Crook's offensive was stymied by the Indians, led by Crazy Horse, and he awaited reinforcements before resuming the campaign in August.
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.
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.
The Horsemeat March of 1876, also known as the Mud March and the Starvation March, was a military expedition led by General George Crook in pursuit of a band of Sioux fleeing from anticipated retaliation for their overwhelming victory over George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Poorly rationed and hampered by muddy conditions, the soldiers eventually had to butcher and eat their horses and mules as they became lame or injured. The Horsemeat March ended with the Battle of Slim Buttes and the capture and looting of American Horse the Elder's richly stocked village.
The Battle of Slim Buttes was fought on September 9–10, 1876, in the Great Sioux Reservation between the United States Army and Miniconjou Sioux during the Great Sioux War of 1876. It marked the first significant victory for the army since the stunning defeat of General George Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn in June.
The Battle of Wolf Mountain was a battle fought on January 8, 1877, by soldiers of the United States Army against Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne warriors during the Great Sioux War of 1876. The battle was fought in southern Montana Territory, about four miles southwest of modern-day Birney, Montana, along the Tongue River.
Wooden Leg was a Northern Cheyenne warrior who fought against Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
The Battle of Powder River, also known as the Reynolds Battle, occurred on March 17, 1876, in Montana Territory, United States as part of the Big Horn Expedition. The attack on a Northern Cheyenne and Oglala Lakota Indian encampment by Colonel Joseph J. Reynolds initiated the Great Sioux War of 1876. Although destroying a large amount of Indian property, the attack was poorly carried out and solidified Northern Cheyenne and Lakota Sioux resistance to the U.S. attempt to force them to sell the Black Hills and live on a reservation.
Fort Fetterman was constructed in 1867 by the United States Army on the Great Plains frontier in Dakota Territory, approximately 11 miles northwest of present-day Douglas, Wyoming. Located high on the bluffs south of the North Platte River, it served as a major base for the start of several United States military expeditions against warring Native American tribes. The fort is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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 Dull Knife Battlefield is located on the eastern slope of the Bighorn Mountains in Johnson County, Wyoming near Kaycee. It was the scene of the Dull Knife Fight on November 25, 1876, in which the Fourth Cavalry under General Ranald S. Mackenzie raided the winter encampment of the NorthernCheyenne, destroying most of their material culture and all their winter supplies and thus forcing the Northern Cheyenne to seek shelter with the village of Crazy Horse in order to survive the winter. Five hundred ponies were captured and about 173 lodges destroyed. The Dull Knife battlefield is on private land and is available to visit only by special arrangement. The fight took place on November 25, 1876.
The Fort Robinson breakout or Fort Robinson massacre was the attempted escape of Cheyenne captives from the U.S. army during the winter of 1878-1879 at Fort Robinson in northwestern Nebraska. In 1877, the Cheyenne had been forced to relocate from their homelands on the northern Great Plains south to the Darlington Agency on the Southern Cheyenne Reservation in Indian Territory (Oklahoma). In September 1878, in what is called the Northern Cheyenne Exodus, 353 Northern Cheyenne fled north because of poor conditions on the reservation. In Nebraska, the U.S. Army captured 149 of the Cheyenne, including 46 warriors, and escorted them to Fort Robinson.
The Wolf Mountains, el. 4,842 feet (1,476 m), sometimes referred to by local people as the Rosebud Mountains, and also known to the Crow Native Americans as the Wolf Teeth Mountains, are a mountain range east of Lodge Grass, Montana in Big Horn County, Montana.
Pawnee Scouts were employed by the United States Army in the latter half of the 19th century. Like other groups of Indian scouts, Pawnee men were recruited in large numbers to aid in the ongoing conflicts between settlers and the Native Americans in the United States. Because the Pawnee people were at war with the Sioux and Cheyenne and had been under constant pressure and aggression by those tribes, some of them were more than willing to serve with the army for pay. A number of Pawnee served between 1864 and 1871. They were armed with rifles, revolvers and were issued scout uniforms.
Fort McKinney (1877–1894) was a military post located in North Eastern Wyoming, near the Powder River.
Cantonment Reno also known as Fort McKinney 1 was a US Army post or cantonment located on the Powder River near the old Bozeman Trail crossing. A previous fort near the site had been abandoned and burned after the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. Cantonment Reno was re-established in late 1876, just upstream of the site of old Fort Reno. Cantonment Reno started as a temporary base of operations for General George Crooks' 1876 Big Horn Expedition,. Crook's Expedition was part of the intensive campaign against the Sioux and Cheyenne in late 1876, following Custer's defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
The Battle of Prairie Dog Creek, also known as the Skirmish at Tongue River Heights, or the Battle of the Tongue River (1876), part of the Great Sioux War of 1876, occurred on June 9, 1876, at the confluence of Prairie Dog Creek and the Tongue River primarily in Wyoming Territory.
The Big Horn Expedition, or Bighorn Expedition, was a military operation of the United States Army against the Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne Indians in Wyoming Territory and Montana Territory. Although soldiers destroyed one Northern Cheyenne and Oglala Lakota village at the Battle of Powder River, the expedition solidified Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne resistance against the United States attempt to force them to sell the Black Hills and live on a reservation, beginning the Great Sioux War of 1876.
United States 
