Fort Fetterman was built as a major supply point for the United States army's operations in the area. Established on July 19, 1867, by Companies A, C, H, and I of the 4th U.S. Infantry under the command of Major William E. Dye, the fort was named in honor of Captain William J. Fetterman,[2] who was killed in a battle with Indians near Fort Phil Kearny on December 21, 1866.[3]
"It contained quarters for three hundred enlisted men, and the necessary officers; the various magazines and store-houses required for the preservation of ammunition, rations and other supplies; a hospital with fifteen beds; stables for fifty horses; a corral capable of holding fifty-six mule wagons, with their animals; a theatre, an ice-house, a root-house, a granary, a bake-house, blacksmith shops, saw-mill, saddlers' shop, paint shop, laundresses' quarters and a steam engine for pumping water from the North Platte River."[4]
With the completion of Fort Fetterman, the army abandoned Fort Caspar and moved its garrison into the new fort in August. As it was on the south side of the Platte, Fort Fetterman was excluded from the provisions of the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, which resulted in the US abandonment of all forts further to the north: forts Reno, Phil Kearny, and C.F. Smith). Thus, Fort Fetterman became the northernmost military post in eastern Wyoming. It was important to the protection of the Bozeman Trail and other routes for settlers.
Given its remote location, the post was not considered a desirable station. Desertions by soldiers were frequent, and the winters long and hard. Supplies had to be brought in by wagon from Fort Laramie to the southeast or from Medicine Bow Station on the railroad. Soldiers had to carry water up the steep bluffs from the river or nearby creek. The soil proved to be unsuitable for sustaining gardens, so fresh vegetables were not available.
Fort Fetterman historical marker
In 1876, during the Great Sioux War with the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes, the monotony of garrison duty at Fetterman was broken by a series of major military expeditions that set out from the fort. The Big Horn Expedition, which included three of the post's four companies under the command of Colonel Joseph J. Reynolds, culminated in a defeat at the Battle of Powder River in March. The Yellowstone Expedition led by Brigadier General George Crook engaged in the Battle of Rosebud in June, and the Powder River Expedition under Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie destroyed a Cheyenne village in November during the Dull Knife Fight. Fort Fetterman remained active until 1882, when it was abandoned by the Army as the Indian Wars had subsided.
A small community (Fetterman City) was started around the empty fort by Charles Henry King and others as an outfitting point for area ranchers and for wagon trains. When the town of Douglas was established eleven miles away in 1886, Fetterman City rapidly declined.
State Historic Site
The old fort deteriorated from neglect. Today, the partially restored site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is administered as an historic site by the State of Wyoming. Visitors can walk an interpretive trail to view the ruins of the fort's buildings. An officers' quarters and an ordnance warehouse have been restored and contain exhibits, artifacts and dioramas about the fort's history, Fetterman City and area Native Americans.
Red Cloud's War was an armed conflict between an alliance of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Northern Arapaho peoples against the United States and the Crow Nation that took place in the Wyoming and Montana territories from 1866 to 1868. The war was fought over control of the western Powder River Country in present day north-central Wyoming and Montana.
Fort Caspar was a military post of the United States Army in present-day Wyoming, named after 2nd Lieutenant Caspar Collins, a U.S. Army officer who was killed in the 1865 Battle of the Platte Bridge Station against the Lakota and Cheyenne. Founded in 1859 along the banks of the North Platte River as a trading post and toll bridge on the Oregon Trail, the post was later taken over by the Army and named Platte Bridge Station to protect emigrants and the telegraph line against raids from Lakota and Cheyenne in the ongoing wars between those nations and the United States. The site of the fort, near the intersection of 13th Street and Wyoming Boulevard in Casper, Wyoming, is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and is now owned and operated by the City of Casper as the Fort Caspar Museum and Historic Site.
Fort Laramie was a significant 19th-century trading post, diplomatic site, and military installation located at the confluence of the Laramie and the North Platte Rivers. They joined in the upper Platte River Valley in the eastern part of the present-day US state of Wyoming. The fort was founded as a private trading-post in the 1830s to service the overland fur trade; in 1849, it was purchased by the United States Army. The site was located east of the long climb leading to the best and lowest crossing-point over the Rocky Mountains at South Pass and became a popular stopping-point for migrants on the Oregon Trail. Along with Bent's Fort on the Arkansas River, the trading post and its supporting industries and businesses were the most significant economic hub of commerce in the region.
Fort Kearny was a historic outpost of the United States Army founded in 1848 in the Western United States during the middle and late 19th century. The fort was named after Colonel and later General Stephen Watts Kearny. The outpost was located along the Oregon Trail near Kearney, Nebraska. The town of Kearney took its name from the fort. The "e" was added to Kearny by postmen who consistently misspelled the town name. A portion of the original site is preserved as Fort Kearny State Historical Park by the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.
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 Bozeman Trail was an overland route in the Western United States, connecting the gold rush territory of southern Montana to the Oregon Trail in eastern Wyoming. Its important period was from 1863 to 1868. While the major part of the route used by Bozeman Trail travelers in 1864 was pioneered by Allen Hurlbut, it was named after John Bozeman. Many miles of the Bozeman Trail in present Montana followed the tracks of Bridger Trail, opened by Jim Bridger in 1864.
The Dull Knife Fight, or the Battle on the Red Fork, part of the Great Sioux War of 1876, was fought on November 25, 1876, in present-day Johnson County, Wyoming between soldiers and scouts of the United States Army and warriors of the Northern Cheyenne. The battle essentially ended the Northern Cheyennes' ability to continue the fight for their freedom on the Great Plains.
Fort Phil Kearny was an outpost of the United States Army that existed in the late 1860s in present-day northeastern Wyoming along the Bozeman Trail. Construction began in 1866 on Friday, July 13, by Companies A, C, E, and H of the 2nd Battalion, 18th Infantry, under the direction of the regimental commander and Mountain District commander Colonel Henry B. Carrington.
Fort Reno also known as Fort Connor or Old Fort Reno, was a wooden fort established on August 15, 1865 by the United States Army in Dakota Territory in present-day Johnson County, Wyoming. The fort was built to protect travelers on the Bozeman Trail from Native American tribes.
The Fetterman Fight, also known as the Fetterman Massacre or the Battle of the Hundred-in-the-Hands or the Battle of a Hundred Slain, was a battle during Red Cloud's War on December 21, 1866, between a confederation of the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes and a detachment of the United States Army, based at Fort Phil Kearny, Wyoming. The U.S. military mission was intended to protect travelers on the Bozeman Trail. A group of ten warriors, including Crazy Horse, acted to lure a detachment of U.S. soldiers into an ambush. All 81 men under the command of Captain William J. Fetterman were then killed by the Native American warriors. At the time, it was the worst military disaster ever suffered by the U.S. Army on the Great Plains.
A private in the Fourth Infantry, Charles Howard served as photographer for the Stanton Expedition in 1877, traveling throughout eastern Wyoming, western Nebraska and into the Black Hills of Dakota Territory.
The Hayfield Fight on August 1, 1867 was an engagement of Red Cloud's War near Fort C. F. Smith, Montana, between 21 soldiers of the U.S. Army, a hay-cutting crew of nine civilians, and several hundred Native Americans, mostly Cheyenne and Arapaho, with some Lakota Sioux. Armed with newly issued breechloading Springfield Model 1866 rifles, the heavily outnumbered soldiers held off the native warriors and inflicted casualties.
The Great Platte River Road was a major overland travel corridor approximately following the course of the Platte River in present-day Nebraska and Wyoming that was shared by several popular emigrant trails during the 19th century, including the Trapper's Trail, the Oregon Trail, the Mormon Trail, the California Trail, the Pony Express route, and the military road connecting Fort Leavenworth and Fort Laramie. The road, which extended nearly 370 miles (600 km) from the Second Fort Kearny to Fort Laramie, was utilized primarily from 1841 to 1866. In modern times it is often regarded as a sort of superhighway of its era, and has been referred to as "the grand corridor of America's westward expansion".
Mitchell Pass is a gap through the bluffs near Scottsbluff and Gering, Nebraska. Beginning in 1851, two of the Westward Expansion Trails passed through the gap, as did the Pony Express in the early 1860s. Today the area is protected as part of Scotts Bluff National Monument.
The historic 2,170-mile (3,490 km) Oregon Trail connected various towns along the Missouri River to Oregon's Willamette Valley. It was used during the 19th century by Great Plains pioneers who were seeking fertile land in the West and North.
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.
The Powder River Crossing, officially known as Powder River Station-Powder River Crossing , is an abandoned settlement located on the east bank of the Powder River in southeast Johnson County about twenty-four miles east of Kaycee, Wyoming. It developed after a wooden toll bridge was built across the Powder River in 1877, at a site that was originally used as a ford. With crossing secured, a settlement developed here in the late 19th century, incorporating a stage stop on the Bozeman Trail. The site is notable for having well-preserved wagon ruts from the pioneer era.
Crazy Woman Crossing is a historic place on the Bozeman Trail, in Johnson County, Wyoming, United States, about twenty miles southeast of Buffalo. Crazy Woman Crossing was one of three major fords used by travelers across creeks and rivers in this area. It is significant as the site of the Battle of Crazy Woman, a skirmish during Red Cloud's War in 1866. The United States pulled out of this territory after negotiation with the Lakota and allies of the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1868.
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 also suffering at least eight dead.
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