Legends of the Old West - RED CLOUD'S WAR Ep. 2 | "Fighting Season"

Episode Date: February 10, 2019

After hearing the story of the Sand Creek Massacre, Red Cloud makes his first coordinated attacks on army outposts on the High Plains. In response, the U.S. Army sends thousands of troopers in pursuit of Red Cloud. They surprise him in his camp, but then the soldiers learn the hard lessons of a fighting season on the frontier. Join Black Barrel+ for early access and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join For more details, visit our website www.blackbarrelmedia.com and check out our social media pages. We’re @OldWestPodcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. Maybe Lieutenant Casper Collins felt he had something to prove. He had been humiliated in front of other soldiers by the new firebrand commander at Fort Laramie, and maybe he was now trying to prove he wasn't a coward. Maybe he thought it wouldn't be as bad as it was. Whatever the reason, when he rode out of a small army outpost in the summer of 1865, he took just 28 men with him. They could all see the Braves racing up and down the hills in the distance, and even the youngest soldiers knew the tribes used decoys to lure unsuspecting troopers to their doom.

What the soldiers didn't know, what they couldn't know, was how many warriors were hiding behind those hills. But Lieutenant Collins let his unit out anyway. The army looked like it was falling for the old Indian trick, but it wasn't. Collins was leading his unit out to meet up with freight wagons that were on their way from an even smaller outpost to the west. To the warriors, it looked like the dumb bluecoats were doing what they always did, eagerly chasing a few braves until they walked right into an ambush. In the end, it didn't matter which side was right. The outcome was the same.

Hundreds of Red Cloud's warriors poured over the hills and swarmed the small unit of soldiers. The melee that followed was such a whirlwind of men and horses and dust that the army lookouts at the fort completely lost sight of the soldiers. Except one. They clearly saw Caspar Collins reel in the saddle, with an arrow drilled deep into his forehead, right between his eyes. And that was just the first wave of the attack.

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Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash realm, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash r-e-a-l-m now to grow your business no matter what stage you're in. shopify.com slash realm. From Black Barrel Media, this is season 4 of the Legends of the Old West podcast. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this is the second episode of a five-part series on Red Cloud's war. Last time, Red Cloud rose to be a prominent leader of the Oglala Band of the Lakota. He pushed for war with the Whites, whom he saw as invaders, but other leaders were reluctant to agree. But after the Sand Creek Massacre, warriors rallied to his cause. Now, he builds the first coalition between the Lakota, the Cheyenne, and the Arapaho,

and goes on the offensive. The first shots of Red Cloud's war are fired. The first shots of Red Cloud's war are fired. And now, here's Episode 2, Fighting Season. In the wake of the Sand Creek Massacre, the U.S. military conducted an investigation. Major Edward Wynkoop, who believed he had secured peace with the Cheyenne and Arapaho in Colorado before leaving for Kansas, returned to his old post of Fort Lyon to interview witnesses. His report called Colonel John Chivington an inhuman monster. The government eventually compiled 800 pages of testimony about the event that it called the Chivington Massacre. Chivington avoided formal punishment. He mustered out of the

army before he could be court-martialed, and no civilian criminal charges were ever filed. But the stain of the massacre followed him for the rest of his life, and it reached beyond Chivington. The Governor of Colorado Territory, John Evans, was removed from office. In October of 1865, the U.S. signed a treaty with members of the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho as well as other tribes. The agreement promised reparations to the survivors of the Sand Creek Massacre. The money was never paid,

and the treaty took away Cheyenne and Arapaho lands in Colorado forever. But in the first three months of 1865, the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho rampaged across 100 miles of territory in retaliation for the massacre. They destroyed ranches and settlements and stage stations. They attacked the town of Julesburg twice. And then army troops began to mobilize at forts in the area, and many members of the tribes moved north to join up with Red Cloud in the Powder River country. Somewhere around 4,000 people, hauling tons of supplies and 900 lodges and accompanied by vast herds of cattle and horses made the trek north in the dead of winter and the army couldn't find them. The new commander of the area, Major General Grenville Dodge, finally

learned that the refugees from Colorado were working their way north to Wyoming. He ordered General Patrick Connor to hunt them down and kill them. Connor had earned a reputation as an Indian fighter after slaughtering a village of Shoshones in Utah, but he was in for a much tougher test in the Powder River country. As the tribes moved north, they burned and killed and mutilated the corpses of the dead across 400 miles of open country, and Dodge and Connor never laid eyes on them. By the time the caravan reached Red Clouds Camps in March 1865, its warriors had killed more people than had died at Sand Creek.

When the migration reached Red Clouds Camps, the initial reunion was awkward. The northern and southern halves of the tribes hadn't interacted in these numbers in ages, but the awkwardness quickly passed as the southern tribes told the story of the Sand Creek Massacre. The awkwardness was replaced by uncontrollable rage. Red Cloud was the first to speak at the Great War Council on the Tongue River in April 1865. He had advocated for war eight years earlier, but had been rebuffed. His words carried more weight this time. The Great Spirit, he said, all about me. I have but a small spot of land left. The Great Spirit told me to keep it.

That was all he needed to say. Tribes and bands who had squabbled with each other since time out of mind agreed to unite. Red Cloud laid out the plan. They would conduct the buffalo hunt in early summer and then attack a small army outpost called Bridge Station northwest of Fort Laramie. While the main attack happened at Bridge Station, small war parties would strike south, east, and west to keep the army running in circles instead of reinforcing the outpost. Army generals in the east who had graduated from West Point would have approved of the plan, and it was the first large-scale strategy from the tribes of the plains that used simultaneous attacks on multiple targets. In the minds of the

whites, such a thing was inconceivable. The smaller attacks began immediately and lasted for three months. Cheyenne dog soldiers, the elite warrior class of the tribe, took the lead. They attacked a stage station west of Fort Laramie and mutilated the bodies of the five defenders. They joined with Lakota raiding parties and attacked more stage stations, wagon trains, and small army patrols all over eastern Wyoming. The temporary commander of Fort Laramie, eastern Wyoming. The temporary commander of Fort Laramie, Colonel Thomas Moonlight, led a column in pursuit of the warriors. Like Generals Dodge and Connor before him, he went in circles for 450 miles without seeing a single warrior.

General Dodge fumed at his headquarters in Omaha. He now ordered General Connor to kill the 2,000 natives living near Fort Laramie. They were known as the Laramie Loafers, and they relied on the fort, or white travelers, for everything. General Connor wisely pushed back on the order. He said it might not be a great idea to murder 2,000 people right outside an army fort. These people had not participated in any attacks, and a slaughter of that magnitude would be the only thing needed to unite every member of every tribe against the whites. Dodge back down. He now ordered the Laramie loafers to be marched to Fort Kearney in Nebraska with the superficial goal of teaching them to be farmers.

He would, once again, be infuriated by the outcome. An army patrol from Fort Laramie rounded up the Laramie loafers in early June and began marching them southeast toward Fort Kearney. The Lakota were not happy about the transfer. They hadn't taken up arms against the U.S. and they didn't want to leave their homeland, especially to move to the lands of their hated enemy, the Pawnee. After just a couple days on the road, they began planning their escape. And then one night, they were startled when a famous warrior suddenly appeared in their camp. It was as if he materialized

out of nowhere. Crazy Horse was good at that. He told them that a group of strong hearts, one of the warrior societies within the Lakota, was hiding just over the hills. He wanted to help the Laramie loafers escape, and they said they were already planning on it. The next morning, members of the caravan lured the soldiers into an ambush. The strong hearts raced out of their hiding spots and attacked the soldiers. Five men died, and seven more were wounded. The Laramie loafers hurried north to Red Cloud's camps

while the strong hearts guarded their escape. In one of those amazing coincidences that happened throughout history, the escape took place on the exact spot where the treaty had been signed 14 years ago in 1851. The Horse Creek Treaty was supposed to have ended hostilities permanently. Instead, treaty was supposed to have ended hostilities permanently. Instead, they were only beginning. The morning after the escape, Colonel Moonlight led 235 cavalrymen east out of Fort Laramie to capture the refugees. By the time they reached the Nebraska-South Dakota border, he'd lost a third of his men, but not to the enemy. They had been forced to turn back because their horses couldn't handle the arid flatlands where water was scarce. This was exactly

what the loafers and the strong hearts were counting on. As many a Texas ranger would learn while chasing Comanches out onto the staked plains of West Texas, warriors knew that the easiest way to get rid of white soldiers was to lure them out into the middle of nowhere and wait for their horses to die. Moonlight and the rest of his patrol finally made it to a water source, and that's when the Stronghearts attacked. They stampeded and captured all of the army's horses. Moonlight and his men were forced to walk 120 miles back to Fort Laramie Moonlight was humiliated But he felt he had learned a valuable lesson about frontier warfare

He would be better prepared next time But there wouldn't be a next time General Connor removed him from command for his incompetence And then General Dodge mustered him out of the army But Thomas Moonlight would ultimately have the last laugh him from command for his incompetence and then General Dodge mustered him out of the army. But Thomas Moonlight would ultimately have the last laugh. His embarrassing adventure was nothing compared to what Connor was about to experience. Connor's experience came as a result of Red Cloud's first major attack on the high plains. From April through June in

1865, war parties had chipped away at small forces and kept the army chasing its tail. Now it was time for the main event. A French trader had constructed a small outpost in 1859 at an ancient crossing of the North Platte River northwest of Fort Laramie. at an ancient crossing of the North Platte River northwest of Fort Laramie. The enterprising trader had also built a bridge across the river. The U.S. Army saw the value of the installation and expanded the original Adobe buildings. It added a telegraph line and a unit of cavalry to protect it all. That unit included a 20-year-old lieutenant named Caspar Collins.

The outpost was given the literal name of Bridge Station, but despite its location, Collins and his unit hadn't seen much action. Halfway through the summer of 1865, he was sent to Fort Laramie to get fresh horses for the troops at Bridge Station. The timing of his errand was unfortunate. General Connor arrived shortly after Collins and noticed the young lieutenant seeming to loiter on the parade grounds. The hot-tempered Irish general screamed at the young soldier in front of several witnesses. Connor asked Collins if he was a coward, and of course Collins said no. Connor asked Collins if he was a coward, and of course Collins said no.

Connor told him to get back to his post immediately. Collins rode back to Bridge Station and almost straight into Red Cloud's attack. On the afternoon of July 25, 1865, Red Cloud's forces hid behind the hills outside Bridge Station. His numbers included Cheyenne warriors as well as fighters from nearly every band of Lakota. He tried the age-old tactic first. He sent decoys and full battle regalia up onto the hills to taunt the 119 soldiers in the fort. At first, it seemed to work. The gates opened and an artillery unit marched out.

But it stopped at the bridge across the Platte River and just lobbed shells at the decoys. As the sun set, it was clear that the soldiers would advance no farther, and Red Cloud called in his decoys. It seemed the soldiers had finally learned their lesson from past defeats. That night, Red Cloud changed his plan. At dawn the next morning, the soldiers at Bridge Station again saw warriors parading in front of them, but they were much closer this time. The warriors shouted insults

and implored the soldiers to come out and fight. Inside the fort, Caspar Collins formed a small detail of 28 men to go outside. Several soldiers pleaded with him to take more men. Collins refused. Maybe General Connor's indirect accusation of cowardice echoed in his mind. Maybe not. Either way, he had a job to do. The warriors didn't know it, but Collins wasn't going out to give them the battle they wanted. He was going out to provide an escort for five freight wagons that were returning from an outpost farther west. farther west. A little after 7.30 a.m. on July 26, 1865, Collins signaled for the gates to open.

He led his column of cavalry outside. Eleven volunteers followed them on foot to act as a rear guard. Collins led his men across the bridge and into the valley beyond. The infantry soldiers stopped at the bridge to stay within relative safety of the fort. Collins and his troopers advanced half a mile into the valley, and then Red Cloud's forces attacked. The Lakota charged over the hills from the north. The Cheyenne swooped in from the west. Collins shouted at his men to fire in both directions. from the west. Collins shouted at his men to fire in both directions. They let loose one volley into the screaming warriors, and then the warriors were on top of them. Collins was hit in the hip, and he reeled in the saddle. Arrows, knives, spears, tomahawks, and war clubs slashed and stabbed at the troopers. The soldiers reloaded and fired as fast as they could. Thankfully, they carried Spencer carbines instead of muskets, but they were now useless in close quarters combat.

The troops pulled their revolvers and went to work with those instead. In seconds, the battlefield was a churning, confusing mass of dust and gun smoke. The dust and smoke almost completely engulfed the fighters, and the lookouts at bridge station could no longer see their comrades, except one. Through a gap in the swirling fog, they saw an arrow bury itself in the forehead of Caspar Collins. Then he disappeared too. Moments later, a horse raced out of the haze and retreated toward the fort with a wounded soldier clinging to its neck. Another horse followed, and another. The rear guard now fired into the battle to cover the retreat of the soldiers who could escape.

And then warriors from Red Cloud's own band of Oglala, called the Bad Faces, jumped up from their hiding spots near the bridge. They attacked the troopers that had been lucky enough to escape. The soldiers of the rear guard charged the bad faces, desperately trying to keep the escape route open. A second battle now raged near the bridge. Riderless horses streamed back toward the fort. A cannon boomed from the outpost, and then Red Cloud signaled the Cheyenne battle commander, Roman Nose, to take his dog soldiers out of the fight. There was a small wagon train approaching in the distance. As the lead scouts for the wagon train crested a hill, they saw 500 Cheyenne warriors bearing down on them. They galloped toward the Platte River and tried to splash across it. Three made it. Two

didn't. The men driving the wagons realized they would never make it to the fort or the river. They literally circled their wagons in a hollow beside the road. They took up defensive positions and tried to corral their horses, but the Cheyenne captured them and led them away. The men were now trapped in a shallow depression with no mounts and no way out. But they had seven shot Spencer rifles. For the next four hours, the warriors picked off the Americans one by one, but they couldn't sustain a full charge. The Americans' firepower was too much for that. So the warriors changed their strategy. They dismounted and began slowly slithering on their stomachs toward the Americans from all sides. They dug shallow trenches with knives and tomahawks to conceal themselves as

they moved forward through the high grass. Hour by hour, they worked their way toward the Americans. The men in the hollow couldn't see them, and the their way toward the Americans. The men in the hollow couldn't see them, and the warriors had gone strangely silent, which was now more unnerving than their terrifying battle cries. But the soldiers on the walls of Bridge Station could see very well what was happening. They started firing cannons toward the hollow to warn the men of the danger that was creeping toward them, but the freighters didn't understand the warning. Around four o'clock that afternoon, the warriors leapt up as if they'd been launched straight out of the ground. A huge fire broke out, and then the men on the walls of Bridge Station could see nothing through the smoke.

The warriors burned the men in the wagons in the hollow. the smoke. The warriors burned the men in the wagons in the hollow. As night fell, there were 28 soldiers missing and presumed dead, and twice as many wounded. The telegraph lines to Fort Laramie had been cut. A half-blood scout had to slip out of bridge station under the cover of darkness and ride 28 miles to the nearest telegraph to transmit the news of the attack to Laramie. But while the Americans may have felt defeated, Red Cloud did not feel victorious. His undisciplined forces had allowed too many soldiers to escape. He had not wiped out the men in the fort, or destroyed the fort itself. And now there was infighting between the Lakota and

the Cheyenne. Red Cloud and Roman Nose were able to smooth it over, but it wasn't the best beginning to the war. Red Cloud hoped he could hold this coalition together, and that the warriors would learn from this engagement. If they knew nothing else, they knew the Bluecoats would come in force to retaliate. And they did. Now it was General Connors' turn to hunt down Red Cloud. Major General John Pope had been banished to Minnesota after his miserable performance as the commander of the Union Army during the Civil War. He had been soundly beaten by Confederate Generals Stonewall Jackson and James Longstreet at the Second Battle of Bull Run in 1862, and afterward, President Lincoln sent him west. sent him west. By the summer of 1865, General Ulysses S. Grant had led the Union forces to victory,

and the War Department divided the entire country into military divisions and departments as Reconstruction began. General William Tecumseh Sherman commanded one of the five divisions, the Division of the Mississippi, which was essentially the west. Within his division was the Department of the Missouri, which was essentially the West. Within his division was the Department of the Missouri, which included the High Plains, commanded by Major General John Pope. One of Pope's chief responsibilities was to make the Bozeman Trail safe for travelers, a trail that ran right through Red Cloud's stronghold of the Powder River Country.

The Bozeman Trail was a northern offshoot of the Oregon Trail. It ran directly to the gold fields of western Montana. It cut 400 miles off the trip, and that made it a valuable commodity to the U.S. government. After the Civil War, gold was the only real currency of any value in the East and the u.s government desperately needed more of it to rebuild after the devastation of four years of war and as always individuals wanted to get rich so pope had to open the bozeman trail the trail had been traced by john bozeman in 1863 and he had managed to lead one wagon train across it in 1864, but two more attempts had been stopped by the Lakota and Cheyenne.

Pope handed the task of finally opening the road to Major General Grenville Dodge. The first step was to wipe out Red Cloud and his army. Dodge gave that chore to General Patrick Connor, who was now in command of Fort Laramie. Red Cloud had just attacked, but not destroyed, Bridge Station west of the fort. At nearly the same time, Sitting Bull had attacked Fort Rice in present-day North Dakota. But the soldiers at Fort Rice had repelled the assault. The fort was well-positioned, and the soldiers could see for miles in every direction. They spotted Sitting Bull's forces and pounded them with artillery. They refused to leave the fort to engage Sitting Bull's warriors on the ground and eventually Sitting

Bull gave up the fight. After the twin attacks of Red Cloud and Sitting Bull, General Pope and General Dodge devised a complicated plan to crush both chiefs. General Connor would lead a unit north out of Fort Laramie to destroy Red Cloud and General Alfred Sully would lead a unit north from Sioux City, Iowa to destroy Sitting Bull. The endeavor was a mess from the very beginning. General Sully marched up and down the Missouri River for nearly a month and never caught sight of Sitting Bull. Finally, the War Department sent his beleaguered troops to Minnesota to put down an uprising of Lakota near Mankato. But by the time Sully arrived, those Lakota were gone as well. They had slipped into Canada.

General Connor decided to use a three-pronged approach to corner Red Cloud on his favorite hunting grounds near the Pounder River. He ordered one column to march out of Omaha and move in from the east. Another column would move straight north out of Fort Laramie and approach Red Cloud from the south. And the third, led by Connor himself, would leave Fort Laramie at the same time as the second, but then split off so it could loop around from the west.

The columns from the east and the south would link up and then use their combined strength to flank Red Cloud's huge army. Connor would bring his 1,000 men in from the other side, and they would all meet in the middle. The trouble began almost immediately. Colonel Nelson Cole was about to experience the misery of Colonel Moonlight earlier that summer. On the desolate plains of South Dakota, his cavalry's horses began to die. He was losing strength simply by walking, but he pressed on. Connor had guessed correctly about the location of Red Cloud's camps, but now he was led astray by his Pawnee scouts. They found a trail of a large group and Connor veered farther west

to follow the trail. They found the village of a northern Arapaho headman named Black Bear. They attacked the village, killed 60 people, captured numerous horses, and burned the whole thing to the ground. All the lodges, all the food for the coming winter were gone. And Black Bear's son had been killed in what was later called The Battle of Tongue River The problem was, this band of northern Arapaho had been peaceful But they weren't anymore The survivors now joined Red Cloud in his war against the whites While the two cavalry units slowly worked their way toward Red Cloud,

Red Cloud lounged in his camps and celebrated the lukewarm victory of Bridge Station. At one point, he was warned that a wagon train was approaching his domain and it was escorted by soldiers. He rallied 500 warriors and surrounded the wagon train. But after it ran up a white flag, Red Cloud and another chief made a deal with the white travelers. They could proceed west, but they had to go north of Red Cloud's hunting grounds, and they had to give him a wagonload of supplies as a tax. The travelers agreed, paid the tax, and left. This illustrated another major difference between the cultures. In the Lakota culture, war was not an all-encompassing, year-round thing. It was seasonal and cyclical. In the winter, you hunkered down in your camps

and waited for spring. In the spring, you did the early buffalo hunt. In the summer, you made war on your enemies. In the fall, you did the late buffalo hunt, and then you hunkered down in your winter camps to wait for spring. After the fight at Bridge Station in late July, Red Cloud's forces had gone back to their camps, celebrated the attack, and then prepared for the fall buffalo hunt. They were done fighting for the year. Or at least they thought so. In late August 1865, Colonel Nelson Cole's column made contact with Sitting Bull, though not on purpose.

Cole had successfully guided 2,000 troopers right between the camps of Sitting Bull and Red Cloud without seeing a hint of either one. But as his cavalry moved toward the junction of the Powder River and the Yellowstone River in eastern Montana, Sitting Bull found him. Cole was frustrated, and his men were near the point of mutiny. It had been almost a month since they last heard from General Connor. Cole sent scouts to find Connor's men. The scouts returned with nothing but exhaustion. Unbeknownst to Cole, Connor was trying to find him as well. Unbeknownst to Cole, Connor was trying to find him as well. Connor sent scouts to find the other half of his army, and they also returned with nothing. And that's when Sitting Bull found Cole near the Powder River.

Cole's men were worn out, and his horses were even worse. They had been marching through the heat of the summer for weeks, and now they faced a surprise attack. The four to five hundred warriors charged Cole's force and drove it back into a grove of trees. For four days and nights, the warriors kept the soldiers pinned in the trees, but they couldn't get close to the bluecoats. The army's weapons and makeshift defenses saved them, but Cole couldn't sit in the trees forever, and it was the high plains weather that forced him to move. On the first day of September, a storm blew down from the north.

The temperature dropped 70 degrees in one day. The soldiers burned everything that wasn't vital. 200 horses died in the freeze. Finally, the soldiers couldn't wait any longer. They had to move. Sitting Bull's men harassed them for two days, but made no major strike. Sitting Bull sent runners to Red Cloud's camps to tell him the news. After two days, Sitting Bull pulled away so he could remain close to his own camps

And then Red Cloud's warriors took over Red Cloud was not there himself, but Crazy Horse helped lead the Lakota And Roman Nose led the Cheyenne The warriors attacked, and Cole's men formed their wagons into a square at the base of some high hills Crazy Horse, who had earned fame by going on daring rides past the enemy, now tried this tactic to draw out the soldiers. It didn't work. Roman knows not to be outdone by the younger Lakota tried the same thing. He galloped the full length of the army battlements three times, shouting curses and challenges.

On the third, the army shot his horse. At that, the warriors attacked in full force, but the army repelled them with rifles and field cannons. Again, it was a standoff, and the Cheyenne quickly grew bored of the stalemate. They departed for the Black Hills to prepare for the fall buffalo hunt. Cole used the opportunity to get his men moving again. They resumed their march, knowing that they were shadowed by the remaining Lakota warriors. Three days later, Cole had his first and only stroke of luck. He found Red Cloud.

Cole's Pawnee scouts and a cavalry unit stumbled onto the eastern edge of Red Cloud's huge camp on the Tong River. They spotted 27 Cheyenne, who were some of the last to leave for the Black Hills. The scouts and soldiers pounced on the Cheyenne and killed them all. And now, for the first time, Cole had the element of surprise. He prepared to mount an old-fashioned frontal assault on Red Cloud's camps, and Red Cloud was caught completely off guard. Red Cloud scrambled to get his warriors ready to fight. The women and children tried to take down the lodges so they could escape. And then Cole's luck ran out.

A series of storms swept down from the Bighorn Mountains and blasted the plains with 36 hours of rain and sleet. They ruined any chance of an army attack. The Lakota slipped away during the storms. But columns of warriors stayed behind to keep an eye on the soldiers. Cole's men lost another 400 horses to the freezing weather. They burned everything they couldn't carry to stay warm. Most of the men were now on foot, and they began the long march home. They were weak and sore and sick with scurvy. For two days, the Lakota flanked the army as it straggled back toward home, but unlike Sitting Bull's men or the southern Cheyenne who had guns, Red Cloud's warriors still relied on bows and arrows. Those weapons were

useless at this distance. If they had had guns, they could have wiped out Cole's forces easily. Even with the disadvantage in weaponry, the Lakota still looked for the right moment to strike. But it never came. General Connor's scouts finally found Cole's men. The Lakota disappeared to rejoin their camps for the fall buffalo hunt. And Cole found out what Connor had been doing this whole time. For a reason he never made clear, Connor had stopped to build a small stockade that he called Camp Connor.

But then more importantly, he had rushed to the aid of a wagon train that had been pinned down by Red Cloud himself for 13 days. The wagon train was a crew that was trying to expand the Bozeman Trail. The cavalry had ridden to the rescue, but overall, it was another failed attempt to open the trail. The combined force finally staggered back into Fort Laramie in October 1865. They'd accomplished nothing and wasted the entire fighting season on the high plains. General Connor was thoroughly disgusted by the outcome. His boss, General Dodge, tried to put a positive spin on the expedition in his official report,

but it didn't change the facts. Red Cloud had not been crushed, Sitting Bull had not been crushed, and the Bozeman Trail had not been opened. As fall turned to early winter, the U.S. government reverted to its old tactic. If you can't beat them, buy them. It would propose a new treaty, but this time the politicians were not on the same page as the generals.

In the late fall of 1865, after the disastrous campaigns to destroy Red Cloud, U.S. Indian agents met with members of several bands of the Lakota. Red Cloud's band, the Oglala, was not one of them, and none of the Cheyenne were there. Members of the bands agreed to the terms of a new treaty, and the newspapers back east proudly pronounced, peace with the Sioux, but nothing could have been further from the truth. The following spring, General Pope issued the order that would provoke the ultimate showdown between the army and Red Cloud. In 1866, the most dangerous place on earth for a U.S. soldier was the Powder River country. Red Cloud begins his campaign against the doomed soldiers at the new outpost of Fort Phil Kearney, next time on the Legends of the Old West podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please give it a rating and a review on iTunes or wherever you're

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