Soldiering Begins in the American West
The vast expanse of the American West, a landscape stretching eastward from the formidable Rocky Mountains, was, until 1851, largely regarded as sovereign Indian territory. Numerous tribes, diverse in their cultures and customs, roamed freely across these plains, their domains extending from the borders of Texas and Mexico northward to the British possessions in Canada. This immense territory, a tapestry woven with the threads of indigenous life, was soon to be irrevocably altered by the forces of westward expansion and the discovery of precious metals.
The catalyst for this transformation was the momentous discovery of gold in California in 1849. This event acted as a beacon, drawing the attention of the world to the Pacific Coast and igniting a feverish wave of emigration unlike anything the young nation had ever witnessed. Ships, laden with hopeful prospectors and their dreams of instant wealth, braved the perilous journey around Cape Horn, each vessel packed to capacity with men eager to wrest fortunes from the mountains and riverbeds of the Golden State.
While the sea route became a bustling thoroughfare, thousands more embarked on an arduous overland journey across the plains, a route fraught with its own unique set of dangers. These emigrants, undeterred by the challenges that lay ahead, formed wagon trains that snaked slowly across the prairies. They faced weeks and months of relentless travel, fording treacherous streams, scaling towering mountains, and navigating deep ravines. They endured torrential rains, biting sleet, and heavy snow, shivering from the cold one day and fainting from the oppressive heat the next. Above all, they lived under the constant threat of attack from Native American tribes defending their ancestral lands.
Many a wagon train, setting out from Independence, Missouri, fully equipped and armed, and brimming with optimism, never reached its destination on the Pacific coast. If they managed to survive starvation and the harsh climate, they might fall victim to ambushes by fierce warriors in some isolated canyon, their bones left to bleach in the sun, a grim warning to those who followed. The perils of the overland trail were a stark reality, a testament to the immense challenges faced by those who sought to carve a new life in the West.
The relentless tide of emigration across the plains necessitated a formal agreement with the various tribes inhabiting the region. This led to the creation of a treaty that established a wide corridor for travel to California and restricted Native American tribes to specific territories. In exchange for the privilege of allowing emigrants to traverse their lands unmolested, the U.S. government pledged to provide the tribes with an annual payment of $50,000 for a period of 15 years.
The treaty delineated boundaries for the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, encompassing a significant portion of present-day Colorado. The Crow and Sioux tribes were granted the lands traversed by the Powder River route leading to Montana. However, this fragile peace was shattered when, years later, the discovery of gold and silver on Native American lands in Colorado triggered a new influx of settlers. These newcomers, driven by greed and a disregard for Native American rights, encroached upon tribal territories, seizing land and resources with impunity.
In response to this blatant violation of the initial treaty, a second agreement, known as the Treaty of Fort Wise, was forged on February 18, 1861. Under the terms of this treaty, the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes were forced to cede a vast tract of land and confine themselves to a much smaller district on either side of the Arkansas River and along the northern border of New Mexico. The U.S. government, once again, promised to protect the tribes within these new boundaries, providing an annual annuity of $30,000 to each tribe for 15 years, along with livestock and agricultural implements.
Despite these assurances, tensions continued to simmer beneath the surface. Relative calm prevailed until April 1864, when some warriors began engaging in raids and robberies against the property of settlers. Colonel John Chivington, the commander of troops in Denver, responded by authorizing a subordinate officer to lead a detachment of soldiers to punish the alleged perpetrators. This detachment attacked a Cheyenne village at Cedar Bluffs, resulting in the deaths of 26 people and the wounding of 30 more. The soldiers then divided the spoils of the raid amongst themselves.
These actions ignited a period of escalating hostilities that lasted throughout the summer and autumn. However, many Native Americans desired peace and sought to negotiate a treaty. Major Edward Wynkoop, the commander of Fort Lyon, Colorado, offered them protection and invited them to gather near the fort.
Trusting in this promise, approximately 500 men, women, and children assembled at the post. Colonel Chivington, however, betrayed their trust in a horrific act of treachery. On November 29, 1864, he launched a surprise attack on the unsuspecting village, resulting in the brutal slaughter of its inhabitants. This atrocity, known as the Sand Creek Massacre, sent shockwaves across the nation and irrevocably damaged relations between the U.S. government and the Native American tribes of the Great Plains.
The Sand Creek Massacre inevitably led to widespread warfare. The ensuing conflict required the deployment of 8,000 troops and cost the nation an estimated $30 million. Yet, despite the immense resources poured into the effort, the military campaign of 1865 resulted in the deaths of fewer than 20 Native Americans. The attempt to achieve peace through violence proved as futile as the earlier conflict with the Seminole tribe nearly three decades prior.
In the autumn of 1865, a commission was established with the aim of convening a council with the warring tribes and bringing an end to the conflict. In October of that year, the commissioners met with the chiefs of the Cheyenne, Arapaho, and other tribes at the mouth of the Little Arkansas River. They persuaded the tribes to relinquish their reservation on the Arkansas River and accept a new one in the state of Kansas, while retaining the right to hunt on their former plains.
The U.S. Senate subsequently amended this treaty, excluding the tribes entirely from Kansas and leaving them only their hunting rights on the unsettled plains. Despite these setbacks, the southern tribes adhered to the treaty throughout 1866.
To the north, the Sioux had driven the Crow tribe into Montana, effectively seizing control of the vast territory originally allocated to both tribes. The territories to the south were becoming increasingly populated, and rumors of rich mineral deposits in Montana attracted a surge of emigration across Native American lands. This influx of settlers further constricted the already dwindling hunting grounds to the valley north of the Powder River. With government annuities having ceased, the remaining hunting ranges were essential to the survival of the Native American population.
Recognizing the strategic importance of the Powder River route, the commanding officers of the Military Departments of the Missouri and the Platte issued orders to establish several military posts along the new route of travel to Montana. On June 15, 1866, orders were given to garrison Forts Reno and Phil Kearny in present-day Wyoming, and Fort C.F. Smith in Montana.
The Native Americans immediately warned the troops that this occupation of their territory would be met with resistance. However, their warnings were ignored, and fighting erupted throughout the summer and autumn. On December 21, 1866, a wagon train escorted by a detachment of soldiers was ambushed by Native American warriors near Fort Phil Kearny. Brevet Lieutenant Colonel W.T. Fetterman was ordered to lead a force of 49 men to rescue the wagon train. The entire company, including Fetterman, was killed in the ensuing battle, an event known today as the Fetterman Massacre.
The Fetterman Massacre heightened anxieties about the potential for widespread warfare along the line of the Union Pacific Railroad. General George Crook, commanding from Omaha, Nebraska, prohibited the sale of arms and ammunition to Native Americans within his jurisdiction. This measure further fueled the resentment of the Cheyenne and Arapaho, as it hampered their ability to hunt for food.
The troops stationed along the Powder River route were increasingly frustrated and alarmed by the Sioux and Cheyenne, who refused to negotiate until the troops were withdrawn from their lands. The memory of the Sand Creek Massacre continued to haunt the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache tribes. They had been forced from their rich lands in Colorado and left with only the dwindling privilege of hunting buffalo and other game on the plains. Now, even this limited right was threatened by the ban on the sale of arms and ammunition. Leading chiefs and warriors issued dire warnings of a general Native American war in the spring.
The American military forces in the West were under the command of Lieutenant General William T. Sherman, of the Military Division of the Missouri River. This division was subdivided into three departments: Dakota, commanded by General Alfred H. Terry; the Platte River, commanded by General Christopher C. Augur; and the Missouri River, commanded by General Winfred S. Hancock. The challenges facing these commanders were immense, as they sought to balance the demands of westward expansion with the rights and needs of the Native American tribes.
General Hancock’s approach to dealing with the Native Americans was often heavy-handed and counterproductive. In one instance, he led a large contingent of troops towards a Cheyenne encampment on the Pawnee Fork in Kansas. The chiefs, fearing a repeat of the Sand Creek Massacre, pleaded with him to keep his distance. However, Hancock disregarded their pleas and advanced, causing the warriors to flee with their families. In their flight, they destroyed several stations, killing guards and taking property. Enraged by these actions, Hancock ordered the destruction of the village, which consisted of 300 lodges and an estimated $100,000 worth of property.
He then dispatched General George A. Custer with a force of 400 men to address the ongoing attacks on the Smoky Hill Trail, which ran along the line of the Union Pacific Railroad. Custer attempted to establish a friendly relationship with Pawnee Killer, a prominent Oglala Sioux war leader, but his efforts proved unsuccessful. The attacks continued, and Custer launched an offensive, but rarely managed to engage the Native Americans in a decisive battle.
Near Fort Wallace, Kansas, a wagon train was attacked by 500 Native Americans, resulting in a fierce engagement. The wagon train managed to reach its destination, but suffered the loss of 12 men. Shortly after this incident, on June 26th, General Custer was recalled from the region. General Hancock continued his expedition and held several conferences with chiefs who expressed a desire for peace, provided it could be achieved on fair terms. In August, Hancock returned to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and was succeeded by General Philip Sheridan.
The burning of the village on Pawnee Fork deeply angered the Native Americans, and their raids and depredations continued throughout the summer. The operations of the Union Pacific Railroad were severely hampered, with surveyors and workmen frequently ambushed and killed, and stock and materials stolen or destroyed. Stages and express trains were robbed, stations were burned, settlements were attacked, and a general state of predatory warfare prevailed.
In August 1867, a freight train traveling from Omaha, Nebraska, was derailed near Plum Creek by obstructions placed on the tracks by Native Americans. The cars and merchandise were set ablaze, and all the employees on the train, except for one, were killed. General Augur dispatched a detachment of troops to the scene. They were joined by a group of friendly Pawnee warriors, and in a battle with 500 Sioux, they killed 60 of them.
Most of General Augur’s forces, numbering approximately 2,000, were sent under General John Gibbon to the region around the sources of the Powder and Yellowstone Rivers, where the northern tribes were engaged in hostilities. On August 2nd, a band of woodcutters working near Fort Phil Kearny, escorted by forty soldiers and some fifty civilians, was attacked by a large force of Native Americans. A desperate three-hour battle ensued, ending only with the arrival of two companies of Federal troops with a howitzer, who drove off the warriors. The Native Americans suffered over 50 casualties, with many more wounded.
These military operations against the Native Americans proved largely ineffective. General Sheridan famously quipped that fifty Native Americans could checkmate 3,000 soldiers. He concluded that peaceful negotiations were the only viable solution to the ongoing conflict.
In July, Congress passed an act "to establish peace with certain hostile Indian tribes." The act provided for the appointment of commissioners with the following objectives: to remove the causes of the war, to secure the frontier settlements and the safe construction of railways to the Pacific, and to develop a plan for the civilization of the Native Americans. The commissioners selected for this task were: N.G. Taylor, J.B. Henderson, Lieutenant General William T. Sherman, Brevet Major General W.S. Harney, John B. Sanderson, Brevet Major General Alfred H. Terry, S.F. Tappan, and Brevet Major General C.C. Augur.
The commissioners convened in St. Louis, Missouri, on August 6th and began the process of interviewing chiefs from the hostile tribes. They sent out messengers to assure the Native Americans of their peaceful intentions. The commissioners traveled throughout the Military Division of the Missouri, gathering evidence from officers regarding the nature of the hostilities and the underlying causes of the war. They also made arrangements for a grand council with the northern hostile tribes at Fort Laramie, Wyoming, on September 13th, and with the southern tribes at Fort Larned, Kansas, on October 13th.
Negotiating with the Sioux proved difficult, but through the efforts of Swift Bear, a chief of the Brule Sioux, several tribes were represented at a meeting at North Platte in September, and a semblance of goodwill was established. The Native Americans insisted on receiving promises of arms and ammunition before engaging in any substantive discussions, a demand to which the commissioners acceded. The meeting at Fort Laramie was postponed until November 1st due to the difficulty of bringing the northern Cheyenne and Sioux, who were still actively engaged in hostilities along the Powder River route, to the post in a timely manner.
At the conference held at Fort Larned, Kansas, in October, the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache tribes, who had not participated in the summer’s raids, readily agreed to meet with the commissioners, and a satisfactory treaty was signed with them on October 20th. The southern Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes presented greater challenges, but ultimately, they too were persuaded to sign a joint treaty.
The commissioners then journeyed north to meet with the tribes at Fort Laramie. A delegation of Crow warriors awaited them at the post, but Chief Red Cloud, the powerful Sioux leader in the north, refused to engage with the commissioners. He rejected all overtures, but sent word that hostilities would cease only when the military garrisons were withdrawn from the Powder River Trail and their hunting grounds were left undisturbed. Lacking the authority to authorize such a withdrawal, the commissioners persuaded Red Cloud to suspend hostilities and meet with them the following spring or summer.
The soldiering begins in the American West with the escalating tensions between settlers, the U.S. Army, and the Native American tribes, highlighting a complex and often tragic chapter in American history. This soldiering begins in the American West, as the clash of cultures and competing interests led to a series of conflicts that shaped the landscape and the lives of those who inhabited it. This period of soldiering begins in the American West underscores the challenges of westward expansion and the profound impact it had on Native American communities. The article details how this soldiering begins in the American West due to broken treaties, resource exploitation, and cultural misunderstandings.