FORT PHIL KEARNEY, NEBRASKA; FORT LEAVENWORTH, KANSAS; FORT FETTERMAN, WYOMING; FORT BRIDGER, WYOMING; FORT KEOGH, MONTANA; FORT DOUGLAS, UTAH
One of the most dreadful Indian fights in the history of the Middle West is associated with Fort Phil Kearney, on the Platte River, Nebraska, which was in 1848, at the time of its establishment, the only United States post between Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 350 miles distant, and Fort Laramie, 420 miles to the west. It stood midway between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains on the California Overland route and was established for the protection of west-bound emigrant trains from hostile Indians.
Fort Phil Kearney was a storm centre during the Sioux War, which began in 1863 and continued intermittently for nearly ten years, and the “Kearney Massacre” occurred during this time. On the morning of December 21, 1866, the fort received word that the wood train was being attacked by Indians and was in need of assistance. Immediately Brevet Lieutenant Colonel W. I. Fetterman with seventy-six men was ordered to protect the train.
Colonel Fetterman moved rapidly upon his errand, and the sound of heavy firing soon showed that he was in contact with the enemy. The firing continued so long that the commandant, Colonel Carrington, became alarmed for the safety of the detachment and sent out as many men as he could spare for reinforcement. These men were under Captain Ten Eyck. The rest of the story may be taken up in the words of Senate Document 13, 1867:
Colonel Ten Eyck reported as soon as he reached the summit commanding a view of the battle-field that the valley was full of Indians; that he could see nothing of Colonel Fetterman’s party, and requested that a howitzer should be sent him. The howitzer was not sent.
The Indians who at first beckoned him to come down now commenced retreating and Captain Ten Eyck, advancing to a point where the Indians had been standing in a circle, found the dead, naked bodies of Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Fetterman, Captain Brown and about sixty-five of the soldiers of their command.... At about half the distance from where these bodies lay to the point where the road commences to descend to Peno Creek was the dead body of Lieutenant Grummond, and still farther on, at the point where the road commences to descend to Peno Creek, were the dead bodies of three citizens and four or five of the old, long-tried and experienced soldiers.
Our conclusion, therefore, is that the Indians were massed on both sides of the road; that the Indians attacked vigorously in force from fifteen hundred to eighteen hundred warriors and were successfully resisted for half an hour or more; that the command then being short of ammunition and seized with panic at this event, and the great numerical superiority of the Indians, attempted to retreat toward the fort; that the mountaineers and old soldiers who had learned that movement from the Indians in an engagement was equivalent to death remained in their first position and were killed there; that, immediately upon the commencement of the retreat, the Indians charged upon and surrounded the party who could not now be formed by their officers and the party was immediately killed.