Everything about Wagon Box Fight totally explained
The Wagon Box Fight was an engagement on
August 2,
1867, during
Red Cloud's War between the U.S. Army and
Lakota (Sioux) Native Americans in the vicinity of
Fort Phil Kearny,
Wyoming.
Background
In July 1867, after their annual
sun dance, bands of
Oglala Lakota under
Red Cloud and the other
Powder River Sioux joined with Northern Cheyenne at their
Tongue River and Rosebud River camps, where they resolved to destroy nearby
Fort C.F. Smith and Fort Phil Kearny, against which they'd been engaged for a year to prevent travel on the
Bozeman Trail. Unable to resolve which to destroy first, the bands split into two large bodies, with approximately 500-800 Cheyenne and Sioux moving against Fort C.F. Smith and the rest, possibly including Red Cloud, headed to Fort Phil Kearny.
The fight
On
August 2,
1867, Capt. James Powell with a force of 31 soldiers from the
U.S. Army's
27th Infantry survived repeated attacks by one to two thousand
Sioux warriors under the leadership of
Crazy Horse and High Back-Bone and a smaller party of
Cheyenne warriors under
Little Wolf near
Fort Phil Kearny,
Wyoming Territory, along the
Bozeman Trail. Red Cloud's presence at the battle remains in doubt. One of Powell's junior officers at the battle, Lt. John C. Jenness, reportedly saw Red Cloud at a distance through field glasses, but such an identification is questionable.
Powell's defenders, acting as guards for civilian crews cutting wood for the construction of the fort, had been sent out early in the morning. Two men went to look for game, but instead spotted a huge force of Sioux. Powell's men took refuge in a corral formed by laying 14 wagons end-to-end in an oval configuration. The battle lasted five hours, with Powell losing five men killed and two wounded. Powell reported killing 60 Indians and wounding 120 (although published accounts have put the number of casualties as high as eleven hundred). The disproportionate casualties, and the soldiers survival, was primarily due to the recent issue of
Springfield Model 1866 "Trapdoor" .50-caliber
breech-loading rifles, that had been supplied as a direct result of the
Fetterman massacre. Indian attack strategy had been based on the long reloading time of
muzzle-loading weapons. The fight lasted throughout the day until a relief force from
Fort Phil Kearny finally arrived and the attackers withdrew.
The day before, on August 1, the second group had struck at Fort C.F. Smith and suffered an almost identical repulse in the
Hayfield Fight.
Further Information
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