Chapter 124: Red Clouds on the Horizon
“With the end of the war, the United States had been separated into six military commands. These were the Department of New England, encompassing much of the Atlantic Coast up to New Jersey and the states of New York, Vermont and New Hampshire. The commands here included a great deal of overlap with the navy, prompting the men appointed to have to engage in a great deal of teeth clenched teamwork with their counterparts afloat. Inevitably, those who succeeded were often those who got along well with the navy itself. Notably this was General Grant’s last command between 1867 and 1869 when he resigned from the military.
The Department of Maryland, which encompassed the titular state as well as Pennsylvania, Delaware and West Virginia, with the implicit understanding that the purpose was to husband the resources of the United States against a potential invasion like that it had suffered in 1863. It would also prove to be the command which was most politically troublesome. Many a politically inclined general would seek a posting to the location, alongside those who only sought to be close to the halls of power and the command of the Capital Guard that was viewed, until the 1910s, as one of the most prestigious but also least problematic postings in the whole United States military.
The Department of Ohio was all the states which bordered the Ohio River and Missouri, the last and longest border with the Confederacy which, until the Kentucky referendum, had been ill defined. That made it a particular sticking point for some time, with the first commander, Joseph Hooker, having many headaches and a great deal of difficulty in keeping the border well policed, something which would vex commanders in the region for the next half century.
Beyond the Mississippi the Department of the Northwest was a largely sleepy command that overlapped with the much greater Department of the West. This would generate considerable friction in the 1860s and 70s while the conflicts with the plains tribes still raged[1].
Finally, the most far flung command, the Department of the Pacific, encompassed the states which bordered the Pacific Ocean and, as of 1866, remained largely out of touch with Washington save by telegraph. The men sent there were largely left to their own devices, with little input from superiors in Washington. This suited the department’s first commander, William Rosecrans, perfectly fine as the president and he loathed one another on a personal level…” - American Arms from the Indian Wars to the Great War, Matthew Boot, 2004
“...O’Connor’s failed campaign in the Powder River Country had done little to quell the violence in the West. Instead it had inflamed the Lakota nation to greater resistance. The autumn of 1865 proved to be even more violent than the previous year with over 100 settlers and soldiers killed across the Wyoming and Montana territories. This proved to be a major embarrassment for the respective department heads in St. Paul and Omaha.
From St. Paul, numerous missives were dispatched by General Burnside to his counterpart, Joseph Hooker, offering assistance. Hooker, who considered his assignment to Omaha a demotion from the president, declined and instead ordered various expeditions by his subordinates against the tribes which were causing the most trouble. He planned an audacious series of expeditions against the Lakota, Comanche and Cheyene. Envisioning a drive through the plains, he expected one expedition to make a path to Santa Fe, driving the Comanche back into Texas. A central campaign would then “clear the way” for the railroad expected to be crossing the continent. The northern prong would build on the 1862 Dakota War and “make right” the deficiencies of the Powder River Campaign.
To do so he appointed George Crook to lead the campaign to establish posts from Fort Atkinson to Santa Fe, with 3,000 men, a mix of infantry and cavalry. Crook, who had spent much of the war in West Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley, had gained a reputation as a man who could use terrain to his advantage, and was something of a tough fighter. He accepted the commission against the Comanche without hesitation…
Campaigning from the center was one of the undisputed stars of the late war, John Buford. Hooker knew how important the railroad project was, and so entrusted a man he considered his star commander to the task of securing the routes between Council Bluffs and Denver City for parties of workmen to commence the great work in the coming year. As such, he was assigned the lion’s share of the cavalry for the coming campaigns, leaving very little for either Crook or Stoneman’s column.
Stoneman, in command of the 22nd Infantry, has often been seen as an odd choice for command of the Bozeman Expedition. However, the closeness with his theater commander, Hooker, is most likely what ensured his position. Though the District Commander, Alfred Terry, thought little of Stoneman, he could hardly disobey orders to send him to build the forts along the Bozeman Trail and secure the US hold on the region…
…the Fort Laramie Council of May 1866 proved to have unfortunate timing. Just as emissaries of the Lakota were arriving, Stoneman’s column appeared. Understandably, the Lakota, especially Red Cloud and Young Man Afraid of His Horses, the two most vocal against the negotiations, proclaimed the US was negotiating in bad faith. With efforts over the last six months to engage them in negotiations having been a long process, the commissioners were loath to simply let them leave without some form of negotiations. When Red Cloud demanded to know whether the forces under Stoneman were departing for the territory claimed by the Lakota, evasive answers by the commissioners resulted in his band departing, followed shortly by others.
Frustrated, the commissioners signed the treaty with groups of Lakota already present and declared to Washington that there was now “a feeling of peace and amity between the white man and the Indian, with cordial feelings between both parties. This news would arrive in Washington just in time for the men in Fort Sherman to fall into a state of siege…
Stonemen set up his headquarters at the rapidly established Fort Sherman, named for the general who had fallen during the Siege of Corinth in 1866. He set out wood cutting parties and small patrols to secure the surrounding countryside, but had only 75 cavalrymen under Cpt. George W. Grummond, and many of them were new recruits. Notably, this was the only unit outfitted with repeating rifles. Despite entreaties to Washington for more such rifles, Stoneman would not receive them. He opted instead to do what he could to entice the Indians closer to his fortifications where his cannon would be decisive against the warriors…
..feints and raids across the summer led to roughly 20 casualties, but only seven killed, by Red Cloud’s warriors between July 6th and November 19th. Two of those killed were civilians in late July along the Bozeman Trail. This attack, under escort by soldiers, effectively stopped traffic on the trail as men feared to move even with an army escort. The news greatly displeased Hooker in Omaha, who sent strongly worded missives north saying that “action must be undertaken to open the Bozeman” to Stoneman, strongly implying he thought the commander wasn’t doing enough.
Stoneman would lament his lack of cavalry, while privately his senior cavalry leader, Grummond[3], would call Stoneman “an old woman who lost his nerve in Virginia and cannot find it again in the West,” and was often reported to be insubordinate to the commander behind his back. Whether Stoneman ever learned of this on the post is questionable, but lacking more senior cavalry officers, he allowed Grummond to lead patrols.
Finally, on November 28th, a large raid by Lakota riders carried off over one hundred horses, killing six soldiers and nine civilian teamsters. At the pressing of Grummond, Stoneman relented and declared that at the next raid he could lead a detachment to pursue the raiders, but not out of sight of Fort Sherman’s guns.
On December 1st, another raid was launched, and Grummond eagerly rode after the raiders who seemed to bunch up and become confused. Several shots from the artillery seemed to support this, and Grummond rode ahead of the field, with Stoneman belatedly ordering a column of infantry after them…
…gunfire was heard from the fort, and a worried Stonemen dispatched another 100 men to support the fight…
Having chosen to, effectively feed three companies into a situation where they were outnumber by upwards of 2,000 Lakota, Arapaho and Cheyenne warriors, Stoneman had ceded the initiative and lost 232 men from his force. The Battle of the Feeding Ford, as it was known to the Lakota, (or the Stoneman Massacre as it became known to the press) effectively trapped Stoneman’s force in Fort Sherman until he retreated in early January 1867, and the exultant Lakota burned the works behind him…
The embarrassment of the Stoneman Massacre would result in a round of recriminations in Washington, with Stoneman being brought up on charges and eventually cleared but not so subtly pressured into resigning from the service after overseeing one of the worst massacres of the whole Sioux Wars. Hooker would, by throwing his old commander under the bus and taking credit for the campaigns against the Dakota and Comanche, largely came off the victor in both the press and the court of public opinion, which would inform his actions in 1868.
McClellan meanwhile, sought to enforce negotiations rather than undertaking a third expensive campaign into the Powder River Country. The 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty would grant the Great Sioux Reservation domain over much of what is now the southern half of Dakota, resulting in a territory recognized and largely respected through treaty[4].
This was not an eternal solution however, something Red Cloud recognized. He would take his victory and parlay it into local authority, much to the annoyance of the man who had mentored him through the late campaign, Sitting Bull. Though many would take pride in their victory, Sitting Bull refused to do anything other than live on land he considered his and disputed the right of the United States to ‘draw lines through the land of my fathers’ and would come and go from the reservation as he pleased well into the future. This became an imperative as the buffalo began to dwindle[5]…” - The West on Fire, Settling the Plains 1830-1901, John Gadsden, University of Houston, 2002
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1] Consider this a hamfisted insert of more of the post-war US military organization and a way to point out that military bureaucracy is often terrible. I think people will understand why as they see how its laid out.
2] These borders are not representative as I found pruning this map to be a very tedious exercise.
3] If it seems like I’m being hard on the poor relatively unknown George Grummond, well I am. More than the unfortunate Fetterman of history who was killed in Fetterman’s Fight, Grummond was allegedly the instigator of the ride beyond range that allowed the detachment to be ambushed and destroyed, with Fetterman following after because he felt duty bound to support the cavalry. Much of this interpretation is laid out in narrative format into he amazing historic novel Ridgeline by Michael Punke. Well worth a read describing the events of that period!
4] If it seems unlikely to some that McClellan would also pursue a peace policy when two other expeditions have succeeded, remember, he wants a relatively bloodless building of the transcontinental railroad and is actively fighting members of his own party on military matters, so making peace in exchange for the Lakota getting their territory is as good a deal as it was historically to save cash and arguments in Congress.
5] Though more on this later. Presently, the industrial destruction of the buffalo has been on hold for the war and with the line of settlement being driven back. Estimate that their numbers are slightly higher in the late 1860s than OTL, especially without the conscious choices (yet) by Sherman to engage in their destruction.