Red Cloud's War

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Red Cloud's War (also referred to as the Bozeman War or the Powder River War) was an armed conflict between an alliance of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Northern Arapaho peoples against the United States and the Crow Nation that took place in the Wyoming and Montana territories from 1866 to 1868. The war was fought over control of the western Powder River Country in present-day north-central Wyoming and Montana. In 1863, European Americans had blazed the Bozeman Trail through the heart of the traditional territory of the Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Lakota. It was the shortest and easiest route from Fort Laramie and the Oregon Trail to the Montana gold fields. From 1864 to 1866, the trail was traversed by about 3,500 miners, emigrant settlers and others, who competed with the Indians for the diminishing resources near the trail. The United States named the war after Red Cloud, a prominent Oglala Lakota chief allied with the Cheyenne and Arapaho. The United States army had built forts in response to attacks on civilian travelers, using a treaty right according to historian Charles J. Kappler to "establish roads, military and other post". All three forts were located in 1851 Crow Indian territory and accepted by these Indians. The Crow believed they guarded their interests best by cooperating with the US army. Red Cloud's War consisted mostly of constant small-scale Indian raids and attacks on the soldiers and civilians at the three forts in the Powder River country, wearing down those garrisons. The largest action of the war, the Fetterman Fight (with 81 men killed on the U.S. side), was the worst military defeat suffered by the U.S. on the Great Plains until the Battle of the Little Bighorn in the Crow Indian reservation ten years later. " ... the most dramatic battles...