Famous Last Words: Capt. William Fetterman

By Kathleen Rice Adams

“Give me eighty men and I’ll ride through the whole Sioux Nation.”

William J. Fetterman, Capt., U.S. Army

So said Capt. William J. Fetterman in late 1866 as he assumed command of a U.S. Army detail tasked with defending a woodcutting expedition against Indians in the Dakota Territory. A fellow officer had declined the command after mounting, and failing to sustain, a similar effort two days earlier.

Fetterman overestimated his abilities and severely underestimated his opponent.

Born in Connecticut in 1833, William Judd Fetterman was the son of a career army officer. At the age of 28, in May 1861, he enlisted in the Union Army and immediately received a lieutenant’s commission. Twice brevetted for gallant conduct with the First Battalion of the 18th Infantry Regiment, Fetterman finished the Civil War wearing the brevet rank of lieutenant colonel of volunteers.

After the war, Fetterman elected to remain with the regular army as a captain. Initially assigned to Fort Laramie with the Second Battalion of the 18th Infantry, by November 1866 he found himself dispatched to Fort Phil Kearny, near present-day Sheridan, Wyoming. Since the post’s establishment five months earlier, the local population of about 400 soldiers and 300 civilian settlers and prospectors reportedly had suffered 50 raids by small bands of Sioux and Arapaho. In response, the fort’s commander, Col. Henry B. Carrington, adopted a defensive posture.

Fetterman immediately joined a group of other junior officers in openly criticizing Carrington’s protocol. Although the 33-year-old captain lacked experience with the Indians, he didn’t hesitate to express contempt for the enemy. His distinguished war record lent credence to his argument: Since the Indian raiding parties consisted of only twenty to 100 mounted warriors, the army should run them to ground and teach them a lesson.

Red Cloud, ca. 1880
(photo by John K. Hillers, courtesy Beinecke
Rare Book and Manuscript Library)

Fetterman’s voice and continuing raids eventually convinced the regimental commander at Fort Laramie to order Carrington to mount an offensive. Several minor scuffles, during which the soldiers proved largely ineffective due to disorganization and inexperience, merely bolstered the Indians’ confidence. Carrington himself had to be rescued after a force of about 100 Sioux surrounded him on a routine patrol. Even Fetterman admitted dealing with the “hostiles” demanded “the utmost caution.”

Jim Bridger, at the time a guide for Fort Phil Kearny, was less circumspect. He said the soldiers “don’t know anything about fighting Indians.”

On December 19, an army detail escorted a woodcutting party to a ridge only two miles from the fort before being turned back by an Indian attack. The next day, Fetterman and another captain proposed a full-fledged raid on a Lakota village about fifty miles distant. Carrington denied the request.

On the morning of December 21, with orders not to pursue “hostiles” beyond the two-mile point at which the previous patrol had met trouble, Fetterman, a force of 78 infantry and cavalry, and two civilian scouts escorted another expedition to cut lumber for firewood and building material. Within an hour of the group’s departure from the fort, the company encountered a small band of Oglala led by Crazy Horse. The Indians taunted the army patrol, which gave chase … beyond where they had been ordered not to go.

The great Sioux war leader Red Cloud and a force of about 2,300 Lakota, Arapaho, and Northern Cheyenne waited about one-half mile beyond the ridge. In less than 20 minutes, Fetterman and all 80 men under his command died. Most were scalped, beheaded, dismembered, disemboweled and/or emasculated.
The Indians suffered 63 casualties.

Among the Sioux and Cheyenne, the event is known as the Battle of the Hundred Slain or the Battle of 100 in the Hands. Whites know it better as the Fetterman Massacre, the U.S. Army’s worst defeat on the Great Plains until Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer made a similar mistake ten years later at Little Big Horn in Montana.

Fetterman and his men died here. The site
now is known as Massacre Hill. (public domain photo)

Whether Fetterman deliberately disobeyed Carrington’s orders or the commander massaged the truth in his report remains the subject of debate. Although officially absolved of blame in the disaster, Carrington spent the rest of his life a disgraced soldier. Fetterman, on the other hand, was honored as a hero: A fort constructed nearly 200 miles to the south was given his name seven months after his death. A monument dedicated in 1901 marks the spot where the officers and men fell.

WHEN AMERICANS HUNGERED FOR THE LAND by Tom Rizzo

 

Under the blanket of a cloudless blue sky, thousands of land-hungry settlers waited with restless patience, eager for a jump-start on opportunity.

 

At noon, April 22, 1889, a bugle sounded, a cannon roared, and a gunshot rang out, signaling the start of Oklahoma Land Rush.

Some said the ground shook as horses, wagons, and men, women, and children on foot kicked up clouds of red dust stampeding across what was once known as Indian Territory.

Waiting beyond the horizon were more than two-million acres of  land for non-Indian settlement on a first-come basis.

Fifty-thousand hopeful settlers, from all walks of life and ethnic origins, raced hell-bent-for-leather to stake claims, even thought there were less than 12,000 homesteads available.

On March 23, 1889, newly-elected President Benjamin Harrison declared the two-million-acre parcel of Unassigned Lands open for settlement. 

The borders of this region, situated in the central part of Indian Territory, came about through a series of treaties with Indian tribes.

Under the provisions of the Homestead Act of 1862,  a settler could claim 160 acres of public land, and could receive title if they lived on and improved the land for five years.

The settlers aiming to stake claims were known as Boomers.

The ones who sneaked into the territory early, and illegally, to register choice sections of property with land offices were dubbed Sooners,  who often occupied the most favorable sections of land.

The bitter disputes over the land were often settled by violence. Many court cases over the disputed land dragged into the 20th century before the U.S. Dept. of Interior got the go-ahead to settle them.

The land rush proved so successful that by the end of the day it started, April 22nd, entire cities sprang up, and others experienced population explosions.

Guthrie grew from a railroad station to a town of 10,000. And, settlers established Oklahoma City the same day, also with a population of about 10,000 residents.

According to Harper's Weekly, in about a one-half day, "…streets had been laid out, town lots staked off, and steps taken toward the formation of a municipal government."

Sixteen years later, white Americans owned most of the land in Indian Territory. In 1907, the territory entered the Union when Oklahoma became a state on November 17, 1907.

Except for the panhandle, all of Oklahoma previously had been set aside for the Indians displaced from other part of the country. Among them, the Five Civilized Tribes - the Choctaw, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole - so named because of their willingness to abide by white laws.

 

The Land Rush of 1889, and two subsequent land grabs, made the Indians casualties of this enormous occupation juggernaut, which forced them onto reservations.

Washington took our lands and promised to feed and support us. Now I, who used to control 5,000 warriors, must tell Washington when I am hungry. I must beg for that which I own…My heart is heavy. I am old, I cannot do much more.

—Sioux leader Red Cloud, as an old man, recorded by anthropologist Warren K. Moorehead who spoke with the chief at his home in Pine Ridge. 

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