Wagon Box Fight

Wagon Box Fight
Part of Red Cloud's War
Monument at the scene of the fight
Date August 2, 1867 Location near Fort Phil Kearny, Wyoming Territory, Bozeman Trail Result U.S. victory
Belligerents
United States	Sioux Indians
Commanders and leaders
James Powell	Red Cloud
Strength
28 soldiers, 4 civilians	300-1,000
Casualties and losses
6 killed 2 wounded	U.S. claim: 60 killed, 120 wounded Indian claim 5 killed, 5 wounded

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 had 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 28 soldiers from the U.S. Army's 9th Infantry and four civilians survived repeated attacks by three hundred to one 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 one officer and 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). Indian sources have claimed as few as two to five killed.) 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.

External links

Wagon Box Fight site, near Fort Phil Kearney, WY

Wagon Box Fight site, near Fort Phil Kearney, WY

Wyoming historical marker at Wagon Box site

• http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/army/2-9inf.htm
• Fort Phil Kearny State Historic Site
• A detailed, first-hand account of the fight
• Wyoming State Parks - Wagon Box Fight details, list of participants
• Wyoming Tales and Trails - Good information and Photos
• Hebard, Grace; Brininstool, E.A (1922). The Bozeman Trail: Historical Accounts of the Blazing of the Overland Routes, Volume II. The Authur H. Clark Company. http://books.google.com/books?id=Jc8BAAAAMAAJ.