WYOMING CAMPAIGN
David.Gettman December 9th, 2008
From:
ONE HUNDRED YEARS WITH THE SECOND CAVALRY
By Joseph I. Lambert, Major, Second Cavalry
Copyright 1939 Commanding Officer, Second Cavalry, Fort Riley, Kansas
Capper Printing Company, Inc.
The Sioux Indians signed a treaty September 17, 1851, in which it was stipulated they would be responsible that their people did no harm to the whites. The government agreed to prevent white men from wandering through the Sioux country and to pay them annuities for ten years. But the emigrants kept traveling through this area killing the game, and since there was no redress from the government the Indians began to act in a hostile manner. After several soldiers had been killed near Fort Laramie, Wyoming, while trying to arrest an Indian offender, the War Department decided to send an expedition against them.
Colonel Harney, then on leave in Paris, was selected to command the punitive force and hurried home in the early part of 1855 to receive the appointment. The units to compose the expedition were portions of the Second, Sixth, and Tenth Infantry, a battery of the Fourth Artillery, and Companies D, E, H, and K, Second Dragoons. After assembling this force at Fort Kearney, Nebraska, Colonel Harney marched west on August 24, 1855. When within several days’ march of Ash Hollow, he learned that the Brule and Oglala Sioux were encamped a few miles north of that place. As these were the tribes committing most of the depredations, he marched there without the knowledge of the hostiles. Continue Reading »
