| Wagon Box Fight | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Red Cloud's War | |||||||
Monument at the scene of the fight |
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| Belligerents | |||||||
| United States | Sioux Indians | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| James Powell | Red Cloud | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 31 soldiers | 1,000-2,000 | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 5 killed 2 wounded |
U.S. claim: 60 killed 120 wounded (various estimates) |
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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.
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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.
On August 2, 1867, Capt. James Powell with a force of 31 soldiers from the U.S. Army's 9th Infantry survived repeated attacks by one to two 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.[1]
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 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). 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.