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Dull Knife had told the soldiers that the Cheyenne wished to remain in the north and join the Sioux in South Dakota during the surrender negotiations and in his initial talks with Major Caleb Carlton, commander of Fort Robinson. Carlton and others had told him that it was undecided whether the Cheyenne could remain or would be required to return to Indian territory. However, little consideration was given by the U.S. government to allowing the Cheyenne to remain. General [[Phillip Sheridan]] said the whole reservation system...will be endangered unless every one of these Indians are taken back and made to stay." On 22 November 1978, Secretary of the [[United States Department of Interior|Department of Interior]] (which managed Indian affairs) [[Carl Shurz]] agreed that the Cheyenne should be returned. In December, Sheridan turned down General [[George Crook]]'s request that the return of the Cheyenne to Indian territory be postponed until spring. In an effort to persuade the Cheyenne to return south, the army brought Sioux leader [[Red Cloud]] to Fort Robinson to try to persuade the Cheyenne to return to the south. The U.S. began to tighten rules of imprisonment of the Cheyenne. Late in November, Bull Hump, Dull Knife's son, had borrowed a horse and left to visit relatives living with the Sioux. In response, the Army withdrew privileges and thereafter confined the Cheyenne to the barracks.{{sfn|Boye|1999|pages=264-270}}{{sfn|Leiker and Powers|2011|pages=72-73}}
Dull Knife had told the soldiers that the Cheyenne wished to remain in the north and join the Sioux in South Dakota during the surrender negotiations and in his initial talks with Major Caleb Carlton, commander of Fort Robinson. Carlton and others had told him that it was undecided whether the Cheyenne could remain or would be required to return to Indian territory. However, little consideration was given by the U.S. government to allowing the Cheyenne to remain. General [[Phillip Sheridan]] said the whole reservation system...will be endangered unless every one of these Indians are taken back and made to stay." On 22 November 1978, Secretary of the [[United States Department of Interior|Department of Interior]] (which managed Indian affairs) [[Carl Shurz]] agreed that the Cheyenne should be returned. In December, Sheridan turned down General [[George Crook]]'s request that the return of the Cheyenne to Indian territory be postponed until spring. In an effort to persuade the Cheyenne to return south, the army brought Sioux leader [[Red Cloud]] to Fort Robinson to try to persuade the Cheyenne to return to the south. The U.S. began to tighten rules of imprisonment of the Cheyenne. Late in November, Bull Hump, Dull Knife's son, had borrowed a horse and left to visit relatives living with the Sioux. In response, the Army withdrew privileges and thereafter confined the Cheyenne to the barracks.{{sfn|Boye|1999|pages=264-270}}{{sfn|Leiker and Powers|2011|pages=72-73}}


On 4 December Captain Henry W. Wessells, Jr. took command of the post, replacing Carlton. Wessells intensified the pressure on the Cheyenne, forcing the women to work outside in bitterly cold weather and increasing the number of guards on the barrack where the Cheyenne were housed. Wessells also telegraphed General Crook requesting food and winter clothing for the Cheyenne. Soldiers said the Cheyenne "were in rags." Wessells protested orders to handcuff the Cheyenne men when they were to be moved.{{sfn|Boye|1999|pages=268-272}}<ref name="Monnett">{{cite book |last1=Monnett |first1=John H. |title=Tell Them We Are Going Home |date=2001 |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |location=Norman |isbn=9780806133031 |page=116}}</ref>
On 4 December Captain Henry W. Wessells, Jr. took command of Fort Robinson, replacing Carlton. About 175 soldiers were stationed at the fort. Wessells intensified the pressure on the Cheyenne, forcing the women to work outside in bitterly cold weather and increasing the number of guards on the barracks where the Cheyenne were housed. Wessells also telegraphed General Crook requesting food and winter clothing for the Cheyenne. Soldiers said the Cheyenne "were in rags." Wessells protested orders to handcuff the Cheyenne men when they were to be moved.{{sfn|Boye|1999|pages=268-272}}<ref name="Monnett">{{cite book |last1=Monnett |first1=John H. |title=Tell Them We Are Going Home |date=2001 |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |location=Norman |isbn=9780806133031 |page=116}}</ref>


On January 3, 1879 the Cheyenne were ordered to return south to the Southern Cheyenne reservation.<ref>Pages 263 to xxx, Boye, ''Holding Stone Hands''</ref>
On January 3, 1879 the Cheyenne were ordered to return south to the Southern Cheyenne reservation.<ref>Pages 263 to xxx, Boye, ''Holding Stone Hands''</ref>

Revision as of 11:42, 27 July 2022

Fort Robinson outbreak
Part of the Northern Cheyenne Exodus

"The Pit". Painting by Frederic Remington, 1897
DateJanuary 9,-22, 1879
Location
Fort Robinson, Nebraska, United States
Result United States Victory
Belligerents
Northern Cheyenne United States United States
Commanders and leaders
Dull Knife
Little Finger Nail †
Left Hand †
Tangle Hair		 United States Andrew W. Evans
United States Henry W. Wessells
United States Peter D. Vroom
United States John B. Johnson
Strength
148 people ~150 soldiers and civilians
Casualties and losses
32-64 Killed, 23 Wounded, 78 Captured 12 Killed, 14 Wounded

The Fort Robinson breakout or Fort Robinson massacre (winter 1878-1879) refers to a series of events which occurred during the winter of 1878-1879 at Fort Robinson in northwestern Nebraska. After having been forced to relocate south to the Darlington Agency in the Southern Cheyenne Reservation, a band of Northern Cheyenne fled back north in September 1878 because of the terrible conditions. The US Army intercepted part of the Northern Cheyenne Exodus and took a band of nearly 150 Cheyenne to Fort Robinson in Nebraska.

In January, after the Cheyenne had refused an earlier order to return to the south, the soldiers began to treat them more harshly to try to force them south: they were confined to a barracks without rations or wood for heat. Most of the band escaped on January 9, but the US Army hunted them down. They quickly returned 65 to the fort, and by January 22 cornered and killed most of the last 32 escapees, as they were poorly armed and greatly outnumbered by 150 soldiers.[1][2][3][4]

Background and surrender

In 1877 the Dull Knife and Little Wolf bands of the Northern Cheyenne surrendered to the U.S. at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. Almost one thousand Cheyenne were escorted by soldiers south to the Southern Cheyenne reservation in Oklahoma. Conditions were difficult with shortages of food and outbreaks of measles and malaria. Dull Knife and Little Wolf pleaded to be allowed to return to the northern plains but were turned down. In September 1878, the two leaders and 351 of their followers fled the reservation with the objective of journeying to rejoin other groups of Northern Cheyenne who resided mostly in Montana. Ninety-two of those fleeing the reservation were warriors; the remainder were women, children, and elderly.[5][6]

During their flight northward the Cheyenne were successful in several fights with the U.S. Army and civilian volunteers. They raided white settlers for horses and provisions, killing about 40 civilians, and having several of their women, children, and elderly captured and executed by whites. In the Sand Hills of Nebraska the Cheyenne split into two groups. Little Wolf wished to join the Northern Cheyenne in Montana. He and his followers evaded capture, arrived safely in Montana, and were allowed to stay there. Dull Knife wanted to join the Sioux at the Red Cloud Agency near Fort Robinson, Nebraska. (Unknown to him the agency and the Sioux had moved to South Dakota.) On 23 October, during a blinding snowstorm, Dull Knife's band of 149 persons, after 44 days and more than 1,000 km (620 mi) of travel since leaving the reservation in Oklahoma, encountered by chance two companies of U.S. cavalry, about 100 soldiers, commanded by Captain John B. Johnson. In bitterly cold weather, Johnson and Dull Knife met and avoided hostilities. The soldiers gave food and blankets to the Cheyenne who were "ragged and dirty...with poor moccasins, bad bed quilts or some thin sheet-like cloth for blankets." More soldiers arrived and soon the Cheyenne were surrounded by more than 300 soldiers with artillery. The soldiers captured their horses. After negotiations, the Cheyenne surrendered and were escorted to Fort Robinson, arriving on 26 October. The Cheyenne surrendered some of their guns, but disassembled others and hid them in their clothing.[7]

Fort Robinson

Or arrival at Fort Robinson, the Cheyenne captives were fed and counted. Dull Knife's band consisted of 46 men, 42 women, and 61 children. Thirty of the men were deemed capable of fighting. Many of the Cheyenne were ill and near-starvation. An army doctor provided them with medical care. The soldiers searched the Cheyenne and found about 10 additional guns they had not turned in when they surrendered. They were housed in a barracks. Initially the Cheyenne were allowed freedom of movement around and near the camp, but required to returned to the barracks by nightfall. Army officers organized dances with the Cheyenne women.[8][9]

Dull Knife had told the soldiers that the Cheyenne wished to remain in the north and join the Sioux in South Dakota during the surrender negotiations and in his initial talks with Major Caleb Carlton, commander of Fort Robinson. Carlton and others had told him that it was undecided whether the Cheyenne could remain or would be required to return to Indian territory. However, little consideration was given by the U.S. government to allowing the Cheyenne to remain. General Phillip Sheridan said the whole reservation system...will be endangered unless every one of these Indians are taken back and made to stay." On 22 November 1978, Secretary of the Department of Interior (which managed Indian affairs) Carl Shurz agreed that the Cheyenne should be returned. In December, Sheridan turned down General George Crook's request that the return of the Cheyenne to Indian territory be postponed until spring. In an effort to persuade the Cheyenne to return south, the army brought Sioux leader Red Cloud to Fort Robinson to try to persuade the Cheyenne to return to the south. The U.S. began to tighten rules of imprisonment of the Cheyenne. Late in November, Bull Hump, Dull Knife's son, had borrowed a horse and left to visit relatives living with the Sioux. In response, the Army withdrew privileges and thereafter confined the Cheyenne to the barracks.[10][11]

On 4 December Captain Henry W. Wessells, Jr. took command of Fort Robinson, replacing Carlton. About 175 soldiers were stationed at the fort. Wessells intensified the pressure on the Cheyenne, forcing the women to work outside in bitterly cold weather and increasing the number of guards on the barracks where the Cheyenne were housed. Wessells also telegraphed General Crook requesting food and winter clothing for the Cheyenne. Soldiers said the Cheyenne "were in rags." Wessells protested orders to handcuff the Cheyenne men when they were to be moved.[12][13]

On January 3, 1879 the Cheyenne were ordered to return south to the Southern Cheyenne reservation.[14]

Confinement

When the Cheyenne refused to return to the reservation in the south, the soldiers put bars on the barracks windows and ended the rations. They gave no wood or heat. On January 9, Dull Knife still refused to go back south. Wild Hog and Left Hand agreed to talk with the soldiers, but said their people refused to return south. The soldiers took Wild Hog as a prisoner and put him in shackles.

Escape

At 9:45 that night, the Cheyenne escaped, using the guns they had hidden. The soldiers followed them quickly and killed many. By morning the soldiers had returned 65 Cheyenne to the fort as prisoners, among whom were 23 wounded. Thirty-eight Cheyenne had escaped, and the Army continued to pursue them to the north. Over the next few days, soldiers found six Cheyenne who had hidden near the fort and took them back as captives.

The Pit

On January 22, two weeks after the Cheyenne escape, the soldiers cornered the 32 remaining band members above the Hat Creek bluffs, about 35 miles northwest of Fort Robinson. Led by Little Finger Nail, 18 men and boys, and 14 women and children prepared a defensive position in a dry creek bed, which came to be known as "The Pit". Wessells led four companies of soldiers, about 150 men, to attack the position from three directions. Despite withering Cheyenne fire from the pit, the soldiers repeatedly charged to its rim and fired in at the escapees. The soldiers' calls for surrender were met with gunfire. The soldiers killed or fatally wounded all the warriors, along with four women and two children. They found eight survivors, most beneath bodies of the dead. The Cheyenne killed several troopers and Wessells was wounded in the assault.[15]

Casualties

Dull Knife's band of Northern Cheyenne suffered between 32 and 64 people killed, about 23 wounded, and 78 others captured. Only about 10 Cheyenne, including Dull Knife, managed to escape, either to Little Wolf's band or the Sioux reservation. The U.S. Army lost 11 soldiers of the 3rd Cavalry killed, one Indian scout killed, and 9 additional men wounded during the breakout and following battles.[16][17]

Cheyenne killed

  • Left Hand (January 9)
  • White Antelope (January 9)
  • Sitting Man (January 9)
  • Black Bear (January 22)
  • Little Finger Nail (January 22)

Cheyenne wounded

  • Tangle Hair (Wounded and Captured, January 9)

U.S. killed

  • Private Frank Schmidt, Company A, 3rd Cavalry (January 9)
  • Private Peter Hulse, Company A, 3rd Cavalry (January 9)
  • Private W. H. Good, Company L, 3rd Cavalry (January)
  • Private W. W. Everett, Company H, 3rd Cavalry (January)
  • Corporal Henry P. Orr, Company A, 3rd Cavalry (January)
  • Private Bernard Kelly, Company E, 3rd Cavalry (January)
  • Private Amos J. Barbour, Company, 3rd Cavalry (January)
  • Farrier George Brown, Company A, 3rd Cavalry (January 22)
  • Sergeant James Taggart, Company A, 3rd Cavalry (January 22)
  • Private George Nelson, Company A, 3rd Cavalry (January 22)
  • Private Henry A. DuBlois, Company H, 3rd Cavalry (January 22)
  • Woman's Clothes, Indian Scout, mortally wounded (January 22)

U.S. wounded

  • Captain Henry W. Wessells, Jr., Company H, 3rd Cavalry (January 22)
  • First Sergeant Ambrose, Company E, 3rd Cavalry (January 22)
  • Sergeant Read, Company H, 3rd Cavalry (January 22)

Aftermath

General George Crook sent a board of officers to investigate the massacre at Fort Robinson. This group consisted of Major Andrew W. Evans, 3rd Cavalry; Captain John M. Hamilton, 5th Cavalry; and First Lieutenant Walter S. Schuyler, of Company B, 5th Cavalry (Schuyler was the Aide-de-camp of Crook). Major Evans arrived at Robinson from Fort Laramie on January 19 and took command of the garrison. Dull Knife reached Pine Ridge Agency, Dakota Territory, where Red Cloud was being held as a prisoner. After months of delay from Washington, the prisoners from Fort Robinson, including Dull Knife, were released and allowed to go to Fort Keogh, Montana Territory to join Little Wolf, where they settled on a nearby reservation.

Later several of the band were charged and tried for murders committed in Kansas during their exodus north. In 1901 the U.S. Supreme Court denied any U.S. liability but called the “shocking story” “one of the most melancholy of Indian tragedies” and found that “up to the time these Cheyennes were fired upon in the Indian Territory by the pursuing troops, they had committed no atrocity and were in amity with the United States and desired to remain so.”[18]

In 1994 the Northern Cheyenne reclaimed the remains of those killed and buried in Nebraska. They were reinterred on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, on a hill overlooking Busby, Montana.

US officers involved

Order of battle

Native Americans, Chief Dull Knife. About 40 men.

Native Americans Tribe Leaders

Native Americans
    

Northern Cheyenne


  

United States Army, Fort Robinson, Nebraska, January 9–22, 1879, Captain Henry W. Wessells, Jr., commanding until January 19. Major Andrew W. Evans, commanding from January 19–22, 1879.

Fort Robinson garrison Regiment Companies and Others


     Captain Henry W. Wessells, January 9–19, Major Andrew W. Evans, January 19–22, 1879

3rd United States Cavalry Regiment


  

Scouts, Guides, Unattached Soldiers, and Civilians


  

The incident is portrayed in a light sympathetic to the Cheyenne in the John Ford movie Cheyenne Autumn, with some differences from the actual events. Karl Malden portrays Captain Wessells.

Further reading

  • Sandoz, Mari, Cheyenne Autumn, University of Nebraska Press, 1992.

References

  1. ^ Chapter 14, "Cheyenne Exodus", pages 331 to 359, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West, Dee Brown, Henry Holt (1970, Owl paperback edition 1991), ISBN 0-8050-1730-5
  2. ^ Chapter 29, "Little Wolf and Dull Knife, 1876-79", pages 398 to 413 and Chapter 30, "The Fort Robinson Outbreak", pp. 414 to 427, The Fighting Cheyennes, George Bird Grinnell, University of Oklahoma Press (1956, Scribner's Sons 1915),
  3. ^ In Dull Knife's Wake: The True Story of the Northern Cheyenne Exodus of 1878 by Maddux Albert Glenn, Horse Creek Publications (October 20, 2003), ISBN 0-9722217-1-9 ISBN 978-0972221719
  4. ^ Holding Stone Hands: On the Trail of the Cheyenne Exodus, by Alan Boyle, University of Nebraska Press (1999), Pages 251 to 297, ISBN 0-8032-1294-1
  5. ^ "The Cheyenne Homecoming". Wyoming History. Wyoming State Historical Society. Retrieved 1 July 2022.
  6. ^ McDermott, John D. (1998). A Guide to the Indian Wars of the West. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. pp. 163–164. ISBN 0739401742.
  7. ^ Boye 1999, pp. 251–255.
  8. ^ Boye 1999, p. 264–265.
  9. ^ Leiker, James N.; Powers, Ramon (2011). The Northern Cheyenne Exodus in History and Memory. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. p. 72. ISBN 9780806142210.
  10. ^ Boye 1999, pp. 264–270.
  11. ^ Leiker and Powers 2011, pp. 72–73.
  12. ^ Boye 1999, pp. 268–272.
  13. ^ Monnett, John H. (2001). Tell Them We Are Going Home. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. p. 116. ISBN 9780806133031. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help)
  14. ^ Pages 263 to xxx, Boye, Holding Stone Hands
  15. ^ Pages 149 to 156, Monnett, Tell Them We are Going Home, pp. 149-156
  16. ^ The Iola Register, January 17, 1879, Image 1 col 7
  17. ^ Daily globe., January 24, 1879, Image 3 Col 2
  18. ^ Conners v. United States, 180 U.S. 271, 21 S. Ct. 362, 45 L. Ed. 525 (1901) (Justice Henry Billings Brown for the Court).
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