The Fetterman Massacre: Fort Phil Kearny and the Battle of the Hundred Slain by Dee Brown

The Fetterman Massacre: Fort Phil Kearny and the Battle of the Hundred Slain Reviews

• 
  Matt

  “[C]avalry and infantry were separated in the first fury of attack, the men on foot facing a thousand warriors so close it was possible to see the color of their war paint and the metal ornaments and brass studs of their shields. Feathered arrows streamed like flights of bright speeding birds, and the trapped soldiers felt the pains of sharp heads wrapped in sinew, driving deep into flesh, drawing warm blood to trickle along the grooves of shafts until it froze in the bitter air…”
  - Dee Brown, Fort Phil Kearny: An American Saga (which has since been republished as The Fetterman Massacre)
  
  On December 21, 1866, 81 U.S. soldiers from the 18th Infantry and 2nd Cavalry Regiment led by Captain William J. Fetterman were lured into an ambush in present-day northern Wyoming. The trap, set by Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Indians, resulted in the total annihilation of Fetterman’s command. Not a white man survived. It was the greatest disaster suffered by the western frontier army, at least until the destruction of five companies of George Custer’s 7th Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Big Horn on June 25, 1876.
  
  Unless you are a student of the American Indian Wars, you may not have heard of this fight. It is not, after all, a major turning point in history. And on the vast canvas of American violence, it is barely pinpoint. If you visit the site of Custer’s demise, near Hardin, Montana, you will find it well-prowled by tourists. Travel a few miles down the road to Fetterman’s fatal ridge, and you will likely find yourself by yourself.
  
  I’ve been to the Fetterman battle site four times in my life, and seen a grand total of probably ten people there, not including the folks who run the visitor center. That is, in fact, part of the reason I am a bit obsessed with the “Fetterman Fight.” It is an example of extreme violence on an intimate scale. You can go to the spot where soldiers and Indians fought hand-to-hand, in what the Lakota called “stirring gravy,” and walk the whole thing in a short period of time. You can be there all alone, when it is easy to mistake the wind through grass as the whisper of ghosts.
  
  (You might be asking yourself: four times? He went there four times. Yes, this is true. I’ve never been to Prague, but I’ve been to a lonely battlefield in northern Wyoming four times. I have no regrets).
  
  If you have heard of the Fetterman Fight, it’s probably because you’ve heard of Fetterman’s infamous boast. Before dying, Captain Fetterman is alleged to have said: “Give me eighty men and I can ride through the whole Sioux Nation.” That Fetterman died with just that many men is held up as an example of delicious historical irony.
  
  Fetterman’s boast and the subsequent reception of his just deserts is the narrative thrust that Dee Brown utilizes in Fort Phil Kearny: An American Saga. His book is the standard work on the Fetterman Fight, and has achieved the status of classic amongst students of the Indian Wars. The only problems I had with it is that it is poorly sourced, factually inaccurate, and thoroughly biased. It is a title I felt compelled to read because of its reputation, and which left me confused as to how it is still taken seriously. For instance, that boast above? It never happened. There is no primary source for it; Brown’s citation in the book is to secondary material. It is one of several instances in which Brown refuses to allow facts to get in the way of a rousing tale.
  
  If this seems harsh – well, maybe I should start with the positives. The worst part of Fort Phil Kearny is Brown’s handling of the Fetterman Fight. However, that section is actually pretty small. Instead, Brown covers the whole early history of Fort Phil Kearny, from its founding to the immediate aftermath of the Fetterman disaster (since publication, this has been re-titled as The Fetterman Massacre, which is less accurate as a description, but more enticing).
  
  Fort Phil Kearny was constructed to protect travelers along the Bozeman Trail, especially miners heading for gold deposits in Montana. The Bozeman ran through the Powder River Country, a resource-rich environment vitally important to the Indians. The land nominally belonged to the Crow pursuant to the Laramie Treaty of 1851. However, in the aftermath of the First Sioux War of 1855, the Lakota began moving north into the Powder River Country. There, they wrested control of it from the Crow, so that by 1859, the Crow were forced into the Bighorn Mountains. The U.S. Government attempted to secure a new treaty with the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne in order to protect the Bozeman Trail. The so-called Taylor Commission went to Fort Laramie, where, in typical fashion, they declared the treaty a success as soon as they got anyone to sign. Those who did not sign, including Red Cloud, waited for the soldiers in the Powder River Country.
  
  Colonel Henry Carrington of the 18th U.S. Infantry was ordered to lead an expedition up the Bozeman and to build a series of forts. Carrington constructed Fort Phil Kearny to his exacting specifications on a plateau on the eastern side of the Bighorns, a location ringed by hills and several miles from timber. Brown, in keeping with his pro-Carrington slant, finds nothing wrong with this location, and dismisses any criticism of Carrington’s decision to build there.
  
  Brown is at his best in describing not only the minute details that went into erecting Fort Phil Kearny, but in conveying the extremely difficult position it found itself in. Almost immediately, the fort was under a constant state of low-intensity siege. Wagon trains were frequently attacked. Soldiers or civilians who wandered off tended to be found later, in a state of health far poorer than when last seen. The wood cutters felling trees for the outpost were constantly harassed. Carrington’s line of communications was long and frail. Resupply was difficult. Many of his troops were new recruits. He was promised two cavalry companies in order to properly patrol and protect the region. He received only one, and even then, fresh horses were in short supply.
  
  This was a bad situation, made worse in Brown’s narrative by the arrival of Captain Fetterman. With very little sourcing, Brown decides that Fetterman is the villain of the piece. An arrogant blowhard who disdained his commanding officer almost as much as the Indians. This is where Fort Phil Kearny fell apart for me.
  
  The actual Fetterman Fight is riddled with fictions, elisions, and falsehoods. In Brown’s telling, on December 21, 1866, Fetterman demanded to take command of a detachment sent to relieve a wood train that was under attack. Fetterman then disobeyed orders by heading north, over a hill called Lodge Trail Ridge, rather than moving straight west to the wood train. He was apparently following a small number of decoys, who lured him into a deadly ambush. Fetterman, having learned his lesson too late, then committed suicide.
  
  Despite Brown’s confident assertions, the matter of Fetterman disobeying orders is quite controversial. The genesis of this comes from Carrington’s own testimony, when he was desperately trying to save his own ass (Brown consistently remarks how anti-Carrington reports are biased, while never acknowledging how the opposite is also true). However, Carrington also testified that he watched Fetterman leave the fort and angle his troops to cut the Indians off. If Fetterman was disobeying orders, Carrington had ample time to send someone out to bring him back. He did not. In fact, he testified that Fetterman was “moving wisely…with good promise of cutting off the Indians.”
  
  If anyone disobeyed orders with reckless abandon, it was Lieutenant George Grummond. Grummond had almost died on December 6 by – you guessed it – chasing after an Indian decoy and riding into an ambush. After that event, Fetterman, who had an impeccable Civil War record, told Carrington that the experience had given him newfound respect for Indian fighting, something that Brown does not even bother attempting to square with his portrait of a rash and insubordinate officer. Grummond, on the other hand, showed no such contrition. Also, unlike Fetterman, Grummond had been removed from a Civil War campaign by General Robert Granger for disobeying orders.
  
  Fetterman’s detachment comprised elements of the 2nd Cavalry and 18th Infantry. Grummond had charge of the cavalry. It seems ridiculous to mention this, since it’s so obvious, but horses move faster than men. Based on J.W. Vaughn’s time-motion analysis and his close study of the battlefield, most current historians recognize that Grummond’s cavalry was far ahead of Fetterman’s foot-soldiers when the trap was sprung. The rational conclusion to be drawn from this is that Grummond, not Fetterman, was the loose cannon.
  
  But Brown doesn’t come close to realizing this. Indeed, he doesn’t seem to know much about Grummond’s personal history at all. He describes Grummond as courageous and a Civil War hero, and that’s about it. He also mentions that Grummond and his pregnant wife Frances were “the post’s most romantic couple.” Grummond had actually been married before; he left his wife and married Frances before the divorce was final. This makes him a bigamist with a spotty military record who had almost gotten himself killed two weeks earlier. If the shoe of recklessness fits anyone, it’s Grummond. You won’t find out about that here.
  
  Brown’s failure to account for the cavalry being ahead of the infantry makes his narration of the battle confused at best, and useless at worst. He has the cavalry and infantry “separated” during the Indians’ attack, with the infantry retreating and the cavalry covering them. But as Vaughn’s study shows, there is no way the infantry could have made it into the kill-zone by the time the cavalry tripped the snare. Rather, it’s more likely the cavalry made contact before the infantry crossed the ridge, and that Fetterman attempted to come to Grummond’s support with the infantry.
  
  Brown has Fetterman committing joint suicide with another brash officer, Lieutenant Frederick Brown. This is a perpetuation of an odd falsehood, meant to neatly close Fetterman’s fictional arc. Fetterman didn't shoot himself, nor was he shot by a brother officer. On July 25, 1867, Dr. Samuel Horton, assistant surgeon at Fort Phil Kearny, testified that he examined Fetterman’s corpse: “Colonel Fetterman[’]s body showed his thorax to have been cut crosswise with a knife, deep into the viscera; his throat and entire neck were cut to the cervical spine all around. I believe that mutilation caused his death.” Horton’s observations are corroborated by American Horse, who spent many years telling people how he killed Fetterman by knocking him down with his club and slitting his throat. He even donated the club to a white rancher (it can now be found at the Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, in Nebraska).
  
  This may or may not surprise you, at this point, but American Horse is not present in Brown’s book. Strangely, for the man who wrote Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, the Indians are almost not present at all. We don’t hear about their side of the story. We don’t get to read their testimonies. They are a vague presence flitting at the margins.
  
  I understand that my opinion of this is contrary to most who read it. Part of me wants to give it a pass, simply because it’s so ingrained in the historiography. As you know by now, that part of me did not prevail. At the end of Fort Phil Kearny, Brown sets a scene at the unveiling of the Fetterman monument. He muses about the old soldiers in attendance:
  
  

  [T]hey knew it was all gone, the old harsh leathery life, the sweet zest of danger, the toil and uncertainty. It was all gone and soon they would be gone, too, with the vanished fort. Only a myth remained, a few dreamlike memories of the saga they had helped create.

  
  
  Only a myth remained, indeed. A myth that Brown has helped facilitate. It’s a shame, because the real story is quite good enough.
• 
  Chris G Derrick

  A truly great read for anyone with the slightest interest in the subject - the second largest defeat (after Custer's) of the US Cavalry by the native Americans.
  Dee Brown's book takes the reader from the very beginning of the long journey, slowly heading towards the site of what would eventually become Fort Phil Kearny.
  The description of the building process and the hardships endured by both the men and the animals throughout the bitter winter make the reader feel they're genuinely there experiencing it with them.
  The description of the incident which gives rise to the books title is well documented - particularly the state of the massacred men discovered by the relief column.
  On a slightly different note the present day site is a particularly beautiful place. Not at all like it was on the 21st December 1866 - that's for sure.
  It would be an emotional experience to sit there at the foot of the memorial to the deceased cavalry soldiers while reading pages from this book and looking out over the scene where it all unfolded.
  When I visited in 2011 we were the only visitors over the hour we were there - which makes the feeling of the area so much more powerful.
  This book is definitely a thoroughly recommended read!
  
• 
  J.P. Mac

  Fascinating description of the U.S. Army's 1866 construction of Ft. Phil Kearny and the subsequent massacre of a detachment that left no survivors. Based on Army records and firsthand accounts, the narrative builds to an ambush by two thousand Sioux of Captain William Fetterman and his 80 cavalry and infantry.
  
  While hardened veterans of the Civil War, Fetterman and most of his officers had no experience fighting Sioux and Arapaho, but plenty of confidence in their own martial abilities. At the same time, Fetterman's commanding officer had no Civil War combat experience, thus was held in low-esteem by several subordinates, including Fetterman.
  
  Events surrounding the ambush bookend this history, but much of the tale involves traveling across the prairie from Nebraska to the site of the fort in Wyoming Territory. Soldiers had been encouraged to bring their wives and these women kept diaries. Author Dee Brown expertly weaves their observations into the story, providing a valuable peek into the beauty and harshness of life on the frontier almost one-hundred and fifty years ago.
• 
  C.A. A. Powell

  This is a splendid piece of up close history with notes taken from interviews and records with people concerned with the actual event. The whole affair leading up to the ghastly conclusion is well documented and presented in fine detail. At times the reader feels like he is actually there in the untamed western frontier.
  
  The build up over the weeks to the climatic event that leads to a dreadful massacre is very well presented with documentary accounts of everyday life among the soldiers building a stockade fort in the untamed Indian territory.
  
  If you like American history, then this is an absolute must.
• 
  Austin Gisriel

  Dee Brown, who also authored "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," has turned her extensive research into a fast-paced narrative that details one of the Old West's most legendary tales. Originally titled, "Fort Phil Kearny: An American Saga," the book does indeed center on Colonel Henry B. Carrington who built the fort from which Captain William J. Fetterman rode to his doom. The massacre itself fills only one chapter out of 11, but it is remarkably detailed and by no means is this a criticism. On the contrary, it puts Captain Fetterman's actions and the aftermath in clear perspective. We tend to think such events happen in a vacuum, but of course that is never the case.
  
  If you are interested in Western history, I highly recommend this book.
• 
  Michael

  This is a interesting event in American history. Another case of white pride and arrogance being his demise. It is Little Big Horn on a smaller scale. The only down side is there was no survivors or eye witnesses. The slaughter took place outside of the line of site from the nearby fort.(dirty, rotten, stinking hills!)So the story of the Fetterman massacre is well documented except for the massacre itself. It's still a good book, but don't expect any details about the battle. No one (white man) lived to tell what happened.
• 
  Will

  This title is somewhat misleading. The book is really about the history of Ft. Phil Kearny, WY, where Fetterman left on his infamous ride through the Sioux nation with 80 men. It is the story of a place, the people who built and fought around it, and the second battle in American history from which there were no survivors from the losing side. Extremely well written. If you are interested in the West, in the Indian Wars, or the 19th Century Army, this book is for you. Recommended.
• 
  Betsy

  On June 25, 1876, five companies of cavalry under the command of G.A. Custer perished at the Little Bighorn, even though the rest of the 7th Cavalry survived. Ten years before, December 21, 1866, some 90 men under the command of Captain Fetterman were killed and mutilated near Fort Phil Kearney during Red Cloud' s War. Since none of the men survived, there was much speculation about why this tragedy happened. In this book, Dee Brown gives a straightforward version leading up to the massacre.
• 
  Doug Tabner

  If Custer hadn't had the arrogant misfortune to lead over 200 men to their deaths ten years later, the Fetterman Massacre would have gone down in history as the biggest defeat the US army ever suffered at the hands of the Indians. And Dee Brown, author of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, did a good job of documenting it.
  
  
• 
  Joel Toppen

  Outstanding Account
  
  Very readable, this engaging story is told in a way that takes the reader back in time. The story of Red Cloud's War is told from the perspective of the soldiers and civilians that took up post at Fort Phil Kearny in what is now, northern Wyoming. My only regret is that the book does not give me much insight from the Native point of view.
• 
  Mike Crawford

  A relatively quick read, but I remember wondering how accurate the author's imagination of the battles could be -- nonetheless, despite a bit of unnecessary skepticism, the descriptions are compelling. Probably a bit too focused a topic for the general reader.
• 
  Terra

  it was okay
• 
  John Hansen

  Great book. Very detailed.
• 
  Jeff Jellets

  
  ”No disaster other than the usual incidents to border warfare occurred until gross disobedience of orders sacrificed nearly eighty of the choice men of my command … Life was the forfeit. In the grave I bury disobedience.”
  
  Author Dee Brown remains one of the American west’s best historians, weaving a vivid and engrossing account of The Fetterman Massacre which saw a confederation of native American tribes lure, trap and destroy a detachment of US soldiery just past the walls of Fort Phil Kearny on December 21, 1866, in what is now modern Wyoming. The loss would (at the time) be the bloodiest defeat suffered by U.S. troops on the Great Plains (only later eclipsed by the massacre of George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn).
  
  With much of the book focused on Colonel Henry B. Carrington, the controversial builder and commander of the fort, Brown traces the U.S. government’s increasingly aggressive efforts to secure the Bozeman trail, beginning at the building of the military outpost and ending at its dismantling. The narrative is rich and, once again, I’m hard pressed to imagine I would have lasted very long in the wilds, trucking through heavy snows, felling trees and wild game, let alone building fortifications on the frontier. Brown packs in both facts and personalities, without slackening the pace of this engaging narrative. And while the majority of the story is from the white man’s perspective, Brown (as much as he is able) tries to offer a balanced view, including tribal cultural features and perspectives. I, for one, particularly liked the chapter headings, subtitling each month with Native American seasonal descriptions.
  
  The climax of the book is, of course, the battle, which Brown describes in cinematic detail. Despite the lack of survivors, Brown is able to recreate the engagement in frenetic and often gory details as the U.S. infantry and calvary are decoyed into a well-laid trap by Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors. It does not go well for the soldiers. The aftermath is also intensely portrayed, bodies brought by the dozens into the isolated outpost, grieving widows, and heroic dashes by outriders into the teeth of a blizzard to carry news of the bloody defeat and bring military relief to the by now panicked fort.
  
  Perhaps the only bummer of the book is the author’s biography (with photos!). After thoroughly enjoying the tale, I found out that this new favorite writer of mine …. is dead. Sure he leaves behind quite a considerable bibliography, but as an author that was ‘brand-new-to-me’, I was very saddened to learn that Dee Brown is no longer at his keyboard.
  
  Regardless, Dee Brown's The Fetterman Massacre is great history, told with verve and immensely enjoyable reading.
  
• 
  E.

  At Agate Fossil Beds National Monument in the Nebraska Panhandle, the most exciting thing for me was the surprising collection of Native American artifacts that the family which once owned the ranch on which the fossils were discovered, had been given by their Native American friends. And the most surprising of those items was the war club American Horse used to kill Captain Fetterman. I distinctly went "Wow!" when I read the label posted by the club.
  
  Now, this volume tells a different story of Fetterman's end--that he and a partner took their lives rather than being killed by the Lakota and their allies. I Googled and learned that this is a discrepancy between Native and Military versions of the story. Prior to reading this book, I had only read about the massacre and Red Cloud's war from accounts by or sympathetic to the Native perspective.
  
  Last summer I bought this volume from the gift shop at Fort Hartsuff in the Nebraska Sandhills and finally read it while on vacation in the Black Hills this summer. It is a detailed account of the establishment and short life of Fort Phil Kearny and the famous massacre which helped contribute to Red Cloud's victory in his war against the United States and the ultimate disestablishment of the fort. So, if you like histories of the West or of the military, you'll enjoy this volume.
• 
  Steve

  Well written, well documented book about the little known campaign in the year after the Civil War to hold open the Bozeman Trail through eastern Wyoming to Montana’s gold fields. The Sioux, Arapaho, and Cheyenne fought to protect their prime hunting grounds from destruction from mining and settler wagon trains. The undermanned, outgunned, and poorly supplied Army troops fought for their lives in a beautiful, harsh land against foes who took no prisoners and tortured and mutilated their foes. Surprisingly, the protagonist isn’t Fetterman, but his commander, Henry Carrington. Carrington’s lifelong dream was to be a military commander in the field, but found his army faced a surprisingly united Indian confederacy on their home grounds. I was amazed that many soldiers brought their families on this dangerous campaign. The outcome of the Massacre was the United States agreed to abandon the Bozeman Trail and forts without concession— a stunning Indian victory.
• 
  Paul Morrison

  A forgotten incident in the history of the American West.
  
  An excellent account of what would become known as the Fetterman Massacre, that took place in December 1866. Dee Brown has written a very exciting and detailed account, including the events leading up to and following this disaster for the U.S. Army. What happened in North Dakota in 1866 was to be repeated again exactly ten years later, but on a larger scale at the Battle of the Little Big Horn. The only downside for the book is that there are very few details from the Indian side, but this is most likely due to the Indian participants not being interviewed by contemporary historians in the years following the massacre. Nevertheless, the book should be a must for all those interested in the military history of the American West.
• 
  GRANT

  So well written and based on good sources from the Army's official inquiry and the accounts of participants, even some from the Native Peoples. The perspectives of soldiers and civilians associated with the Army come out much more than the Native combatants, but one can clearly see the bureaucratic and military faults on that side. The conflict seemed inevitable once the occupying army was sent up the Bozeman Road while treaty negotiations were still ongoing at Ft. Laramie. The Army mistakes leading to Fetterman were not as serious as Custer's blunder. Still, it was the same U.S. military arrogance and oppression of the Tribes that lead to this disaster.
• 
  Candida

  Military blunder
  
  It's sad to hear about the loss of life and great suffering that had to happen because of the government's complete lack of knowledge of a situation out west. Over simplification of the idea of taming the tribes of Montana led to the loss of so many lives. Mismanagement of a project just snowballed and went even beyond the Fetterman massacre. This book is well researched and is never a dull read.
• 
  Al Lock

  This is an interesting account of the Fetterman Massacre and the events leading up to it. It is not nearly as well written as the other Dee Brown books that I have read - it seems to have been done primarily based on the documentation of the Fort Commander, and is almost devoid of information from the Indian viewpoint. OK, but certainly not top-notch.
• 
  M.J. Edington

  Excellent Historical Accoumt
  
  The story is superbly written, extremely well researched and sagely documented.
  It reads like the best adventure novels, but everything really happened.
• 
  Wayne Taylor

  An excellent attempt to reconstruct what really happened at the Fetterman Massacre in 1866. Dorris Alexander “Dee” Brown does a credible job of reconstructing the event, especially considering that there were no survivors on the U.S. Army side.