Fetterman Monument

The colonel at this monument's 1908 dedication had spent four decades defending himself against the defeat it records. Henry Carrington was relieved of command after the fight; a court of inquiry cleared him, but by the historian Shannon D. Smith's account his superiors, Grant and Sherman among them, suppressed the evidence that would have exonerated him, and his first and second wives each published books telling his side. The bronze keeps the older view: it names only the Sioux and Red Cloud, though Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho fought here, and counts none of the warriors who died.

What the plaque says

On this field on the 21st day of December, 1866, three commissioned officers and seventy six privates of the 18th U.S. Infantry, and of the 2nd U.S. Cavalry, and four civilians, under the command of Captain Brevet- Lieutenant Colonel William J. Fetterman were killed by an overwhelming force of Sioux, under the command of Red Cloud. There were no survivors.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Phil Kearny State Historic Site — 2.9 mi
  A Bozeman Trail fort whose wood trains were attacked for two years, and the wagon-box corral where its woodcutters held out behind new breech-loaders in 1867.
• Occidental Hotel — 17 mi
  Buffalo's 1880 grand hotel, its 1908 saloon ceiling still pocked with bullet holes, won once in a poker game and nearly torn down in the 1990s.
• Trail End State Historic Site — 17 mi
  A Texas trail hand's Flemish Revival mansion, five years in the building, that he barely lived in once Wyoming sent him to the governor's office and the Senate.
• Sheridan Inn — 17 mi
  A hunting-lodge hotel with sixty-nine gables, where Buffalo Bill is said to have auditioned Wild West acts from the porch.

More markers nearby

• With the Arrival Of... (Fetterman) — steps away
• The Fetterman Fight (panel) — steps away
• The Interpretive Trail (Fetterman) — steps away
• John (Portugee) Phillips — 2.6 mi