The Grattan Fight

A lame cow straggling from a Danish Latter-day Saint train was killed by High Forehead, a Miniconjou guest in the Brulé (Sicangu) camp. Conquering Bear, Matȟó Wayúhi, whom the 1851 treaty commissioners had named head chief of the Lakota, offered a horse and said he had no authority over a guest. Grattan came with two cannon and a drunk interpreter, Lucien Auguste, and Conquering Bear was mortally wounded in the firing. The stone calls the soldiers' deaths a massacre; the Army answered in September 1855, when General William Harney's troops killed some eighty-six people at Blue Water Creek.

What the plaque says

Sioux Indians massacred 29 soldiers with their officer, Brevet 2nd Lt. L. Grattan, on Aug. 19, 1854. Site is ½ mile north-west. An Indian killed a cow from a Mormon caravan.The detachment of soldiers was sent to receive the offender. In the ensuing fight all soldiers and the chief of the Brule's Sioux, Martoh-Ioway, were killed. Erected by the Historical Landmark Commission of Wyoming, 1953

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Laramie National Historic Site — 9.2 mi
  Old Bedlam, the officers' quarters of 1849, survived the auction that scattered the rest of the post; an 1875 Army bridge still crosses the river.
• Register Cliff State Historic Site — 18 mi
  The first camp out of Fort Laramie, where the oldest date on the rock reads 1829 and three emigrants never left.
• Oregon Trail Ruts State Historic Site — 20 mi
  The clearest wagon ruts on the trail, worn by iron tires and cut deeper by travelers who hacked at the ledge to get their wagons over.

More markers nearby

• Oregon Trail — steps away
• To All Pioneers — 3.1 mi
• Old Texas Trail — 3.1 mi
• Oregon Trail — 3.4 mi