The Greatest Ride in History

The plaque gives the ride to the horse, and the horse comes from the most embellished telling. Frances Grummond, widowed in the Fetterman fight and later Colonel Carrington's wife, wrote the version in which Phillips rode for the women's sake on Carrington's own Kentucky thoroughbred. The historian Shannon Smith finds no evidence for that motive and reads the account as a defense of Carrington's record; she notes that a rider named Bailey went with Phillips as far as Fort Reno, and another beyond it. She keeps the blizzard and the dead horse.

What the plaque says

The Greatest Ride in History In memory of the thoroughbred horse ridden by John "Portugee" Phillips from Fort Phil Kearny Wyoming to Fort Laramie Wyoming December 24 and 25, 1866, when he sought aid for the garrison at Fort Phil Kearny, which was surrounded by Indians, after the battle with Lieutenant Colonel William F. Fetterman, resulting in the death of Lieutenant Colonel Fetterman and 80 men. The horse died from exhaustion soon after arriving at Fort Laramie, having gone 236 miles in two days, through a blizzard with the temperature below zero. Placed by the Historical Landmark Commission of Wyoming July 1951

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Laramie National Historic Site — 0.5 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 — 8.1 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 — 10 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

• Fort Platte — 1.2 mi
• Old Army Bridge Over the Platte River — 1.5 mi
• Fort Laramie National Historic Site — 2.0 mi
• Mormon Pioneers at Fort Laramie — 2.3 mi