JULY 26:

July 26, 1865: Following the massacre at Sand Creek, many Indians began attacking military outposts, and people crossing their territory. A group of Cheyenne, led by Roman Nose, wanted revenge for lost relatives. They approached a bridge across the North Platte in what is now Casper, Wyoming. The bridge was also the site of a telegraph station and a military outpost. After trying for two days to get the soldiers out of the fort, a column of troops cross the bridge. The Indians attack and kill many soldiers, including Lt. Casper Collins. Another column of troops comes to the rescue, and cannonfire from the fort helps them escape. The soldiers had left the fort to provide an escort for an approaching wagon train. Another band of Indians attacks the wagon train. During the fighting, Roman Nose's brother is killed. Roman Nose lead a charge against the wagon train and all of the soldiers guarding it are killed. Their anger quickly dissipates, and the Indians quit the fight, and leave the area.

July 26, 1763:  Fort Sandusky (in Ohio) is destroyed by Indians on May 16th. Detroit is also being besieged. Captain James Dalyell and almost 300 soldiers arrive on the southern shore of Lake Erie. They find many bodies and the remnants of structures. His forces immediately march against a Wyandot village near modern Fremont.

1758 Louisbourg Nova Scotia Jeffery Amherst 1717-1797 captures Louisbourg after siege of nearly 2 months; with Admiral Edward Boscawen and Brigadier James Wolfe. French commander Augustin Boschenry de Drucour 1703-1762 surrenders with 3,500 soldiers and about 4,000 sailors and militia. Amherst promises the French regulars their lives, but will offer no terms to the Canadians or Indians; if captured they will be treated the same as the garrison at Fort William Henry. Drucour forced to accept these conditions, and the Canadians and Indians flee in their canoes. English send French troops to England as prisoners of war for five years, deport civilian population to France.

1651 Montreal Quebec Band of 200 Iroquois attack l'hôpital de Montréal.
 

BACKGROUND:
 

Through out the springtime, the Indians sent scouting parties down to watch the soldiers who were guarding the roads and telegraph lines along the Platte. The scouts reported many more soldiers than usual, some of them prowling northward along Bozeman's Trail through the Powder River country.  Red Cloud and the other chiefs decided it was time to teach the soldiers a lesson; they would strike them at thepoint where they were farthest north, a place the white men called Platte Bridge Station.

Because the Cheyenne warriors from the south wanted revenge for the relatives massacred at Sand Creek, most of them were invited to go along on the expedition.  Roman Nose of the Crooked Lances was their leader, and he rode with Red Cloud, Dull Knife and Old-Man-Afraid-of-His-Horses.  Almost three thousand warriors formed the war party.  Among them were the Bent brothers, painted and dressed for battle.

On July 24 they reached the hills overlooking the bridge across the North Platte.  At the opposite end of the bridge was the military post - a stockade, stage station and telegraph office.  About a hundred soldiers were inside the stockade.  After looking at the place through their field glasses, the chiefs decided they would burn the bridge, cross the river at a shallow ford below and then lay siege to the stockade.  But first they would try to draw the soldiers outside with decoys and kill as many as possible.

Ten warriors went down in the afternoon, but the soldiers would not come out of their stockade.  Next morning another set of decoys lured the soldiers out on the bridge, but they would come no further.  On the third morning (July 26, 1865), to the Indians' surprise, a platoon of cavalrymen marched out of the fort, crossed the bridge and turned westward at a trot. In a matter of seconds several hundred Cheyennes and Sioux were mounted on their ponies and swarming down the hills towards the Bluecoats.  .....

..... While the fighting was going on, some of the Indians still on the hills discovered why the cavalrymen had marched out of the fort.  They had been riding to meet a wagon train approaching from the west.  In a few minutes, the Indians had the wagon train surrounded, but the soldiers dug in under the wagons and put up a stubborn fight.  During the first minutes of the fighting, Roman Nose's brother was killed.  When Roman Nose heard of this, he was angry for revenge.  "We are going to empty the soldiers' guns!" he shouted.  Roman Nose was wearing his medicine bonnet and shield, and he knew that no bullets could strike him.  He led the Cheyennes into a circle around the wagons, and they lashed their ponies so that they ran very fast. As the circle tightened closer to the wagons, the soldiers emptied all their guns at once, and then they Cheyennes charged straight for the wagons and killed all the soldiers.  They were disappointed by what they found in the wagons; nothing was there but soldiers' bedding and mess chests.

That night in camp, Red Cloud and the other chiefs decided they had taught the soldiers to fear the power of the Indians.  And so they returned to the Powder River country, hopeful that the white men would now obey the Laramie treaty and quit prowling without permission into the Indians' country north of the Platte.
 

From:  "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee", by Dee Brown, Vintage Books.