DECEMBER 6:

1866 London England - Alexander T. Galt pushes through the adoption of draft Article 93, guaranteeing minority education rights in Ontario and Quebec; at Confederation Conference in the Westminster Palace Hotel.

December 6, 1866:  Red Cloud, Crazy Horse, Yellow Eagle, and High Back Bone, and their followers, have been harassing Col.Henry Carrington's troops from Fort Phil Kearny, in northern Wyoming. Today, they will stage several raids and ambushes along the road from the fort to the nearby woods.

1838 Montreal Quebec - Montreal court martial begins for Lower Canada rebels accused of high treason; 9 are acquitted and 99 condemned to death; by May 01, 12 will be executed, 58 deported to Australia and 27 freed under a caution. 
 
 
 

BACKGROUND:
 

From "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee", by Dee Brown.  Random House, Publishers.  ISBN 0 09 952640 9
 

Early in August Carrington decided that Fort Phil Kearney was strong enough to risk dividing his force again.  Therefore, in accordance with his instructions from the War Department, he detached 150 men and sent them north ninety miles to build a third fort on the Bozeman Road - Fort C F Smith.  At the same time, he sent scouts Bridger and Beckwourth out ot communicate with Red Cloud.  This was a difficult assignment, but the two ageing frontiersmen went in search of friendly go-betweens.

In a Crow village north of the Bighorns, Bridger obtained some surprising information.  Although the Sioux were hereditary enemies of the Crows and had driven them from their rich hunting grounds, Red Cloud himself had recently made a conciliatory visit in hopes of persuading them to join his Indian alliance.  "We want you to aid us in destroying the whites," Red Cloud was reported to have said.  The Sioux leader then boasted that he would cut off the soldiers' supplies when the snows came and would starve them out of the forts and kill them all.  Bridger heard rumors that a few Crows had agreed to join Red Cloud's warriors, but when he rejoined Beckwourth in another Crow village, Beckwourth claimed that he was enlisting Crows who were willing to join Carrington's soldiers in fighting the Sioux. (Medicine Calf Beckwourth never returned to Fort Phi Kearny.  He died suddenly in the Crow Village, possibly from poison administered by a jealous husband, more likely from natural causes.)

By late summer Red Cloud had a force of three thousand warriors.  Through their friends the Laramie Loafers, they managed to assemble a small arsenal of rifles and ammunition, but the majority of warriors still had only bows and arrows.  During the early autumn Red Cloud and the other chiefs agreed tha tthey must concentrate their power against the Little White Chief (Carrington) and the hated fort on the Pineys.  And so before the coming of the Cold Moons they moved toward the Bighorns and made their camps along the headwaters of the Tongue.  From there they were in easy striking distance of Fort Phil Kearny.

During the summer raiding, two Oglalas, High Back Bone and Yellow Eagle, had made names for themselves with their carefully planned stratagems for tricking the soldiers, as well as for reckless horsemanship and daring hand-to-hand attacks after the soldiers fell into their traps.  High Back Bone and Yellow Eagle sometimes worked with young Crazy Horse in planning their elaborate decoys.  Early in the Moon of Popping Trees they began tantalizing the woodcutters in teh pinery and the soldiers guarding the wagons which brought wood to Fort Phil Kearny.

On December 6, a day with a cold wash of air flowing down the slopes of the Bighorns, High Back Bone and Yellow Eagle took about a hundred warriors and dispersed them at various points along the pinery road.  Red Cloud was with another group of warriors who took positions along the ridgetops.  They flashed mirrors and waved flags to signal the movements of the trooops to High Back Bone and his decoys.  Before the day was over, the Indians had the Bluecoats dashing about in all directions.  At one time the Little White Chief Carrington came out and gave chase.  Choosing just the right moment, Crazy Horse dismounted and showed himself on the trail in front of one of Carrington's hot-blooded young cavalry officers, who immediately led a file of soldiers galloping in pursuit.  As soon as the soldiers were strung out along the narrow trail, Yellow Eagle and his warriors sprang from concealment over the soldiers.  (This was the fight in which Lieutenant Horatio Bingham and Sergeant G R Bowers were killed and several soldiers severely wounded.)

In their camps that night and for several days following, the chiefs and warriors talked of how foolishly the Bluecoats had acted.  Red Cloud was sure that if they could entice a large number of troops out of the fort, a thousand Indians armed with only bows and arrows could kill them all. Sometime during the week, the chiefs agreed that after the coming of the next full moon they would prepare a great trap for the Little White Chief and his soldiers.