Talk:Battle of Washita River/Sandbox

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Citations go with References in the References proposal.

Background

The Sand Creek Massacre resulted in a heavy loss of life and material possessions by the Cheyenne and Arapaho bands camped at Sand Creek on November 29, 1864. It also devastated the Cheyenne's traditional government, due to the deaths at Sand Creek of eight of 44 members of the Council of Forty-four as well as headmen of some of the Cheyenne's military societies. Among the chiefs killed were most of those who had advocated peace with white settlers and the U.S. government. The effect was to exacerbate the social and political rift between the traditional council chiefs and their followers on the one hand and the militaristic Dog Soldiers on the other. Beginning in the 1830s, the Dog Soldiers had evolved from the Cheyenne military society of the same name into a separate band of Cheyenne and Lakota warriors that took as its territory the headwaters country of the Republican and Smoky Hill rivers in southern Nebraska, northern Kansas, and the northeast of Colorado Territory. By the 1860s, as conflict between Indians and encroaching whites intensified, the influence wielded by the Dog Soldiers, together with that of the military societies within other Cheyenne bands, had become a significant counter to the influence of the traditional Council of Forty-four chiefs, who were more likely to favor peace with the whites. To the Dog Soldiers, the Sand Creek Massacre illustrated the folly of the peace chiefs' policy of accommodating the whites through the signing of treaties such as the first Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1851 and the Treaty of Fort Wise in 1861 and vindicated the Dog Soldiers' own militant posture towards the whites, which in 1865 took the form of retaliatory warfare against white settlements and stations along the North Platte River. The next two years were marked by alternating periods of warfare and peacemaking efforts, including the Treaty of the Little Arkansas of October 14, 1865 (ratified by the U.S. Senate on May 22, 1866 and proclaimed February 2, 1867), the Hancock expedition of spring 1867, and the Medicine Lodge Treaty of October 1868.

Medicine Lodge Treaty

After the signing of the Medicine Lodge Treaty, the Cheyennes and Arapahoes moved to Indian Territory (modern Oklahoma) to be in their new reservation. ....

Indian raids

In the summer of 1868, after months of fragile peace (with raids between Kaw Indians and Cheyennes), white settlements in western Kansas, southeast Colorado, and northwest Texas were hit by raids from by war parties of Southern Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, Comanche, Northern Cheyenne, Brulé and Oglala Lakota, and Pawnee warriors. Among these raids were those along the Solomon and Saline rivers in Kansas, commencing on August 10, 1868, during which at least 15 white settlers were killed, others wounded, and some women raped or taken captive.

On August 19, 1868, Colonel Edward W. Wynkoop, Indian Agent for the Cheyennes and Arapahoes at Fort Lyon, Kansas, interviewed Little Rock, who was a chief in Black Kettle's Cheyenne village. Little Rock gave an account of what he had learned about the raids along the Saline and Solomon rivers. According to Little Rock's account, a war party of about 200 Cheyennes from a camp above the forks of Walnut Creek departed camp intending to go out against the Pawnees, but ended up raiding white settlements along the Saline and Solomon rivers instead. Some of those responsible for the raids came to Black Kettle's camp, and from them Little Rock had learned what had happened. He named the men most responsible for the raids as being Oh-e-ah-mo-he-a (or He Who Breaks the Marrow Bones), brother of White Antelope who had been killed at Sand Creek; Medicine Arrow's oldest son, Tall Wolf; the Dog Soldier Red Nose; Big Head's son Porcupine Bear; and Sand Hill's brother, Bear That Goes Ahead. Little Rock agreed to do his best to have the guilty parties delivered to white authorities. Several months later, Edmund Guerrier, a half-blood of French and Cheyenne parentage who was living with his Little Rock's band where it was encamped on Buckner's Fork of the Pawnee River at the time of the raids, gave an affidavit to the U.S. military which corroborated Little Rock's account. Guerrier said the war party was made up of young men from the bands of Black Kettle, Little Rock, the Dog Soldier leader Bull Bear, and Medicine Arrows, and that "nearly all the different bands of Cheyennes had some of their young men in this war party." He identified Red Nose of the Dog Soldiers and Ho-eh-a-mo-a-ha of Black Kettle's band as the leaders of the massacre.

Indians in November 1868

Material added to article on 10 August 2007, per consensus on the talk page. --Yksin 19:10, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Controversies

Indian casualties at the Washita

Material added to article on 12 August 2007, per consensus on the talk page. --Yksin 03:12, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Modern reactions

Material added to article on 21 August 2007, per consensus on the talk page. --Yksin 18:36, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

References

• Brill, Charles J. (2002). Conquest of the Southern Plains; Uncensored Narrative of the Battle of the Washita and Custer's Southern Campaign. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 080613416X. Originally published in 1938 (Oklahoma City, OK: Golden Saga Publishers).
• Blinn, Richard. (1868). Richard Blinn Diary: Transcript. MMS 1646 mf. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University, Center for Archival Collections.
• Cozzens, Peter, ed. (2003). Eyewitnesses to the Indian Wars, Volume Three: Conquering the Southern Plains. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books. ISBN 0-8117-0019-4.
• Custer, George Armstrong. (1874). My Life on the Plains: Or Personal Experiences With the Indians. New York: Sheldon and Company. Also available online from Kansas Collection Books.
• Frost, Lawrence A. (1990). The Custer Album: A Pictorial Biography of General George A. Custer. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 080612282X. Originally published 1964.
• Garlington, E. A. (1896). "The Seventh Regiment of Cavalry." In Theophilus F. Rodenboguh and William L. Haskin, eds. The Army of the United States: Historical Sketches of Staff and Line with Portraits of Generals-in-Chief. New York: Maynard, Merrill, & Co., pp. 251-257. Online version dated 2002-10-30 through the U.S. Army Center of Military History, retrieved on 2007-06-29.
• Godfrey, Edward S. (1928). "Extract of Narrative Account — 1928." Richard G. Hardorff, ed. Washita Memories: Eyewitness Views of Custer's Attack on Black Kettle's Village (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2006), 132–146. Originally published in The Cavalry Journal, October 1928.
• Greene, Jerome A. (2004). Washita, The Southern Cheyenne and the U.S. Army. Campaigns and Commanders Series, vol. 3. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0806135514.
• Grinnell, George Bird. (1972). "The Battle of the Washita, 1868." Pp. 37-49 in Richard Ellis, ed., The Western American Indian: Case Studies in Tribal History. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0803208049.
• Grinnell, George Bird. (1983). The Fighting Cheyennes. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. First published 1914. ISBN 1582183902.
• Hardorff, Richard G., compiler & editor (2006). Washita Memories: Eyewitness Views of Custer's Attack on Black Kettle's Village. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0806137592.
• Hatch, Thom. (2004). Black Kettle: The Cheyenne Chief Who Sought Peace but Found War. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0471445924.
• Hazen, W.B. (1874). "Some Corrections of 'Life on the Plains.'" St. Paul, MN: Ramaley & Cunningham. Reprinted with editorial introduction in Chronicles of Oklahoma 3(4): 295-318 (December 1925).
• Hoig, Stan. (1980). The Battle of the Washita: The Sheridan-Custer Indian Campaign of 1867-69. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0803272049. Previously published in 1976 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday). ISBN 0385112742.
• Hyde, George E. (1968). Life of George Bent Written from His Letters. Ed. by Savoie Lottinville. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-1577-7.
• Lewis, Jon E., ed. (2004). The Mammoth Book of Native Americans: The Story of America's Original Inhabitants in All Its Beauty, Magic, Truth, and Tragedy. New York: Carroll & Graf. ISBN 0786712902.
• Michno, Gregory F. (2003). Encyclopedia of Indian Wars: Western Battles and Skirmishes 1850-1890. Missoula, MT: Mountain Press Publishing Company. ISBN 0878424687.
• Michno, Gregory F. (2005-12). "Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle." Wild West (magazine). Retrieved through Historynet.com on 2007-06-28.
• Moore, Horace L. (1897-01-19). "The Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry in the Washita Campaign." Address before the 21st annual meeting of the Kansas State Historical Society. Kansas Historical Collections, vol. VI. Reprinted in Chronicles of Oklahoma 2(4): 350-365 (December 1924).
• National Park Service. (1999-11). "The Story of the Battle of the Washita", Washita Battlefield National Historic Site, National Park Service.
• National Park Service. (2006-08-10). "Frequently Asked Questions", Washita Battlefield National Historic Site, National Park Service.
• Moore, Horace L. (1897-01-19). "The Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry in the Washita Campaign." Address before the 21st annual meeting of the Kansas State Historical Society. Kansas Historical Collections, vol. VI. Reprinted in Chronicles of Oklahoma 2(4): 350-365 (December 1924).
• New York Times, 27 November – 8 December 1868.
• Roenigk, Adolph. (1933). Pioneer History of Kansas. (Lincoln, KS:) A. Roenigk. Through Kansas Collection Books.
• Stewart, Richard W., editor. (2005). "Winning the West: The Army in the Indian Wars 1865-1890." Chapter 14 in American Military History, Volume 1: The United States Army and the Forging of a Nation, 1775-1917, pp. 321-340. Washington, DC: United States Army, Center of Military History. CMH Pub 30–21. pp. 328-331 includes a brief account of the Army's campaigns in the southern plains, including the Battle of Washita River.
• U.S. Army Center of Military History. (2003-10-03). "Named Campaigns — Indian Wars." Washington, DC: United States Army, Center of Military History. Retrieved on 2007-07-06.
• U.S. House of Representatives. (1870). Difficulties with Indian Tribes. 41st Congress, 2nd session, House Executive Document 240.
• U.S. Senate. (1869a). Letter of the Secretary of the Interior, Communicating, in Compliance with the Resolution of the Senate fo the 14th ultimo, Information in Relation to the Late Battle of the Washita River. 40th Congress, 3rd Session, 1869, Senate Executive Document 13.
• U.S. Senate. (1869b). Documents Related to the Indian Battle on the Washita River in November of 1868. 40th Congress, 3rd Session, 1869, Senate Executive Document 18.
• Utley, Robert M. (2001). Cavalier in Buckskin: George Armstrong Custer and the Western Military Frontier, rev. ed. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-3387-2.
• White, Richard. (1991). "It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own": A New History of the American West. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0806125675.
• Wilson, Hill P. (1904). "Black Kettle’s Last Raid." Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society 8: 110-117. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yksin (talk • contribs) 01:43, 16 September 2007 (UTC)