Henry B. Carrington

Henry B. Carrington was a United States Army officer, lawyer and writer who served during the Civil War and later commanded troops protecting the Bozeman Trail. In 1866 he established a chain of forts in the Powder River country, including Fort Phil Kearny.

Carrington’s command became the focus of Red Cloud’s War, and in December 1866 a detachment under William J. Fetterman was destroyed near the fort. Carrington was relieved soon afterwards and spent much of his later life defending his decisions and writing military and historical works.

In Michael Punke’s Ridgeline, Wyoming Territory, 1866. Colonel Henry B. Carrington brings the 18th Infantry into the Powder River country to build forts protecting the Bozeman Trail, a route crossing the hunting grounds of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Northern Arapaho. Red Cloud assembles resistance while Crazy Horse tests the soldiers through raids and decoys; within Fort Phil Kearny, veterans divided by the Civil War struggle with isolation, discipline and competing ideas of command. Additional non-fiction treatment of Henry B. Carrington comes from Hourly History’s Red Cloud’s War.