William J. Fetterman

William J. Fetterman was a United States Army officer and Civil War veteran who served at Fort Phil Kearny during Red Cloud’s War. He became known for favouring aggressive action against Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors operating near the Bozeman Trail forts.

On 21 December 1866 Fetterman led a detachment of eighty men beyond the army’s defensive limits while responding to an attack on a wood train. The force was drawn into an ambush and destroyed in what became known as the Fetterman Fight, one of the U.S. Army’s worst defeats on the nineteenth-century Plains.

Hourly History’s Red Cloud’s War follows attacks on travel and garrisons, including the destruction of William Fetterman’s command. Michael Punke’s Ridgeline moves among Native leaders, soldiers, scouts and army families as the conflict closes around the Fetterman Fight of 21 December 1866.