Historical Context of 1865 on the Plains

The year 1865 was bloody on the Plains as various Indian tribes, including the Southern Cheyenne and the Southern Sioux, joined with their northern relatives to wage war on the white man. They sought revenge for the 1864 massacre at Sand Creek, when John Chivington and his Colorado volunteers nearly wiped out a village of Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho.

The violence in eastern Colorado spread westward to Fort Laramie and Fort Caspar in southeastern and central Wyoming, and then moved north to the lands along the Wyoming-Montana border.