The fate of the Allies rests in the hands of eccentric British Navy Captain George Hardy. Regarded as a madman by some, and viewed as a genius in naval warfare by those who serve with him, Hardy leads his ragtag fleet of warships into a deadly match of wits and wills against the determined Kern and his untested U-boats. Under cover of the ocean, the deadliest of enemies are about to engage their final battle…. Welcome to HuntersAndTheHunted.Com, the Cyberspace Home of author: Steven Wilson.

Piney Creek
by Steven Wilson, 2005

ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED AT MILITARY.COM, December 13, 2006

Fort Phil Kearney was a hard-luck post. It had started out life on July 13, 1866 named after its commander, Colonel Henry B. Carrington, 18th Infantry, but shortly after its name was changed to honor Major General Philip Kearney, killed during the ill-fated Peninsular Campaign in 1862. If the ghost of hot-blooded Phil Kearney had haunted the stockade interior he would have been sorely disappointed to learn that many of the officers therein were a frightening combination of indecisive, alcoholic, or dangerously arrogant men. This was before the aptly named Benzine Boards began removing such officers from the rolls of the United States Army.

In its two year history the fort saw one massacre, one courageous ride through the dead of winter (complete with a John Ford-like arrival in the midst of a Christmas celebration), several dozen life and death encounters, scores of skirmishes, and the destruction of the fort by Lakotas after the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 forced its abandonment.

One of the officers assigned to Fort Phil Kearney was a maverick, a soldier who started out as an enlisted man in 1848 and during the Civil War earned a commission, being twice brevetted for gallantry. Captain James Powell was a cautious man with a healthy respect for the enemy who occupied the hills surrounding the fort on the Bozeman Trail. He had been slated to command the men assembled to relieve the wood train under attack in late December 1866, until Captain Fetterman reminded Colonel Carrington that he was senior to Powell and should lead the command. Unfortunately, Carrington acquiesced. Fetterman was not a thoughtful officer, and lost his own life and that of his entire command.

The wood trains and woodcutting parties were critical to the fort’s survival. Winters in northern Wyoming Territory, Department of the Platte were harsh; the cold could take a man’s breath away and blizzards dumped so much snow on the ground that it would drift almost to the tops of the stockade. The fort needed a virtually endless supply of firewood to get the garrison through the winter and although timber was plentiful, it was located some distance from the fort under the watchful eye of a Lakota chief named Mahapiya-luta, or Red Cloud. The woodcutting parties would go out under heavy guard, cut and stack firewood, and then the wagons of the wood trains would retrieve the cut-wood. It was a precarious process.

When Powell took his party out in late July 1867 (he commanded C Company of the 27th Infantry), he was especially careful to create a redoubt of sorts near the tents of his encampment, which was located in the middle of a prairie about a thousand yards across. This was the fallback position for his men; some herding the mules and horses of the party, some cutting timber, some stacking firewood prior to loading it in the wagons, and the men stationed on guard. Powell’s “fort” consisted of fourteen wagon boxes, removed from their running gear, and arranged in a long oval. Each end of the oval was open, with fully loaded wagons positioned across the opening; ready to be run out to permit passage of soldiers fleeing to the redoubt. Powell had also ordered the running gear of the fourteen wagon boxes scattered around the approaches to the enclosure as a means to break up mounted charges. Crates were used to close up the space between the wagon boxes and cases of ammunition were kept near each position. Unlike Fetterman, Powell had no illusion about the ability of the Indians to fight; nor did his men. During the upcoming battle the soldiers took the precautions of ensuring that they would not be captured alive by their attackers. They marked the last shell in the cylinder for themselves, or removed their boots, and tied a loop of string to their big toe. The procedure was simple enough; tie the string around the trigger of the rifle, place the muzzle in their mouth, and pull the string with their toe.

Mahapiya-luta, wanting to eliminate Kearney once and for all, had assembled somewhere between 1,500 and 3,000 Lakota and Cheyenne warriors. They were armed with a variety of firearms; Spencer repeating carbines, old muzzle loading Springfield muskets, revolvers, and a number of repeating rifles—some had been captured from the Fetterman command. There were armed with bows and arrows as well, the silent weapon that could be used to lob projectiles into soldiers’ positions. This weapon might have seemed primitive to a few, but it was deadly in the hands of a skilled archer.

Sometime between 7:00 o’clock and 9:00 o’clock on the morning of August 2nd, 1867 about two hundred Indians attempted to stampede the mule herd, while five hundred Indians attacked the encampment. Mahapiya-luta intended to annihilate Powell’s command and then sweep down to Kearney. Powell and his men had seen Indians or Indian sign since they arrived and had kept a close watch out for the attack that they were certain would come. They just did not expect to see that many of the enemy.

Powell and his second in command, Lieutenant John C. Jenness, quickly gathered what men they could in the wagon box fort; thirty-two, including the officers. There were two civilian frontiersmen among them. As the men took up their positions and prepared to engage the enemy, Powell’s thorough preparation became apparent. He had the best marksmen take up position within the wagon boxes, the tops of which had been covered by blankets to conceal their presence. Here the men took aim at the approaching enemy through holes drilled through the one-inch board sides of the wagons. The poorest shots were to keep the rifles loaded and ready for the best shots—an average of three rifles per shooter; in the case of the best civilian marksmen, eight rifles.

When Red Cloud had attacked Fetterman’s mixed infantry and cavalry command nine months before, he had made note of the time that it took the infantry, “walk-a-heaps” to load and fire their Springfield muskets. These weapons were holdovers from the Civil War and the ideal choice for Union infantry with the ability to send a heavy lead Minie ball a respectable distance; it just took too long to load them in a fast-moving Indian fight. And the fastest way to load them was standing erect. Volley or independent fire—it made no difference; two or three shots and your enemy was in your midst. Red Cloud apparently counted on the inability of so few men to keep up a fire substantial enough to stop a charge. Thirty-two men against many times that number—it would be Fetterman but on a smaller scale.

The thirty-two men trapped in the makeshift fort on the Wyoming prairie were fortunate in two respects; one of course was to have a seasoned veteran like James Powell commanding them. Another was that they had recently received the new Allen conversion, Springfield rifle; a breechloader. As Sergeant Samuel Gibson recalled later: “Instead of drawing ramrods and thus wasting precious time, we simply threw open the breech blocks of our new rifles to eject the empty shell and slapped in fresh ones.” What Red Cloud learned during the first mounted charge of his warriors against the wagon box fort was that the fire was constant and accurate. After the first charge Red Cloud ordered his men to dismount and assault the enemy on foot. This tactic proved just as costly but in a series of six distinct charges the Lakota and their Cheyenne allies managed to get so close to Powell’s men that some of the soldiers threw the awls used to drill rifle holes in the wagon boxes in their enemy’s faces. Any Indian brave or foolish enough to expose himself was likely to be shot. The Springfields were so powerful and the Indians so desperate to overrun the fort that Powell later reported that sometimes two or three of the enemy would fall from a single bullet.

The siege of the wagon box fortress lasted about three hours. During the entire time the men under Powell’s command were certain that they would not survive. Four, including Lieutenant Jenness, did not. There was not lack of courage on the Indian side. “They brought their sand with them today,” a soldier commented in appreciation of the Lakota and Cheyenne bravery. It made no difference; the Indian force could not stand the withering, accurate fire of the soldiers. The rifles were kept firing at such a pace that the barrels had to be kept cooled with water from the soldiers’ canteens. The frontiersman who had eight rifles at his disposal explained to an army officer after the battle that he could hit a dollar at fifty yards—and during the attack, firing at “a dead rest,” he had at least fifty of the enemy in his sights within fifty yards. The attackers paid heavily; one account puts the Indian dead and wounded at over one thousand.

When the attack was driven off and soldiers finally rescued, they were shattered emotionally. They had expected to die, and yet had lived. James Powell never fully recovered from the wagon box fight. This maverick captain and his handful of men had survived an attack by a formidable enemy that by all rights should have crushed them. Major General Phil Kearney would have been proud.

Steven Wilson / HuntersAndTheHunted.Com E-Mail: readermail@HuntersAndTheHunted.Com