Washita Battlefield National Historic Site
 George Custer v. Black Kettle
The Oklahoma attack came unexpectedly at morning’s first light
when the village was most vulnerable. It began with a rifle shot, a
bugle sounding "Charge!" and a band playing the opening strains of
"Garry Owen." In a moment all was tumult as the charging troopers
of Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer’s 7th Cavalry came splashing
across the frigid Washita River into the sleeping Cheyenne camp of
Chief Black Kettle. The 7th Calvary came in four battalions.
Custer led the largest straight into the village. Maj. Joel Elliott
and Capts. William Thompson attempt to surround the camp and
Edwards Myers led the others northeast and southwest in an attempt
to surround the encampment. While Custer watched from a knoll to
the south, the soldiers drove the Cheyenne from their lodges
barefoot and half-clothed and pursued them in all directions. Some
of the warriors fought and died in the village; others took up
positions behind trees and in ravines and returned fire; many of
them escaped. The village’s leader, 67-year-old Black Kettle, and
his wife Medicine Woman Later, were killed by soldiers while trying
to cross the Washita River. When the firing ceased two hours later,
as many as 35 Cheyenne lay dead in the snow and mud.
Following Sheridan’s plan to cripple resistance. Custer ordered
the slaughter of the village’s pony and mule herds, estimated at
more than 800 animals. He also ordered the burning of the Cheyenne
lodges, with all their winter supply of food and clothing. Then,
realizing that many more Indians were threatening from the east,
Custer feigned an attack toward their downriver camps and quickly
retreated to Camp Supply with his captives – 53 women and children.
The engagement at the Washita might have ended very differently if
the larger Indian encampments to the northeast had been closer to
Black Kettle’s camp. The impact of losing winter supplies, plus the
knowledge that cold weather no longer provided protection from
attack, force many bands to accept reservation life.
 Prelude to the
Attack
Events leading to the attack at Washita River began on November
29, 1864, when troops under the command of Col. J.M. Chivington
attacked and destroyed Black Kettle’s village on Sand Creek, 40
miles from Fort Lyon, Colorado Territory. At the time, Black Kettle
had been pursuing a policy of peace with whites and believed his
village to be under U.S. Army protection. Black Kettle survived the
attack, but at least 150 Cheyenne and Arapaho men, women, and
children were killed and horribly mutilated. It came to be known as
the Sand Creek Massacre and resulted in a massive public outcry as
well as months of retaliatory raids by Cheyenne, Arapaho, and
Lakota warriors.
Indian Treaty
When the army failed to end the raids, a federal commission was
created to make an Indian treaty with the raiding
tribesmen. By the terms of the Treaty of Little Arkansas, signed on
October 17, 1865, and the Treaty of Medicine Lodge of October 1867,
the Cheyenne, Arapaho, and other tribes agreed to stop their
raiding and settle on reservations in Indian Territory (now
Oklahoma). There they were to receive permanent homes, agricultural
implements, weapons and ammunition for hunting, and annuities for
food, blankets, and clothing. The treaties did not bring peace.
Many tribal officials refused to sign. Some who did sign had no
authority to compel their people to comply with such agreements.
And Congress was slow to ratify the treaties and annuities often
failed to arrive. Warrior societies, mostly young men violently
opposed to reservation life, continued hostilities.
 Winter Campaign of the
7th Calvary
Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, commanding the Department of the
Missouri, adopted a policy that "punishment must follow crime."
Frustrated that more traditional campaigning methods failed to
defeat the Plains warriors in the field, he prepared a winter
campaign when Indian horses would be weak and unfit for all but the
most limited service. To this end, on November 23, 1868, Lt. Col.
George Armstrong Custer set out from Camp Supply in Indian
Territory with about 700 7th Cavalry troopers and a
dozen Osage scouts. His objective: the Washita River valley where
some 6,000 Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Kiowa had laid out winter camps.
Traveling through a foot of new snow, the command reached the
Washita valley shortly after midnight on November 27 and silently
took up positions near an Indian encampment the scouts had
discovered at a bend in the river. Coincidentally, the village was
that of Black Kettle, who had survived Sand Creek and who had tried
so diligently to avoid conflict.
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