Bozeman Trail Totally Explained

Everything about The Bozeman Trail totally explained

The Bozeman Trail was an overland route connecting the Oregon Trail to the gold rush territory of Montana. The flow of white settlers along the trail caused several military campaigns between the Indians and the U.S. army.

Establishment

In 1863 John Bozeman and John Jacobs scouted out a direct route from Virginia City, Montana into central Wyoming. This route provided a more direct route and was better watered than any previous trail into Montana. The only serious drawback was that it was a direct route through Indian territory.

First travelers and Indian campaigns

Bozeman, among others, led the first group of about 2,000 settlers up the trail in 1864. Indian raids on white settlers grew dramatically from 1864 to 1866. This prompted the U.S. army to carry out several military campaigns against the Indians. Patrick Edward Connor led several of the earliest campaigns. He defeated the Shoshone at the Battle of Bear River, then during the Powder River Expedition of 1865 he defeated the Arapaho at the Battle of the Tongue River.

Post Civil War travel

In 1866, with the close of the American Civil War additional settlers traveled up the trail, mostly in search of gold. The U.S Army called a council at Fort Laramie with the Indians, at which Lakota leader Red Cloud was present. The purpose of the meeting was to arrange a right of way with the Lakota for use of the trail. As negotiations were ongoing, Red Cloud was outraged when he found out that a regiment of U.S. infantry was using the route without permission from the Lakota nation and Red Cloud's War began. The Army established Fort Reno, Fort Phil Kearny and Fort C. F. Smith along the route, but Indian raids along the trail and around the forts continued. When the Lakota annihilated a detachment under William J. Fetterman at the Fetterman Fight the same year, near Fort Phil Kearny, civilian travel along the trail ceased. On August 1, 1867 and August 2, 1867, large parties of Lakota Indians were stymied in an apparent co-ordinated attempt to overrun Fort C. F. Smith and Fort Phil Kearny when attacks on outlying parties failed (the Hayfield Fight and the Wagon Box Fight respectively). Later, the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie gave the Lakota control of the Powder River Country, which for a time shut down travel by white settlers on the Bozeman Trail. Ulysses S. Grant ordered the forts along the trail abandoned. Thus Red Cloud's War could be said to be the only Indian war in which Native Americans achieved their goals (if only for a brief time) with a treaty settlement essentially on their terms. By 1876, however, following the Black Hills War, the trail reopened. The army continued to use the trail during later military campaigns and a telegraph line was eventually built along the trail.

Modern route

Today, a modern highway route consisting of Interstate 25 from Douglas, Wyoming to Sheridan, Wyoming. Interstate 90 from Sheridan, Wyoming to Three Forks, Montana (30 miles west of Bozeman, Montana) and U.S. Route 287 from Three Forks to Virginia City, Montana roughly covers the same general route as the historic Bozeman Trail, though it isn't precisely analogous to it.

Further Information

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