A few months ago, I got into an argument coinciding with the push to remove Confederate monuments. The argument was over historical revisionism. While not usually a historical revisionist, I do see the need to adjust history to new historical research. As a high school American History teacher, it was always hard to change my lessons because I learned something that I taught for years was not true. How are you going to go back to all those students to correct the error? But it would be worse to continue to perpetuate the falsehood. In my Settling the West unit, I covered the Fetterman Massacre. But I also had read extensively about Red Cloud’s War as it was a particular interest of mine. In all the books I read, Fetterman was the arrogant glory-hound who bragged he could lick any number of Indians and was looking for the chance to prove it. That chance came on Dec. 21, 1866. Fetterman led 80 men into an ambush that cost all of them their lives. And to make matters worse, he disobeyed orders to boot. Until Custer made his last stand, Fetterman was the poster boy for underestimating Indians. That’s how I taught it. But recent scholarship has pointed to my possibly tainting the reputation of William Fetterman.
There are two parts to the revision of Fetterman. The first involves his famous boast: “With 80 men, I could ride through the whole Sioux nation.” This quote did not appear until 1904 in Cyrus Brady’s book “Indian Fights and Fighters”. Henry Carrington (the commander of Fort Phil Kearny) was interviewed for the book and read the manuscript. Since Carrington had saved his career by blaming the disaster on Fetterman, he would have approved the quote, even if he had never heard it said. If you think about it, it is a bit suspicious for Fetterman to have used the exact number of men that he would eventually lead to their deaths. What Fetterman apparently did say, as reported by Margaret Carrington in her book “Ab-Sa-Ra-Ka: Home of the Crows”, was that “a company of regulars could whip a thousand and a regiment could whip the whole array of hostile tribes.” This sounds like typical soldier boasting and would not have been unusual for an officer on the Plains. So, we can probably discount that Fetterman was an unusually arrogant braggart who predicted his own demise.
As to the disobeying orders, there seems little doubt that he did. The situation that day was that the wood-cutting detail (the fort had to send out groups of woodcutters to a distant woods to cut the necessary wood for the fort) had come under attack. This was not unusual. Carrington ordered Fetterman to take 53 men from his 18th Infantry Regiment to protect the detail. He insisted that Fetterman only save the detail and under no circumstances chase the Indians, especially over Lodge Trail Ridge. Carrington repeated the order to Lt. George Grummond who led 27 cavalrymen from the 2nd Cavalry. The 81 men proceeded toward the woodcutters, but soon it was apparent the Indian threat was over and the Indians were withdrawing toward Lodge Trail Ridge. At this point, Fetterman decided to seize the initiative and try to cut off the Indians. This disobeying of orders would not have been unusual. The unwritten rule in the Civil War and Indian Wars was that you could use your own initiative, as long as you won. Carrington could clearly see the change of plans and could have sent a courier to turn him back, but he didn’t. When Fetterman failed to cut off the Indians, he proceeded over the ridge chasing several Indian decoys (led by Crazy Horse). Actually, he followed Grummond’s men over the ridge as the cavalry was in the lead. It is possible that Grummond was the hot-head who rode into a trap and Fetterman was simply supporting his rash action. Ironically, both had been in a similar decoyed ambush on Dec. 6. Grummond had almost been killed. Upon returning to the fort that day, Fetterman had admitted to Carrington that he had underestimated the Indians and would be more cautious next time. Apparently, Grummond had not gotten the same lesson. And maybe Fetterman had forgotten the lesson in the heat of pursuit.
When Carrington and the rest of the fort heard gunfire from beyond the ridge, there was no immediate concern. The soldiers had never encountered Indian war parties much larger than 100 warriors. 81 men should be able to handle whatever was on the other side of the ridge. No one could have anticipated 1,500-2,000 enraged Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne. It was only after the battle that the number was used to make Fetterman look like a lunatic who marched into an unwinnable fight. (As a bonus revision, it appears that although Capt. Frederick Brown shot himself, Fetterman most likely was killed by American Horse. They did not shoot each other in a suicide pact.)
I am not totally convinced by the recent scholarship, but I am willing to concede that what I taught about the Fetterman Massacre was likely off in some of the long-accepted facts. I still believe Fetterman was overconfident and should not have disobeyed the order. There is no dispute that he was suckered by a decoy tactic that he had seen before, so there was no excuse for crossing the ridge, even if he thought there would not be very many Indians. Why would Crazy Horse have decoyed the whites if the Indians were not prepared for a fight? However, it does appear that the Carringtons laid the besmirching on thick. Fetterman does not deserve to be considered a more arrogant fool than Custer.
https://www.historynet.com/the-falsehoods-of-fettermans-fight.htm
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