Bozeman Trail

Establishment

Before 1863, reaching southwestern Montana Territory usually meant traveling from St. Louis up the Missouri River to Fort Benton, then following the Benton Road past the Great Falls and through the Chestnut, Hilger, and Prickly Pear valleys. That year, John Bozeman and John Jacobs scouted a more direct overland route from Virginia City, Montana, to central Wyoming, where it connected with the Oregon Trail. Their trail followed ancient north-south paths used for centuries by Native peoples through the Powder River Country.

It was shorter and had better water sources than any earlier route into Montana, and Bozeman and Jacobs widened it enough for wagons. However, the trail cut straight through lands held by the Shoshone, Arapaho, and Lakota. Under the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty, most of the route crossed Crow territory. But by around 1860, after large-scale battles, the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Lakota had taken over the southeastern part of that Crow domain.

The worst conflicts occurred along the roughly 250-mile southern stretch of the trail through that area. Emigrants usually felt relief only when they reached the final 190 miles west of the Bighorn River crossing, heading toward Bozeman.

The trail and travelers

During the few years the trail was open to emigrants, 3,500 traveled it, and Natives killed between 40 and 50 of them. The route was most often called the road to Montana rather than the Bozeman Trail. Although short in a straight line, the actual road was much longer due to hilly and undulating terrain. Shorter or longer stretches were altered every year to avoid the worst stages.

The journey took around eight weeks. Many travelers prepared by reading John Lyle Campbell's popular guidebook. Drowning and fatal accidents with firearms occurred, and some travelers died from mountain fever. Game including elk, mountain sheep, bear and buffalo was shot.

Travelers grouped in organized trains with chosen officers. One group, the Townsend Wagon Train, consisted of 150 wagons, 375 men, 36 women, 36 children, and 636 oxen. Every fifth person crossing the plains via the Bozeman Trail was a woman or a child. Each wagon paid the train pilot perhaps six dollars in 1864.

The trail began as a route for single emigrants and small families and later transformed into a supply route with freight wagons.

First travelers and Native American campaigns

The Bozeman Trail was first used by a wagon train led by John Bozeman in 1864. That same year, on July 7, a much larger group of over 400 people and 150 wagons under Abasalom Austin Townsend fought a battle with Native Americans, leaving casualties on both sides. From 1864 to 1866, Native attacks on white settlers grew sharply, leading the U.S. government to order military action against the Shoshone. General Patrick Edward Connor led early campaigns, including the Bear River Massacre, the Powder River Expedition of 1865, and a fight with the Arapaho at the Tongue River.

In 1866, Lieutenant General William Tecumseh Sherman approved building three forts to protect travelers. Sioux warriors under Red Cloud harassed soldiers, sparking Red Cloud's War. Colonel Henry B. Carrington commanded a well-fortified post midway along the trail, which was never directly attacked. But when Captain William J. Fetterman disobeyed orders and pursued attackers from Fort Phil Kearny, all eighty of his men died.

After this Fetterman Fight, the United States agreed in the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty to abandon all forts on the Bozeman Trail.

Post-Civil War travel

In the year following the Civil War, more settlers traveled the Bozeman Trail to reach Montana’s goldfields. That year, roughly 1,200 wagons carried about 2,000 people into the town of Bozeman. The U.S. Army held a meeting at Fort Laramie, which Lakota leader Red Cloud attended, hoping to secure permission for settlers to cross Lakota lands. But Red Cloud grew furious when he learned a U.S. infantry regiment was already moving along the route without any agreement from the Lakota.

That sparked Red Cloud’s War. The U.S. had recognized in 1851 that the Powder River area belonged to the Crow Nation, and the Lakota had agreed to that as well. Also in 1866, Nelson Story, a miner from Ohio who had struck it rich in Virginia City, Montana, drove about 1,000 longhorn cattle over the Bozeman Trail. The Army tried to stop him, fearing Native attacks, but Story pushed through to the Gallatin Valley, starting one of Montana’s first major cattle herds.

To protect travelers, the Army built Fort Reno, Fort Phil Kearny, and Fort C. F. Smith along the trail. All three stood west of the Powder River, outside the Lakota territory defined by the Fort Laramie Treaty. Still, the Sioux attacked, saying the Yellowstone region was theirs. Raids on the trail and forts continued.

After the Fetterman Fight on December 21, 1866, where the Lakota wiped out a detachment near Fort Phil Kearny, civilians stopped using the trail. On August 1 and August 2, 1867, U.S. troops held off large Lakota and Cheyenne forces trying to overrun Fort C. F. Smith and Fort Phil Kearny in the Hayfield Fight and Wagon Box Fight.