page_title: Wagon Box Fight
section_title: Aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: Wagon Box Fight / Aftermath
caption_attribution_description: English: Wyoming historical marker at Wagon Box Fight site.
context_page_description: The Wagon Box Fight was an engagement on August 2, 1867, in the vicinity of Fort Phil Kearny, Wyoming, during Red Cloud's War. A party of 26 US Army soldiers and 6 civilians were attacked by several hundred Lakota Sioux warriors. Although outnumbered, the soldiers were armed with newly supplied breech-loading Springfield Model 1866 rifles and Lever Action Henry rifles, and had a defensive wall of wagon boxes to protect them. They held off the attackers for hours with few casualties, although they lost a large number of horses and mules driven off by the raiders.
  This was the last major engagement of the war, although Lakota and allied forces continued to raid European-American parties along the Bozeman Trail. The area has been designated as a Wyoming State Historic Site and is marked by a memorial and an historic plaque.
context_section_description: The Wagon Box Fight is prominent in the folklore and literature of the Old West as an example of a small group of well-equipped professionals holding off a much larger but poorly equipped force. The new, faster-shooting rifles are cited as the principal reason for their success.
  Estimates of casualties among the Sioux and Cheyenne warriors range from "an unlikely low of two to an absurd fifteen hundred." Captain Powell estimated that his men killed 60, a "wildly exaggerated" estimate in the opinion of historian Keenan. 
  The Wagon Box Fight was the last major engagement of Red Cloud's War. Possibly the results of this battle, and the similar Hayfield Fight near Fort C.F. Smith a day earlier, discouraged the native warriors from attempting additional large-scale attacks against government forces. "This was the last large charge Crazy Horse ever led against whites occupying a strong defensive position. He had learned that Indians with bows and arrows could not overwhelm whites armed with breech-loaders inside a fortification." For the remainder of 1867, the Lakota and their allies concentrated on small-scale, hit-and-run raids against parties along the Bozeman Trail.
  Wyoming has designated the area as a state historic site; a large plaque explains the details of the fight.
caption: Wyoming historical marker at Wagon Box site
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