Grattan Massacre - Aftermath

Aftermath

The enraged warriors "rampaged throughout the night, swearing to attack other whites." They rode against Fort Laramie the next morning but withdrew; they looted the trading post but did not harm Bourdeau. On the third day after the US attack, the Brule and Oglala abandoned the camp on the North Platte River and returned to their respective hunting grounds. On the fourth day, the military asked Bourdeau to arrange a burial party. His team went to the scene and found that the slain soldiers had been ritually mutilated. Grattan’s body was identified by his watch and was returned to the post for burial. The remains of the troops were interred at the site in the same shallow grave.

The soldiers' remains were later exhumed and re-interred at Fort McPherson National Cemetery, where a white marble monument was erected in their memory. Grattan's remains were moved later to Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery in Kansas. A historical marker was later erected about one-half mile from the site of the events (see photo above.)

The U.S. press called the event the "Grattan Massacre." Accounts generally ignored the US soldiers' instigation of the event by shooting Conquering Bear in the back, and Grattan's violation of the treaty provisions. When news of the fight reached the War Department, officials started planning retaliation to punish the Sioux. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis characterized the incident as "the result of a deliberately formed plan."

William S. Harney was recalled from Paris in April 1855 and sent to Fort Kearny, where he assembled a command of 600 troops consisting of troops from the 6th Infantry, 10th Infantry, 4th Artillery, and his own 2nd US Dragoons. In all he had four mounted companies led by Lt. Col. Philip St. George Cooke and five companies of infantry under Major Albemarle Cady. They set out on August 24, 1855 to find and exact retribution on the Sioux. Harney was quoted as saying, "By God, I'm for battle—no peace."

Warned by Thomas S. Twiss of the Indian Bureau that the army had put a force in the field, half of the Lakota camped north of the Platte came in to Fort Laramie to be treated as friendly. The other half, generally led by Conquering Bear's successor Little Thunder, remained at large, considering themselves peaceful but aware of Harney's approach and continuing to harbor warriors sought by the army. Harney engaged them in the Battle of Ash Hollow (also known as the Battle of Bluewater Creek) on September 3, 1855, in which U.S. soldiers killed a number of Brulé Sioux in present-day Garden County, Nebraska. The village of 230 persons was caught between an assault by the infantry and a blocking force by the cavalry.

Harney returned to Fort Laramie with 70 prisoners. On October 25 the three warriors sought by the expedition surrendered themselves, were held for a year at Fort Leavenworth, then released. Harney ordered the tribes to send representatives to a treaty council at Fort Pierre in March 1856, where a treaty was signed on terms dictated by the War Department. However Twiss tried to undermine the treaty and Harney had him removed from office without possessing the legal authority to do so. Commissioner of Indian Affairs George W. Manypenny then successfully lobbied the Senate to reject the treaty and Twiss was reinstated. Nevertheless, the specter of Harney restrained the Lakota for nearly ten years.

Historians such as Griske believe the following nearly quarter-century of intermittent warfare on the Great Plains was triggered by the Grattan massacre. Others suggest numerous factors, especially US desire for control of lands that were Sioux territory, as to make warfare inevitable.