Firsthand Accounts of the Grattan Massacre and Start of the First Sioux War

"Engagement Between United States Troops and Sioux Indians. Letter from the Secretary of War, Transmitting Information Relating to an Engagement Between the United States Troops and the Sioux Indians Near Fort Laramie", U.S. War Department

This 27-page document describes how a small detachment of troops from Ft. Laramie under Lt. Grattan, a recent West Point graduate inexperienced in Indian affairs, entered a Sioux encampment and attempted to arrest an Indian who had taken an emigrant’s cow. The firsthand accounts in this document of what transpired and who shot first are inconsistent, but the result was the massacre of all 29 troops. This in turn prompted the Army to send General Harney to punish the Sioux. In 1855 at the Battle of Ash Hollow, also known as the Harney Massacre, Harney’s force defeated a group of Sioux, killing many women and children ending the first Sioux war but laying the seeds for ongoing conflict for the next three decades. For a modern analysis of what occurred, click here

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