March Forth! A Directive from General Phil Sheridan

An acquaintance recently noted a play on the words for today’s date: March fourth (March Forth.) “March forth” is what General George Crook actually did on March 1^st of 1876. It was the beginning of what was intended to be the U.S. Army’s winter campaign against non-treaty Indians in 1876.

From his Chicago headquarters, General Phil Sheridan had ordered the winter campaign against non-treaty Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho bands. He did so after the Sioux repeatedly refused to sell the Black Hills to the U.S. in 1875. Sheridan commanded the army’s Department of the Missouri and its Department of the Platte. He would use columns, or mobile forces, marching from each department.

The campaign was set in motion by Brigadier General George Crook. Crook’s Wyoming Column began to march forth from Fort Fetterman, in Wyoming Territory. His was one of three military columns ordered to converge in a pincer-type movement intended to entrap and subdue the non-treaty tribes, forcing them to reservations.

As most readers know by now, the second column was the Montana Column, marching from Fort Shaw and Fort Ellis in Montana Territory. The third was General Alfred Terry’s Dakota Column, directed to march from Fort Abraham Lincoln in Dakota Territory.  Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer was its second-ranking officer. (Major Samuel Sturgis had remained behind at Fort A. Lincoln.)

 As Crook’s Wyoming Column began to “march forth,” it set in motion the events that would largely culminate at the Little Bighorn.

More posts will highlight these unfolding events as they coincide with specific dates in coming weeks and months.