The Big Grattan Shootout

My new book, THIEVES, RASCALS & SORE LOSERS, looks at some of the Dirtiest Deals in early Nebraska history. To my mind, the Grattan Shootout, a Great Plains fiasco, was even dirtier. But it didn't happen in Nebraska, so it's not in my book. Instead, I offer it to you here.

The Big Grattan Shootout

Soldiers at Fort Laramie, located on a bluff overlooking two rivers, kept tabs on the tens of thousands of people then using the Oregon Trail each year. It also watched over neighboring Sioux tribes. The old adobe brick fort, once a trading post for buffalo robes but now owned by the army, became a primary stop for travelers. 

The fort had been peaceful since 1851 when Congress appropriated $100,000 for a council or "Big Talk." Some 10,000 Indians showed up, the largest group ever gathered on the high plains. Whole villages of Cheyenne, Arapahoe, Crow, Shoshoni, and various Sioux tribes arrived with elders, kids, women, and an astonishing number of dogs and ponies. Their men parleyed with the 300 Americans: government officials, soldiers, missionaries, and frontiersmen. 

An amazing treaty resulted. The tribes agreed not to fight with one another, to live where the American officials told them, and not to molest wagon trains winding up nearby Oregon and Mormon trails. The Americans, in turn, promised to give tribes $50,000 worth of supplies, including guns and ammunition. This they would do each year for fifty years, a number the Senate slashed to ten.  

Three years after the treaty, on August 18, 1854, some 600 native lodges dotted the North Platte valley ten miles east of Fort Laramie. About 4,000 Sioux camped there. They'd come, as they had each year since the "Big Talk," to collect their U.S. supplies. The various Sioux tribes included Conquering Bear's Brulé Sioux camp with 1,200 warriors. 

As the tribes waited, a lame cow from a passing Mormon wagon train ambled into Conquering Bear's village. Its owner followed, saw hundreds of Sioux, and withdrew. 

When High Forehead, a visiting Sioux, saw the Mormon leave, he figured the cow had been abandoned. So he killed it. His family and friends helped him eat it. 

The Mormon went to Fort Laramie and reported the "theft" to the commanding officer, Captain Hugh B. Fleming. He summoned Conquering Bear, who offered to make amends.

"I can't replace his cow," he told Fleming. "My people prefer to eat buffalo, so we keep no cows. But I have a herd of sixty horses, and he may have the best pony out of my herd."

Ponies provided substantial wealth to the Sioux, so this proposal seemed generous. However, Conquering Bear didn't trust the translation of the fort interpreter, Lucien Auguste. Auguste spoke broken Dakota Sioux, not the Lakota Sioux spoken by the Brulé, Oglala, and Minneconjou bands in Conquering Bear's camp. Besides, the man seemed belligerent.

So did Captain Fleming. He refused the offer. "Bring High Forehead to the fort," he ordered Conquering Bear.

"I can't do that," the chief said. "High Forehead doesn't belong to my people. He belongs to the Minneconjou, and is a guest in my village. I can't make my guest come to the fort."

Fleming smarted. This redskin defying him? He'd be dashed if he'd let an old Injun call the shots! The treaty be damned! He'd see to High Forehead's arrest himself.

The captain chose hot-tempered, rash Brevet 2nd Lieutenant John L. Grattan, in his early twenties and fresh out of West Point, to arrest High Forehead. Moreover, Fleming gave broad powers to young Grattan, a well-known "headstrong package of inexperience." 

"With thirty men," the young man said, "I can crush all the Indians on the Great Plains."

The next afternoon, Grattan left with twenty-nine soldiers, a wagon, two twelve-pound howitzers or cannons, and the fort's half-breed interpreter, Auguste. On the ten-mile excursion to the Sioux camp, they stopped at nearby trading posts. The interpreter got soused, hollered threats at loitering natives, and ignored Grattan's attempts to quiet him. 

Auguste continued to shout obscenities as the soldiers advanced on the Sioux village of eighty Brulé and twenty Minneconjou tipis. He rode his horse up and down at a full gallop, as though he readied himself for combat. The Sioux knew a threat when they saw one.

When the soldiers entered the camp, Auguste called the Sioux warriors "women." A dismayed Conquering Bear urged Grattan to use the Brulé's translator. 

Instead the soldiers marched to High Forehead's lodge where the cow-eater stood in plain sight. Grattan ordered him to surrender, but he refused. He said he'd die first.  

Troubled, Conquering Bear and other chiefs offered more ponies and still more, until the Mormon could have his pick of five ponies from five different Brulé herds. The chiefs begged Grattan to wait for the Indian agent to arrive, but the hothead refused.

Outraged Sioux encircled the lieutenant and his soldiers. Women and children fled toward the river. A soldier fired. An Indian fell, but Conquering Bear cautioned warriors not to shoot back. 

"Fire the howitzer!" Grattan said. It missed the village, but mortally wounded Conquering Bear. When he slumped to the ground, High Forehead killed Grattan and the Sioux camp went wild.

The soldiers retreated, fighting a running battle, but before they could escape, they were dead except for one who made his way to the fort. Once there, he could say nothing. His tongue had been cut out. Auguste, the interpreter, perhaps?