Major General Grenville M. Dodge orders the Powder River expedition as a punitive campaign against the Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho.

It is led by Brigadier General Patrick E. Connor.

Dodge orders Connor to "make vigorous war upon the Indians and punish them so that they will be forced to keep the peace." (Hampton, H.D. "The Powder River Expedition 1865" Montana: The Magazine of Western History, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Autumn 1964)).

The Connor expedition is one of the last Indian war campaigns carried out by U.S Volunteer soldiers.

One of Connor's guides is the legendary frontiersman Jim Bridger, who in the previous year had blazed the Bridger Trail, an alternate route from Wyoming to the gold fields of Montana that avoided the dangerous Bozeman Trail.

Connor's strategy is for three columns of soldiers to march into the Powder River Country.

The "Right Column" is composed of fourteen hundred Missouri soldiers, mostly mounted, led by Colonel Nelson Cole.

It marches from Omaha, Nebraska and is to follow the Loup River in Nebraska westward to the Black Hills and meet up with Connor near the Powder River.

The "Center Column" of six hundred men is commanded by Samuel Walker of the 16th Kansas Cavalry and is to head north from Fort Laramie and traverse the country west of the Black Hills.

The "Left Column" of six hundred and seventy-five men is composed of the 6th Michigan Volunteer Cavalry Regiment under Colonel James H. Kidd, recently transferred from the Civil War battlefields of Virginia.

This command includes ninety-five Pawnee and eighty-four Omaha scouts and a wagon train full of supplies with one hundred and ninety-five civilian teamsters.

General Connor will personally accompany Kidd's column and will move along the Powder River with the goal of establishing a fort near the Bozeman Trail.

All three columns are to unite at the new fort.

Connor's orders to his commanders are, "You will not receive overtures of peace or submission from Indians, but will attack and kill every male Indian over twelve years of age."

Connor's superiors, Generals Pope and Dodge, attempt to countermand this order, but too late, as Connor's expedition has already departed and is out of contact.

Colonel Cole had left Omaha on July 1 with his fourteen hundred men and one hundred and forty wagon-loads of supplies.

Following the Loup River upstream, they had gone cross country to Bear Butte, near present day Sturgis, South Dakota, arriving there on August 13.

Cole hadn't see a single native during the five hundred and sixty-mile (nine hundred kilometer-) march, but his command had suffered from thirst, diminishing supplies, and near mutinies.

Colonel Walker and his six hundred men had left Fort Laramie on August 6 and meet up with Cole on August 19 near the Black Hills.

He had likewise encountered no natives and had suffered from shortages of water.

The two columns march separately, but remain in contact as they move westward to the Powder River.

By this time the men are barefoot and horses and mules are dying—and they have still not encountered any natives.

General Connor and Colonel Kidd and their six hundred and seventy-five soldiers, native scouts, and teamsters had left Fort Laramie on August 2 to unite with the commands of Cole and Walker.

Proceeding northward, they established a fort on the upper Powder River which is named Fort Connor.

On August 16, Major Frank North and the Pawnee scouts discover a native trail, follow it, attack a group of twenty-four Cheyenne warriors, and kill them all.

A few days later, North has his horse shot from under him by Cheyennes but is rescued by the Pawnee.

The Battle of the Tongue River is the most significant engagement of the Powder River Expedition.

Connor marches north from Fort Connor and on August 28 Frank North and his Pawnee scouts find an Arapaho village of about six hundred people on the Tongue River near present day Ranchester, Wyoming.

Connor sends in two hundred soldiers with two howitzers and forty Omaha and Winnebago and thirty Pawnee scouts, and march that night toward the village. (The Pawnee, Omaha, and Winnebago tribes are traditional enemies of the Arapaho and their Cheyenne and Lakota allies.)

With mountain man Jim Bridger leading the forces they charge the village, whose leader is Black Bear.

The people in the village are primarily women, children, and old men, as most of the warriors are absent, engaged in a war with the Crow on the Bighorn River.

The few warriors present at the camp put up a strong defense and cover the women and children as most escape beyond the reach of the soldiers and Indian scouts.

The surprised natives flee the village, but regroup and counterattack and Connor is dissuaded from pursuing them.

The battle is a U.S. victory, resulting in sixty-three Arapaho dead, mostly women and children.

After the battle the soldiers burn and loot the abandon tipis and capture eight women and thirteen children, who are subsequently released.

The Pawnee make off with the five hundred horses from the camp's herd as payback for previous raids by the Arapaho.

Connor, who singles out four Winnebago, including chief Little Priest, plus North and fifteen Pawnee for bravery, claims to have killed thirty-five Arapaho warriors, a total probably exaggerated, at a cost to his force of five dead.

Connor now turns around and returns to Fort Connor, harassed en route by the Arapaho.

The Arapaho, who had not been overtly hostile before, now join the Sioux and Cheyenne.

A train of eighty wagons, engineers, supplies, and three companies of soldier escorts led by James A. Sawyer is meanwhile en route to meet Connor on the Powder River with the plan to continue on to Montana.

Sawyer's group is to construct a new road for the use of emigrants to the Montana gold fields.

At Pumpkin Butte, near present day Wright, Wyoming, a band of Cheyenne and Sioux kill several men and surround the wagon train.

After four days of sniping back and forth, Red Cloud, Dull Knife, and George and his brother Charles Bent negotiate with Sawyer a safe passage for the wagon train in exchange for a wagon load of supplies.

George Bent, the soldiers report, is dressed in a U.S. military uniform.

The wagon train moves on but, on August 31, Arapaho, infuriated by the destruction of their village on the Tongue River, attack the wagon train, killing three men and losing two of their own.

Cole and Walker, in desperate need of supplies, have decided to follow the Powder River north, to search for Connor and his wagon train.

On September 1, on Alkali Creek, near Broadus, Montana, they have their first encounter with natives.

About three hundred Hunkpapa, Sans Arc, and Miniconjou Lakota Sioux raid the soldiers' horse herd.

The soldiers guarding the horses "dropped their guns and run."

Six soldiers are killed.

Connor rescues Sawyer and the wagon train on September 4.

The soldiers had continued north to the mouth of the Mizpah River east of Miles City, Montana.

There, the two commanders had decided to turn around and retrace their steps south along the Powder River to look for Connor.

They are attacked again on September 5 near Powderville, Montana, by one thousand Cheyenne and Lakotas, the natives hoping to lure the soldiers into an ambush.

The Cheyenne war leader Roman Nose contributes to his legend of invincibility by racing his horse on several occasions in front of the soldiers' guns and escaping untouched.

Crazy Horse is among the Lakota attackers.

The Cheyenne had left the native army after the battle near Powderville, but the Lakota have continued to harass Cole and Walker as the soldiers retreated southward up the Powder River.

They had attacked again on September 8 and 9, but were beaten off.

A snowstorm had caused further problems for the soldiers most of whom are now on foot, in rags, and reduced to eating raw horse meat.

On September 13, Connor's Pawnee scouts had found Walker and Cole and led them to the newly established Fort Connor (later Fort Reno) on the Powder River east of Kaycee, Wyoming.

Cole and Walker and their soldiers had arrived there on September 20.

Cole had reported twelve men killed and two missing.

Walker had reported one man killed and four wounded.

Cole claims that his soldiers had killed two hundred natives.

By contrast, Walker says, "I cannot say as we killed one."

Native casualties are likely light.

George Bent, a Cheyenne warrior and a participant in the battles, only mentions one native killed and says that the Lakota would have annihilated Cole and Walker had they possessed more good firearms. (Hyde, George E. Life of George Bent: Written from his Letters Norman: University of Oklahoma press, pp. 240-241)

Connor finally unites all the components of his expedition on September 24 at Fort Connor.

However, orders transferring him to Utah are awaiting him when he arrives here.

The 16th Kansas Volunteer Cavalry remains to staff Fort Connor and all other troops withdraw to Fort Laramie, most to be mustered out of the army.

Although achieving some successes, the expedition has failed to defeat decisively or intimidate the natives.

Native resistance to travelers on the Bozeman Trail becomes more determined than ever.

"There will be no more travel on that road until the government takes care of the Indians," a correspondent wrote. (Brown, Dee. The Fetterman Massacre Lincoln: U of NE Press, 1962, p. 15).

The most important consequence of the expedition has been to persuade the United States government that another effort to build and protect a wagon road from Fort Laramie to the gold fields in Montana is desirable.

This conviction will lead to a renewed invasion of the Powder River country a year later and Red Cloud's War, the first major military conflict between the United States and the Wyoming tribes, and one in which the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho will emerge victorious.