Hunting Party Gone Wrong

Hunting Party Gone Wrong. . One the morning of May 23, 1876, two cavalrymen and a citizen teamster, attached to Colonel John Gibbon's Montana Column, were ambushed by a war party of Lakota in the bluffs on the north side of the Yellowstone a few miles downriver from this location. All three men were surrounded by Indians and killed in a short, intense firefight. , These men had taken it upon themselves to go hunting without permission although at times Colonel Gibbon permitted the practice. According to the journal of Lieutenant James Bradley, Gibbon's chief of scouts, the Colonel allowed his men to hunt because he viewed the experience being good for his men in terms of relieving camp boredom. Hunting parties also served as an effective means of scouting in the immediate vicinity of the base camp. A successful hunt also provided fresh meat for the troops. , Another hunting party observed the attack and returned to the base camp to get help. Three companies of the Second Cavalry found the bodies of the men a few miles north of Gibbon's camp. Two of the companies followed the trail of the hostiles for a period of time but broke off the pursuit suspecting a trap. The third company assisted in bringing the bodies back to camp for burial. , The bodies were wrapped in blankets donated by Crow scouts and buried beneath one of the large cottonwood trees northwest of the camp. A burial service was conducted at 7:00 PM with military honors. The diary of Holmes O. Paulding, a doctor attached to the Montana Column, records that hostiles were in attendance during a portion of the funeral service. The Lakota watched the proceedings from the bluffs on the south side of the Yellowstone River.