The Lakota Leader Who Forced The U.S. Army To Abandon Its Forts — And Won A War Most Americans Never Learned About

It had not happened in Florida during the Seminole Wars.

It had not happened during the long series of conflicts east of the Mississippi that had displaced one nation after another.

It did not happen on the southern plains before or after Red Cloud’s War.

The Apache kept fighting in the Southwest until 1886, but their eventual defeat was military; they did not force a formal policy reversal.

The Nez Perce fought brilliantly in 1877 but were ultimately captured.

Red Cloud’s outcome — the formal abandonment of the forts and the closure of the trail, written into a treaty that the Senate ratified — was without close parallel in American history.