The political process that produced the decision to abandon the Bozeman Trail forts involved a genuine debate within the U.S. government about the relative merits of military and diplomatic approaches to the Plains Indian conflicts.

The Peace Commission created by Congress in 1867 included both military and civilian members, and the debates within it reflected the genuine division in American policy.

The military members tended to favor continued pressure, arguing that concession would embolden resistance elsewhere.

The civilian members — often with more direct experience of the cost of the military approach and less institutional investment in its success — tended to argue for the pragmatic benefits of treaty settlement.

The civilian faction’s argument was ultimately more persuasive, for reasons that had as much to do with fiscal politics as with any principled position on Indigenous rights.