Significant Characters Who
Passed Through Fort Laramie

Bidwell-Bartelson Party
Passed through Fort Laramie on June 22, 1841, en route to California. This group of emigrants would constitute the vanguard of the migration to the West Coast.

Father Pierre Jean DeSmet S.J.
Probably the most notable of all the missionaries who ventured into the Great American West. Father DeSmet first visited Fort Laramie (Fort William) on June 4, 1840—the last year that fort existed. On July 25, 1840, Father DeSmet celebrated the first Catholic mass in Wyoming. DeSmet returned to Fort Laramie in 1851, to attend the treaty council, and was instrumental in successfully completing the negotiations. While at the council, he baptized no less than 988 participants.

Lieutenant Daniel P. Woodbury
Officer of the Corps of Engineers, detailed to locate a fort somewhere in the vicinity of Laramie’s Fork on the North Platte River. After surveying a number of sites in the vicinity, Woodbury choose the site occupied by Fort John—the second Fort Laramie. On June 26, 1849, Woodbury purchased the old fur trading post for $4,000, and thus it officially passed into the hands of the U.S. Army and became Fort Laramie.

Brevet 2nd Lieutenant John L. Grattan
Impetuous young officer of the Sixth U.S. Infantry. On August 19, 1854, Grattan was put in command of a detachment of 29 enlisted men and an interpreter and was sent to arrest a Miniconjou Indian for supposedly stealing and killing an emigrant’s cow in a Brule Indian camp eight miles east of Fort Laramie. It is unknown exactly what transpired at the Indian village, which may have contained as many as 4,000 people. Fighting broke out, claiming the life of Chief Conquering Bear, Grattan, the 29 enlisted men, and the interpreter. Most historians acknowledge this to be the first major battle of the Northern Plains Indian Wars.

General William S. Harney
On September 3, 1855, Harney lead his troops to Ash Hollow, Nebraska, where Little Thunder and his band of Brules were encamped on Blue Water Creek. Harney attacked the village in retaliation for the Grattan fight a year earlier. Harney killed 86 Indians and took another 70 women and children captive. Harney then proceeded to Fort Laramie for a council with a delegation of Sioux chiefs. Harney threatened the Indians with continuing military action if any further depredations occurred along the trail. Harney again played a significant role in Plains Indian affairs in 1868 as part of the Indian Peace Commission held at Fort Laramie.

Ordnance Sergeant Leodegar Schnyder
One of the least known but most significant figures in the history of Fort Laramie. Schnyder arrived at Fort Laramie with Company G, 6th U.S. Infantry, on August 12, 1849. He was appointed as assistant post librarian on September 17, 1851. Schnyder was promoted to the rank of Post Ordnance Sergeant on December 1, 1851. On September 17, 1859, he was appointed Garrison Postmaster, concurrent with his other duties. Despite requesting transfers on numerous occasions, Schnyder did not leave Fort Laramie until the fall of 1886. Schnyder retired in 1890. Ordnance Sergeant Schnyder holds the record for the longest term of service at Fort Laramie, 37 years, and is among the record holders for the longest term of service in the U.S. Army for an enlisted man—a total of 53 years.

Spotted Tail (Sinte Galeska)—Chief of the Brule Sioux. Spotted Tail was bom in 1823, and frequented the Fort Laramie region both as a child and as an adult. Spotted Tail was considered one of the greatest Sioux chiefs of his period. He was a brilliant orator, as well as a distinguished warrior. Lt. Eugene Ware states that Spotted Tail had counted 26 coups in personal combat. Spotted Tail was considered a peace chief. After witnessing the destruction of his village by General Harney in 1855, he recognized the futility of war with the whites. However, he was consistently an outspoken advocate for the rights of his people. Perhaps the most notable of Spotted Tail’s many visits to Fort Laramie occurred in 1866, when he came to bury his daughter.

Wheat Flour (Ah-ho-ap-pa)
Ah-ho-ap-pa was the daughter of the Brule Chief Spotted Tail. Legend has it that she was enamored by the white way of life. She reputedly fell in love with an army officer at Fort Laramie, but was separated from him when he was transferred to another post. Apparently one of Ah-ho-ap-pa’s favorite pastimes was watching the soldiers at formal dress parades. Although much of her life is a mystery, we do know that in keeping with his daughter’s wishes, Spotted Tail brought her to Fort Laramie for burial. Colonel Henry Maynadier provided a military escort for the burial party and arranged to have a scaffold erected on the high ground overlooking the fort to the north. Maynadier issued orders to provide full military honors to the girl. After the tumultuous events of 1876, Spotted Tail retrieved his daughter’s bones and took them to the reservation for reburial.

Red Cloud (Mahpialuta)
Chief of the Oglala Sioux. Red Cloud was one of the most influential of the Sioux leaders. Red Cloud consolidated his leadership of the Oglala and was considered their principle leader by 1865. He was a frequent visitor to the Fort Laramie area. From 1866-1868 he led the Sioux in opposing white encroachment into the Powder River country. “Red Cloud’s War,” as it. became known, proved to be very costly to the U.S. Army and white emigrants on the Bozeman Trail. Red Cloud won the war by forcing the government to abandon the Bozeman Trail forts and negotiate a treaty—the only such victory the Sioux could claim throughout the Indian Wars period. Thinking the whites would now keep their word, Red Cloud signed the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. He continued to be a champion of Indian rights and to oppose any further encroachment of Indian lands.