Significant Characters Who
Passed Through Fort Laramie

Colonel Henry Carrington
Commanding officer of the 18th U.S. Infantry. Carrington passed through Fort Laramie on June 13, 1866, with his troops, en route to the Powder River country to establish forts along the Bozeman Trail. Unfortunately peace negotiations were in progress at Fort Laramie during this time for the purpose of securing the right of travel on the trail. After learning of the soldier’s mission, the peace council failed, and Red Cloud began his war. Colonel Carrington was in command of Fort Phil Kearny at the time of the Fetterman Fight. The serious losses incurred during the fight cost Carrington his command and forever tarnished his reputation.

Lieutenant Caspar Collins
Son of the Post Commander, William 0. Collins, and officer of the 11 th Ohio Volunteer Cavalry. Collins left detailed accounts of life at Fort Laramie during the Civil War period. Unfortunately for young Collins, he became most well-known in death. On July 25, 1865, Collins led a group of 25 soldiers out of Platte River Bridge Station to relieve a detachment of ten soldiers guarding a supply train that was approaching the station. Indians closed in on the soldiers; Collins’s horse bolted and ran into the group of Sioux. Collins and four other soldiers were killed. Platte River Bridge Station was soon renamed Fort Caspar. The city of Casper, Wyoming now stands on the site.

Colonel Thomas Moonlight
Moonlight was probably the most incompetent of the long list of officers who commanded Fort Laramie. Of all the tragic blunders that Moonlight made, the hanging of Chiefs Two Face and Black Foot in 1865 was probably the most infamous. Two Face and Black Foot brought white captive Mrs. Eubank and her baby to Fort Laramie to turn them over to the Army. Mrs. Eubank had been taken captive during a raid by the Cheyenne on the Little Blue the proceeding year. Apparently the chiefs had bought Mrs. Eubank’s freedom to gain the favor of the whites. Instead, they received death. Despite protests from several individuals, Colonel Moonlight had the chiefs hung with chains and left their bodies hanging for months as an example to other chiefs. Of course Moonlight’s action brought further hostilities to the area. Moonlight went on to become Territorial Governor of Colorado in 1887.

General William T. Sherman
Civil war hero and commanding general of the Army after the election of U.S. Grant to the presidency. Sherman’s Indian policy shaped the role that the Army would play during the height of the Indian Wars. Sherman was at Fort Laramie as part of the 1867-1868 peace commission.

General Phillip Sheridan
Lieutenant General of the army, Commander of the Division of the Missouri, and also a well-known Civil War hero. Sheridan spent time at Fort Laramie during the uneasy summer of 1876, at times making it his base of operations. Sheridan eventually went on to become commanding general of the Army.

General George Crook
Commanding general of the Department of the Platte and one of the most effective of the Indian Wars generals. General Crook was at Fort Laramie on many occasions, particularly in 1876. Crook was well known for his use of mules in the field and for his “horse meat” or “mud march” in 1876. Crook’s character as a hard campaigner who also understood the Plains Indians made him effective as a general. It was Crook who ordered the arrest and confinement of Crazy Horse in 1877. He later went on to direct a successful campaign against the Apaches in the southwest.

John “Portugee” Phillips (Manuel Filipe Cardoso)
Phillips made the legendary ride from Fort Phil Kearney to Fort Laramie (December 21 to 25, 1866) to deliver messages to the commanding officer of the post following the Fetterman Fight. Much has been written of the ride to Fort Laramie, most of it myth. Phillips was hired to make the journey to Deer Creek Station along with Daniel Dixon for $300.00 each. Phillips was given an additional message at Fort Reno to carry to Colonel Palmer at Fort Laramie. The ride took four days. Most accounts make no mention of Indians chasing Phillips and Dixon. There is also no contemporary documentation supporting the story that Phillip’s horse died after he arrived at Fort Laramie.

Martha Jane Cannary (Calamity Jane)
Frequented the Fort Laramie area and was an employee of the famous Three Mile or “Hog” Ranch (a house of ill repute just outside Fort Laramie Military Reservation). Calamity Jane’s exploits are legendary. On one occasion, Calamity Jane dressed as a male and joined the Jenny expedition of 1875, to the Black Hills. She disguised herself as one of the cavalry troopers escorting the expedition. When discovered, Colonel Dodge ordered her out of the column, but she hid amongst the cargo in one of the wagons and later turned up in the Black Hills. There she reportedly made herself so useful as a forager that she was permitted to stay with the column. In 1876, she was discovered masquerading as one of General Crook’s mule skinners, placed under arrest, and sent packing back to Fort Laramie. Calamity probably would not have been discovered had it not been for the fact that “her language when addressing the animals was not up to the usual standards of vituperative eloquence.”

Wild Bill Hickok (James Butler Hickok)
Passed through Fort Laramie enroute to the Black Hills on the Cheyenne-Deadwood Stage line. Wild Bill was famous as a gunfighter, lawman and gambler. Hickok was later murdered in a saloon in Deadwood by Jack McCall.

Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
Unfortunately for history, Mark Twain passed through Fort Laramie in the summer of 1861, during the night on the stagecoach. Undoubtedly, had he passed through in the daylight hours he would have left a vivid written picture of life at the Fort.

Wyatt Earp
Earp was a noted gunfighter and lawman (sometimes concurrently). Earp took part in the famous “Gunfight at the OK Corral.” He passed through Fort Laramie in 1877, as a special shotgun messenger for a gold shipment on the Cheyenne-Deadwood Stage.

Buffalo Bill Cody (William F. Cody)
Cody passed through Fort Laramie in 1876, while en route north with the Fifth Cavalry. Cody was a well known frontiersman, Pony Express rider, buffalo hunter, scout, and showman. Shortly after passing through Fort Laramie, Cody had his famous duel with Yellow Hair at the War Bonnet Creek Fight on July 17th, 1876. Cody took Yellow Hair’s scalp—an event widely touted as “the first scalp for Custer.”