The Bates Battlefield was the scene of an 1874 action in which an

Arapaho The Arapaho (; french: Arapahos, ) are a Native American people historically living on the plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Lakota and Dakota. By the 1850s, Arapaho band ...

encampment was attacked by U.S. Army forces under Captain Alfred E. Bates. The battlefield is a narrow valley in

Hot Springs County, Wyoming Hot Springs County is a County (United States), county in the U.S. state of Wyoming. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 4,696, making it the second-least populous county in Wyoming. Its county seat is Thermopolis, Wyoming, T ...

near the junction of the

Big Horn Mountains The Bighorn Mountains ( cro, Basawaxaawúua, lit=our mountains or cro, Iisaxpúatahchee Isawaxaawúua, label=none, lit=bighorn sheep's mountains) are a mountain range in northern Wyoming and southern Montana in the United States, forming a nort ...

and the

Owl Creek Mountains The Owl Creek Mountains are a subrange of the Rocky Mountains in central Wyoming in the United States, running east to west to form a bridge between the Absaroka Range to the northwest and the Bridger Mountains to the east. The range forms the bo ...

. Variously called the Bates Battle, the Battle of Young's Point, the Battle of Snake Mountain and the Nowood Battle, the action was part of a campaign by forces under the command of Lieutenant General

Philip Sheridan General of the Army Philip Henry Sheridan (March 6, 1831 – August 5, 1888) was a career United States Army officer and a Union general in the American Civil War. His career was noted for his rapid rise to major general and his close as ...

to protect the comparatively sedentary

Shoshone The Shoshone or Shoshoni ( or ) are a Native American tribe with four large cultural/linguistic divisions: * Eastern Shoshone: Wyoming * Northern Shoshone: southern Idaho * Western Shoshone: Nevada, northern Utah * Goshute: western Utah, easter ...

under Chief

Washakie Washakie (1804/1810 – February 20, 1900) was a prominent leader of the Shoshone people during the mid-19th century. He was first mentioned in 1840 in the written record of the American fur trapper, Osborne Russell. In 1851, at the urging o ...

from raids by their traditional enemies, the

Northern Cheyenne The Northern Cheyenne Tribe of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation ( chy, Tsėhéstáno; formerly named the Tongue River) is the federally recognized Northern Cheyenne tribe. Located in southeastern Montana, the reservation is approximately ...

, the

Sioux The Sioux or Oceti Sakowin (; Dakota language, Dakota: Help:IPA, /otʃʰeːtʰi ʃakoːwĩ/) are groups of Native Americans in the United States, Native American tribes and First Nations in Canada, First Nations peoples in North America. The ...

and the Northern Arapaho. In June 1874, "Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors decided to attack the Wind River Shoshones. As the invaders crossed the Big Horn Mountains, they had a disagreement about the purpose of their trip. Some claimed it was a raid for murder and the spoils of war; others said it was to steal horses. Because of the disagreement, the Arapahoes refused to participate."Moulton, Candy. Roadside History of Wyoming. Missoula, Montana: Mountain Press Publishing Company, 1995. 203. Print. Sheridan ordered Bates to raid the Arapaho camp, reported to comprise between 40 and 112 lodges. On July 1, 1874, Bates set forth leading Company B, 2nd Cavalry with 63 cavalrymen, 20 white and Shoshone scouts under Lieutenant R.H. Young, and a party of 167 Shoshone under Washakie. Bates led thirty cavalrymen and twenty Shoshone against the encampment, occupied by Black Coal's people, at daybreak on July 4. Lt. Young took his scouts around to the other end of the village. Fighting went well at first for Bates' force, but the Arapaho moved to a nearby height and began to fire down onto Bates' raiders. Bates withdrew from the village without recovering his own dead., suffering four killed and five or six wounded, while reporting 25 Arapaho killed and 100 wounded. Other reports indicate the Arapaho suffered as few as ten casualties. Bates captured 350 horses of the 1200 to 1400 head associated with the village. Bates blamed his lack of overall success on the noise made by the Shoshone. Accounts of the battle by different parties reveal wide discrepancies in perceptions of the motivation, progress, and outcome of the fight. The Bates Battlefield was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1974.

References

External links

* at the National Park Service's NRHP database
Bates Battlefield
at the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office {{NRHP in Hot Springs County, Wyoming Geography of Hot Springs County, Wyoming Battles involving the Arapaho Conflicts in 1874 1874 in the United States Battlefields of the wars between the United States and Native Americans Conflict sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Wyoming National Register of Historic Places in Hot Springs County, Wyoming 1874 in Wyoming Territory