The Dull Knife Battlefield is located on the eastern slope of the

Bighorn 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 ...

Johnson County, Wyoming Johnson County is a county in the north central part of the U.S. state of Wyoming. At the 2020 United States Census, the population was 8,447. The county seat is Buffalo. Kaycee is the only other incorporated town in the county. Johnson Count ...

near Kaycee. It was the scene of the

Dull Knife Fight The Dull Knife Fight, or the Battle on the Red Fork, part of the Great Sioux War of 1876, was a battle that was fought on November 25, 1876, in present-day Johnson County, Wyoming between soldiers and scouts of the United States Army and warrior ...

on November 25, 1876, in which the Fourth Cavalry under General Ranald S. Mackenzie raided the winter encampment of the Northern

Cheyenne The Cheyenne ( ) are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. Their Cheyenne language belongs to the Algonquian language family. Today, the Cheyenne people are split into two federally recognized nations: the Southern Cheyenne, who are enr ...

, destroying most of their material culture and all their winter supplies and thus forcing the Northern Cheyenne to seek shelter with the village of Crazy Horse in order to survive the winter. Five hundred ponies were captured and about 173 lodges destroyed. The Dull Knife battlefield is on private land and is available to visit only by special arrangement. The fight took place on November 25, 1876. The battlefield site was considered by the Cheyenne to be sufficiently remote to be safe as winter quarters. The location is now the site of a ranch. The site was placed 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 ...

in 1979.

References

External links

* at the National Park Service's NRHP database
Dull Knife Battlefield
at the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office

Photo gallery

File:Dull Knife Battlefied View to East.jpg, Dull Knife Battlefield looking east from Big Red Draw File:Dull Knife Village Site.jpg, Site of Dull Knife Village looking south from creek File:Dull Knife Battlefield Marker.jpg, Battlefield marker above Dull Knife Village File:Ambush Draw Dull Knife Battlefield.jpg, Ambush Draw where Lieutenant McKinney was shot File:Hospital Hill Dull Knife Battlefied.jpg, Hospital Hill where Lieutenant McKinney died File:Breastworks Above Big Red Draw.jpg,

Breastworks A breastwork is a temporary fortification, often an earthwork thrown up to breast height to provide protection to defenders firing over it from a standing position. A more permanent structure, normally in stone, would be described as a parapet o ...

built by Northern Cheyenne defenders above Big Red Draw Geography of Johnson County, Wyoming 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 Johnson County, Wyoming {{Wyoming-NRHP-stub