This is the ground where the Fetterman Fight (or Fetterman Massacre, or if you’re indigenous, the Hundred-in-the-Hand) happened on December 21, 1866. A group of infantry and cavalry under Captain William Fetterman were sent out from Fort Phil Kearney to deal with raiders who had harassed a woodcutting party. They went over a ridge and out of sight of the fort along the Bozeman Trail, roughly parallel to the modern footpath through the battlefield, and lured into a massive ambush by Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors. All 81 men of the command died. This was part of a series of events that ended in the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, whereby the US gave up use of the Bozeman Trail and destroyed the forts along it.