Black Kettle had survived the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864, where Colorado militia killed more than 150 Cheyenne and Arapaho in a camp flying a U.S. flag. Four years later, he was still seeking peace. His village of roughly 180 lodges on the Washita River was the westernmost in a chain of Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, Comanche, and Kiowa-Apache winter camps stretching 10 to 15 miles along the river. Just days before the attack, Black Kettle had met with Colonel William B. Hazen at Fort Cobb, asking to bring his people south for protection. Hazen told him he could not make peace -- that was General Sheridan's decision. Black Kettle returned to his village through a snowstorm on the evening of November 26, the same day a war party of 150 young men from various camps returned from raiding white settlements on the Smoky Hill River.

General Philip Sheridan chose winter deliberately. It was the only season when Plains tribes were immobilized. If their shelter, food, and horses could be destroyed or captured, the warriors and their families would be at the mercy of both the army and the elements. He ordered three converging columns to strike the Indian wintering grounds east of the Texas Panhandle. Custer commanded 800 soldiers of the 7th Cavalry. Osage scouts, enemies of the Cheyenne, led Custer to the village, smelling smoke and hearing sounds long before the soldiers. Major Joel Elliott found the trail of the returning war party on November 26, which drew the entire command toward the Washita. The Osage did not join the initial charge, fearing the soldiers would mistake them for Cheyenne in the chaos.

Custer took the village quickly, but as fighting subsided, he saw mounted warriors gathering on the surrounding hilltops -- thousands of Indians from the downstream camps were converging. Fifty-three women and children had been captured, and Custer used them as human shields, placing them among his troops to prevent the warriors from attacking. He ordered the slaughter of roughly 675 captured ponies and horses, sparing only 200 to carry prisoners. Major Joel Elliott, meanwhile, had separated from his unit to pursue fleeing Cheyenne, yelling "Here's for a brevet or a coffin!" He and his men ran into a mixed force of Cheyenne, Kiowa, and Arapaho warriors rushing from downstream villages. They were overwhelmed in a single charge. Captain Frederick Benteen never forgave Custer for abandoning Elliott -- a grudge that may have influenced events at Little Bighorn eight years later.

Custer initially reported 103 warriors killed. Captain Benteen later wrote that Custer had assembled his officers and asked each how many dead Indians they had seen, then added the numbers together: "They had all seen the same dead Indians." Scout Ben Clark reported 75 warriors and an equal number of women and children killed. Historian Jerome Greene compiled a list of known fatalities: 40 men, 12 women, and 6 children. The Indian Agent was told there were "not over twenty bucks killed; the rest, about 40, were women and children." The true number will never be known, but historians agree the dead were not all warriors met in open battle.

The question has never been settled. Custer himself said his forces could not avoid killing some women in a hard fight and that some women took up weapons. Historian Jerome Greene concluded that "soldiers evidently took measures to protect the women and children." But scout Ben Clark recalled that "the regiment galloped through the tepees, firing indiscriminately and killing men and women alike." Lieutenant Godfrey observed that soldiers made no effort to prevent hitting women. Historian Joseph Thoburn argued that had Indians attacked a white settlement with similar results, it would have been called a massacre. The Washita Battlefield National Historic Site near Cheyenne, Oklahoma, now preserves the location. The site's name itself reflects the unresolved tension -- it is a battlefield, not a massacre site, in official designation, yet the word "massacre" appears prominently in its interpretive materials.