Soldiers deserted Fort Fetterman at an alarming rate. The winters were brutal, the soil refused to grow vegetables, and every drop of water had to be hauled up steep bluffs from the North Platte River far below. The post was so remote that supplies arrived by wagon from Fort Laramie, 90 miles to the southeast, or from Medicine Bow Station on the distant railroad. Yet this miserable posting on the bluffs above the Platte became the most important staging ground of the Great Sioux War, launching three major expeditions in a single year that would reshape the American West.
The fort took its name from Captain William J. Fetterman, killed on December 21, 1866, near Fort Phil Kearny. Fetterman had reportedly boasted that with 80 men he could ride through the entire Sioux nation. He died with exactly 80 soldiers in what the Lakota called the Battle of the Hundred Slain. Eight months later, on July 19, 1867, Companies A, C, H, and I of the 4th U.S. Infantry established the fort that would bear his name on the bluffs above the North Platte. When Fort Fetterman opened, the Army closed Fort Caspar, transferring its garrison to the new post. The 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie forced the abandonment of forts Reno, Phil Kearny, and C.F. Smith to the north, leaving Fetterman as the northernmost military installation in eastern Wyoming.
Fort Fetterman contained quarters for 300 enlisted men, a hospital with 15 beds, stables for 50 horses, and a corral for 56 mule-drawn wagons. It had a theatre, an ice-house, a granary, a bake-house, and a steam engine for pumping water. None of these amenities made the posting bearable. The location was strategic but punishing. High on the bluffs south of the river, the fort commanded the Bozeman Trail and protected settler routes, but it offered nothing in return. Fresh vegetables were impossible. The soil would not sustain gardens. Men walked down to the river or a nearby creek, filled containers with water, and carried them back up the steep slopes. Winter descended early and lifted late.
In 1876, the monotony of garrison life at Fetterman broke violently. The Great Sioux War brought the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho into open conflict with the United States, and Fort Fetterman became the staging point for the Army's response. In March, the Big Horn Expedition under Colonel Joseph J. Reynolds departed Fetterman with three of the post's four companies and met defeat at the Battle of Powder River. In June, Brigadier General George Crook led the Yellowstone Expedition from Fetterman to the Battle of the Rosebud, fought just eight days before Little Bighorn. In November, Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie's Powder River Expedition destroyed a Cheyenne village in the Dull Knife Fight. From this lonely post on the Wyoming bluffs, the Army prosecuted its final campaigns against the Plains tribes.
The Indian Wars subsided, and so did Fort Fetterman's purpose. The Army abandoned the post in 1882. Charles Henry King and others established Fetterman City around the empty buildings, outfitting ranchers and wagon trains. But when Douglas, Wyoming, was founded 11 miles away in 1886, Fetterman City withered. The fort deteriorated from neglect for decades until the State of Wyoming took over the site. Today, an officers' quarters and an ordnance warehouse have been restored. Visitors walk an interpretive trail through the ruins, past foundations and crumbling walls, reading about the expeditions that departed these bluffs and the treaties signed and broken in the valley below.
Fort Fetterman sits at 42.840°N, 105.480°W on bluffs south of the North Platte River, approximately 11 miles northwest of Douglas, Wyoming. The ruins and restored buildings of the Wyoming State Historic Site are visible from the air, positioned on the elevated plateau above the river valley. Nearby airports include Converse County Airport (KDGW) at Douglas, 11 miles southeast. Best viewed at 2,500-3,500 feet AGL. The strategic position overlooking the Platte and the Bozeman Trail corridor is clearly apparent from altitude. The contrast between the fort's exposed bluff location and the river valley below illustrates the challenging terrain soldiers faced.