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Rh protected by a large detachment of military. General Carrington reported that "a team could not be sent to the wood yard nor a load of hay brought in from the meadows unless it was accompanied by a strong guard. The first hunters sent out came in themselves hunted, and though there was an abundance of game in the vicinity no hunter was brave enough to stalk it." A reign of terror grew up among the civilians so that none of the teamsters would leave the stockade for wood or supplies unless accompanied by many soldiers. Attacks upon the wood guard were of almost daily occurrence, and the result was always to the advantage of the Indians.

Red Cloud had by this time assembled an army of not less than three thousand men, with their families, and this vast concourse of people he fed and clothed while keeping Fort Phil Kearney almost in a state of siege. Finally, on the twenty-first day of December, 1866, Red Cloud appeared in force between Fort Phil Kearney and the wood camp seven miles distant. Captain Fetterman, with a force of eighty-one men, was sent out to drive him away. The Indians craftily led Fetterman into an ambush and his entire force was destroyed. Not one man lived to come back and tell the story. Throughout the following year the Indians kept up this mode of warfare and were perfectly successful in preventing the opening of the Montana road. Not a single wagon was ever able to pass over it. On the 1st of August, 1867, another severe battle was fought between the whites and Indians at the wood camp; both parties lost heavily, but the Indians' loss was much the greater.