Along the way they raided ranches and wagon trains, acquired a huge amount of plunder, and fought battles with the army at Julesburg, Mud Springs, and Rush Creek.

With the coming of spring 1865, their horses recovering strength after the long winter, the Lakota and Cheyenne decided to attack along the North Platte River during the summer.

"It was only in midsummer and early winter that they could raise a large force, and even then they could not hold their warriors together for a longer period than a week or ten days.

Mixed-blood Cheyenne/white George Bent joined a war party of 100 Cheyenne, divided about equally between the northern and southern branches of the tribe.

Bent says the Cheyenne forded the flooded North Platte River and surprised the soldiers at Deer Creek Station, who refused to come out of their stockade.

After exchanging fire with the soldiers and suffering no casualties, the Indians abandoned the attack and re-crossed the North Platte with their stolen horses.

On June 2, Fort Halleck, near present-day Elk Mountain, Wyoming learned of Indian attacks on stage stations to the west.

On June 8, an estimated 100 Indians attacked the Sage Creek Station, west of Fort Halleck near present-day Saratoga, Wyoming.

Far to the north in the Yellowstone River valley of Montana, on June 9, Lakota (probably Hunkpapa) killed a Colonel Smith of the 14th Wisconsin Regiment.

Nearly daily attacks on isolated outposts, stagecoach stations, and wagon trains continued throughout June and into early July.

The young Oglala warrior, Crazy Horse, slipped into the camp the night of June 13 and persuaded the Indians to flee the soldiers.

The next day, near present-day Morrill, Nebraska, most of the Indians refused to accompany the soldiers and began crossing the North Platte River, assisted by Crazy Horse and a band of Oglalas on the other side.

[18] On the south side of the river was the military post and stockade, staffed by 100 soldiers, a dozen or more armed civilians, a few Shoshoni scouts, and an office of the Overland Telegraph Company.

A group of ten trusted warriors, including Crazy Horse, tried to induce soldiers from the stockade to cross the bridge and chase them to the hills where the Indians were hiding.

Adam Smith Leib, escorted by 1st Lt. Henry C. Bretney and six (some accounts say 10)[20] troopers of Company G, 11th Ohio Volunteer Cavalry, arrived from Sweetwater Station en route to Fort Laramie for supplies and a long-overdue payroll.

[22] Bretney, who had succeeded to command of Company G on February 13 when its captain, Levi M. Rinehart, had been accidentally killed by a drunken trooper during a skirmish, was not on good terms with Anderson.

On his arrival at Platte Bridge on July 16, the Kansan had replaced Bretney as post commander and ordered Company G to relocate to Sweetwater Station, escorting the same wagon train now returning from there.

After reveille, all four of Anderson's officers declined to lead the relief force and some placed themselves on the sick list to avoid the duty.

Collins and a small detachment of 25 men of the 11th Kansas crossed the Platte Bridge at a walk, then formed into a column of fours and rode west along the north bank at a trot to drive off any hostile Indians.

[24] The Indians had concealed large bands of warriors near the bridge and over the crest of the hills, possibly as many as a thousand Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho.

The skirmish line at the bridge held the Lakota at bay with volley fire until 21 of the 26 troopers with Collins, all wounded to some extent, fought their way through.

[25] Bretney in a rage returned to the stockade and accused the Kansas officers of cowardice when Anderson refused to allow a larger force and the howitzer to attempt another relief.

Anderson placed Bretney under arrest and turned over the post's defenses to Leib, who had the garrison throw up an embrasure and dig rifle pits to protect the howitzer at the south end of the bridge.

He observed the Cheyenne accusing the Lakota of being cowards for not capturing the Platte Bridge and preventing the escape of the soldiers on the north side of the river.

[26] During the morning the attacking force destroyed a thousand feet of telegraph wire on the line to Fort Laramie before Anderson thought to request reinforcements, then drove off the detail of 11 soldiers sent to repair it, killing another trooper.

[27] Two Shoshone scouts were paid to take a message requesting reinforcements to the next telegraph station east, but the battle was over and the Indians had departed before relief arrived.

They were cut off and pursued by a hundred Cheyenne led by the brother of Roman Nose, Left Hand, who was killed in the running fight.

Roman Nose and others rode their horses at top speed in a circle around the wagon train with the objective of depleting the soldier's ammunition.

[29] U.S. army accounts state that the wagons were forced into a hollow where they held out for four hours, using fire from Spencer rifles to repel assaults until a large group closed on foot and overwhelmed the defenders, killing all.

Historian Robert Utley estimated combined Indian casualties in the July actions around Platte Bridge Station as 60 killed and 130 wounded.