[2] The largest action of the war was the 1866 Fetterman Fight, with 81 US soldiers killed; it was the worst military defeat suffered by the US Army on the Great Plains until the Battle of the Little Bighorn 10 years later.

Some of his opponents mistakenly thought of him as the overall leader of the Sioux groups (Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota), but the large tribe had several major divisions and was highly decentralized.

As was traditional among the matrilineal Lakota, in which the children belonged to the mother's clan and people, Red Cloud was mentored as a boy by his maternal uncle, Chief Old Smoke (1774–1864).

At a young age, Red Cloud fought against neighboring Pawnee and Crow bands, gaining much war experience.

Red Cloud's War was the name the U.S. Army gave to a series of conflicts fought with Native American Plains tribes in the Wyoming and Montana Territories.

They disobeyed orders to stay behind the Lodge Trail Ridge and pursued a small decoy band of warriors led by a Native American on an injured horse.

In 1870, Red Cloud visited Washington D.C. and met with Commissioner of Indian Affairs Ely S. Parker (a Seneca and U.S. Army General), and President Ulysses S. Grant.

Red Cloud took his band to the agency (a predecessor of the Native American reservation), ready to receive government aid.

All of his demands were acceded to, the new road abandoned, the garrisons withdrawn, and the new treaty distinctly stated that the Black Hills and the Big Horn were Indian countries, set apart for their perpetual occupancy and that no white man should enter that region without the consent of the Sioux.

The government, at first, entered some small protest, just enough to "save its face"... but there was no serious attempt to prevent the wholesale violation of the treaty and the loss of the Black Hills.

In 1874, Lieutenant Colonel George Custer led a reconnaissance mission into Sioux territory that reported gold in the Black Hills, an area held sacred by the local Native Americans.

In May 1875, Lakota delegations headed by Red Cloud, Spotted Tail, and Lone Horn traveled to Washington in an attempt to persuade President Grant to honor existing treaties and stem the flow of miners into their lands.

The delegates refused to sign such a treaty, with Spotted Tail saying about the proposal: When I was here before, the President gave me my country, and I put my stake down in a good place, and there I want to stay.

[8]Although Red Cloud was unsuccessful in finding a peaceful solution, he did not take part in the Great Sioux War of 1876, which was led by Tȟašúŋke Witkó (Crazy Horse) and Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake (Sitting Bull).

The following year, it was removed to the forks of the White River in present-day South Dakota, where it was renamed the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Marsh had first visited the Red Cloud Agency in 1874, alleging, among other things, that "the Indians suffered for want of food and other supplies because they were cheated out of annuities and beef cattle and were issued inedible pork, inferior flour, poor sugar and coffee and rotten tobacco.