[4] After spending almost two years as a prisoner in Fort Leavenworth following the Grattan affair,[5] Spotted Tail was able to speak the English language well, and to deal with the "Wasichu" (white men) without an interpreter, whom he did not trust.

He had become convinced of the futility of making war to oppose the white incursions into his homeland; he became a statesman, speaking for peace and defending the rights of his tribe by using his knowledge of “wasichu” language and system to increase his political capability to hinder their tricks and deceptions.

[12] Eugene Fitch Ware, a Fort Laramie army officer, wrote that Spotted Tail's daughter, Ah-ho-appa (Wheat Flour) named also Hinzinwin (Fallen Leaf) or even Monica, "... was one of those individuals found in all lands, at all places, and among all people; she was misplaced.

On August 17, a cow belonging to a Mormon traveling on the nearby Oregon Trail strayed and was killed by a visiting Miniconjou Lakota warrior named High Forehead.

Lt. Fleming asked the Sioux to arrest High Forehead and deliver him to the fort, which Conquering Bear refused; he had no authority over the Miniconjou and did not want to violate his people's tradition of hospitality.

[22] A group of some 18 soldiers retreated on foot trying to reach some rocks for defense, but they were cut off and killed by overcoming warriors led by Red Cloud,[23][24] a rising war chief within the Oglala Sioux.

"[29] Warned by the Indian agent Thomas S. Twiss that the army had put a force in the field, half of the Lakota camped north of the Platte went into Fort Laramie for protection as "friendlies".

This led mail having forced to be shipped through the Panama Channel or California, and even wagon trains carrying supplies dared to enter Indian country but only forming large convoys.

In January 1865, Sinte Galeshka, Nomkahpa, Palani Wicakte, Tatanka Yotake and other Teton leaders joined the Cheyenne to avenge the Sand Creek massacre on Julesburg (January 7) scalping those who didn't put themselves in safety, and attacking again, sacking and burning the town, several weeks later (February 2), keeping to raid the country along the South Platte River destroying farms and stagecoach stations and plundering so many horses and cows to decide to hold only the best of them and free the others.

The Sand Creek survivors had joined the Cheyenne camping near the Smoky Hill River, and had called the Teton, Dakota and the Northern Arapaho to take part in the war against the wasi'chu.

General Mitchell immediately collected the available troops (500 men and several artillery guns) at Camp Cottonwood, calling them back from the stagecoach trail, and on January 16 marched on the Republican River, as far as the Cherry Creek, already deserted.

On January 16 Mitchell left Camp Cottonwood (about 100 miles from Julesburg) to search for Indian encampments on the Republican Fork, but returned on January 26, having useless weakened troopers and horses without having found the village on the White Butte Creek; Mitchell dispersed his troops along the trails to protect farms and stagecoach stations, and finally was replaced by General G. M. Dodge, who ordered Col. R. R. Livingston to collect his forces again and move against the “hostiles”.

Sinte Galeshka and the other chiefs decided to move on the Powder River and join the “hostile” northern Teton divisions, procuring at wasichu expenses what necessary to deal with a long and extraordinary winter walking of a column numbering 1,000 families, including women children and older people, who much hardly could get supplies along the way: farms and warehouses of the white intruders should provide all the necessary.

On February 2, the Indians left the South Platte to the North Platte and a party of about 1,000 warriors (including Tashunka Witko), a time again, was led by Sinte Galeshka, with Nomkahpa and Palani Wicakte, to Julesburg: useless they managed to attract to the open ground the soldiers, showing the usual decoy parties, then, undisputed masters of the ground, sacked again and burned the town, camping in front of Fort Rankin and Cheyenne and Arapaho capturing two large wagons (loaded the one with minery machinery and the other with liquors) near Gittrell's Ranch ruins, nine miles away Julesburg.

On February 3, Cheyenne and Arapaho left Julesburg to go back to the village on the Lodgepole Creek, but the Teton Dakota remained feasting in front of Fort Rankin, breaking down the telegraph line and raiding 1,500 heads of stock between Julesburg and Washington Ranch; on February 4 the Cheyenne stole the cows and 20 horses at Mud Springs Station, on Muddy Spring Creek, where was a small military garrison who asked for help, telegraphically, to Camp Mitchell, 55 miles away, and Fort Laramie; lt. William Ellsworth left Camp Mitchell leading 36 troopers of 11th Ohio Volunteers Cavalry, reaching Mud Springs on February 5, but, charged by the Indians and forced to fortify in the corral, the detachment, perhaps short of ammunitions, escaped his doom by making the horses and mules to run away and attract the warriors’ attention and distract them from the soldiers.

On February 6 arrived at Mud Springs the regiment's commander, Col. William O. Collins, who had left from Fort Laramie leading 25 men and 100 more after them: the Indians charged on the vanguard and then engaged the bulk of the overcoming column, forcing the troops to repair inside the ranch and the corral while about 200 warriors were trying to clear off hitting the troopers with swarms of arrows from the hills, finally the soldiers succeeded in reaching the top of a hill and entrenching themselves, and the Indians went away and moved the camp to the other side of the Platte River.

In April 1865 Sinte Galeshka, camped with his Sichangu on the Tongue River jointly with the Northern Arapaho, contacted by Government emissaries (in the meanwhile, on March 3, Vital Jerrott had replaced the disliked John Loree as Indian agent for the Upper Platte), appeared at Fort Laramie with 60 tepee (April 14) and settled near the fort, collecting a camp of 185 tepee jointly with Waba Sha's and I Tanka's Waglukhe and a fraction of Mahto Ohanko's Wagmezayuha Sichangu, while the other Wagmezayuha fraction, led by Blotahunka Tanka, went to join Tashunka Kokipapi's [*] and Mahpiua Luta's Oglala on the Powder River; an abnormal treaty subscribed by Genn.

In the late spring a Mrs. Lucinda Eubanks and her son, captured in August 1864 on the Little Blue River, Kansas, were ransomed by Ite Nonpa (Two Faces), a friendly Oglala Teton chief who, on advisement of I Tanka (Big Mouth), chief of the Waglukhe Sichangu/Oglala (“Laramie Loafers"), went to Fort Laramie to free the two captives in the hands of the military authorities; along the way Ite Nonpa's folk were token over by I Tanka's Indian Police, which, along the way again, captured Si Sapa (Black Foot)’s Oglala band too, and the Waglukhe policemen drove both groups to Fort Laramie; being absent col. Moonlight, fort's commander, the officer in charge, fully drunk, made the two Teton chiefs hanged.

While the summer was beginning military authorities decided to transfer the Teton Dakota peacefully camped near Fort Laramie, and deport them to Fort Kearny, and ordered to arrest many chiefs and warriors; deported Teton (1.500 o 2.000 people, including Ite Nonpa’ and Si Sapa’, I Tanka’, Mahto Ohanko and Wakinyan Chika’ bands, object - especially the girls and young women – of every kind of abuses by the military escort) and the troops assigned to their surveillance along the trail (a 130 men detachment of the 7° Iowa Cavalry under capt.

On July 26, 1865, about 1,000 (or, according other statement, 3,000) Teton Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Hotamitaniu ("Dog Soldiers") Cheyenne, (led by Woquini, Tahmelepashme, Mahpiua Luta, Tashunka Kokipapi, - credited as present by the Cheyenne half-breed George Bent - and several others among the most important chiefs, as Sinte Galeshka - who, coming to Fort Laramie on a peace parley in the spring 1866, would deny to have taken part in the battle -, Kanku Wakantuya, Maza Pangeska, Nomkahpa, Palani Wicakte, Wahacanka Sapa, Mixaso Ska, Hehaka Galeshka, Mahpiua Icahtagya, [Young] Tashunkakokipapi, Shunka Bloka, Tashunka Witko, Chancu Tanka) attacked Platte Bridge Station, a post on the North Platte River garrisoned by an 11° Ohio Volunteers Cavalry battalion under maj. Martin Anderson; having uselessly tried to attract the troops outside the palizades, the warriors fell back on a five wagons military train and its escort of 25 troopers belonging to 11° Kansas Volunteers under sgt.

In 1871, the senior Spotted Tail, by then the principal war chief and leader of the Sichangu Lakota, visited Washington, D.C. to meet the Commissioner of Indian Affairs Ely S. Parker and President Ulysses S. Grant.

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

In May 1875, delegations headed by Spotted Tail, Red Cloud, and Lone Horn traveled to Washington, D.C. in a last-ditch attempt to persuade President Grant to honor existing treaties and stem the flow of miners into their territories.

Samuel D. Hinman, gen. A. Terry, John Collins - trader at Laramie -) was sent to negotiate the transfer of the region: Red Cloud did not appear and Spotted Tail rejected the Commission proposal.

While Sitting Bull (Tatanka Yotanka) was organizing a general uprising in the north to defend Lakota sovereignty on the Black Hills, and Red Cloud (Mahpiua Luta) was growing more and more angry, Spotted Tail (Sinte Galeshka) went for a reconnaissance mission for his own, finding gold richness in the hills, and then went again for an other reconnaissance mission with other chiefs and Indian Agent Edwin A. Howard to show them his discovery and have a real esteem of the economic worth of the country, then asked for a price ten times greater and government men refused, as he had foreseen.

[41] When the Black Hills' campaign started, both Rosebud (Spotted Tail's Sichangu) and Pine Ridge (Red Cloud's Oglala) reservations were put under strict military control, weapons and horses were seized by the army and the two great chiefs were cautiously arrested.

After the Little Bighorn battle and Sitting Bull's withdrawal to Canada, many hostile bands decided or were forced to turn back to Spotted Tail's and Red Cloud's, where the majority of Sichangu and Oglala had stayed anyway; the two great chiefs were active in missions to call back the scattered bands, including Tashunka Witko (Crazy Horse)’s and, later, Piji (Gall)’s; Spotted Tail was able to gain the surrender to gen. George Crook of ten times the hostiles who surrendered to col. Nelson Miles; the horses belonging to these bands were given to the reservation chiefs, but Spotted Tail turned back to them their horses (1200 horses were returned to Mahpiua Icahtagya ‘Touching-the-Cloud’’ ’s Minneconjou and Mahto Hanska ‘’Tall Bear’’ ’s and Mahto Sha ‘’Red Bear’’ ‘s Itazipcho), as he used (being the only Lakota chief to receive, as thanks by Crook, a government salary or as head chief of the Lakota or as honorary major of the Army) to distribute the whole amount of his government's money, which he had asked to get in one-dollar banknotes, to the needy Lakota families in the reservation.

Luther Standing Bear claimed Spotted Tail was murdered by Crow Dog, accusing him of selling land not belonging to him and for taking the wife of a crippled man.

Although these accusations were made without any evidence and they were said to anger several Sioux leaders, Spotted Tail refused to give the woman back, claiming the United States government stood behind him.

[43] According to historian Dee Brown: "White officials...dismissed the killing as the culmination of a quarrel over a woman, but Spotted Tail's friends said that it was the result of a plot to break the power of the chiefs.