On the morning of November 27, the air was frosty and biting cold. The moon had reappeared, its light intensified by the snow covering the ground. Landscape pockets and fringes of timber were eerily accentuated by blue shadows formed in the moonlight. Just before dawn the eastern sky was illuminated by the brilliance of a rising morning star. Custer named it "the Star of the Washita," believing that it announced victory for him.
~ Washita Memories
The Battle of the Washita occurred on November 27, 1868 when the 7th U.S. Cavalry led by Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer attacked a Cheyenne village on the Washita River near present day Cheyenne, Oklahoma.
Custer's attack occurred almost four years to the day of the Sand Creek Massacre and was against many of the bands and families that had survived the 1864 assault.
The Cheyennes had been waiting for provisions promised in the Medicine Lodge Treaty, but which were delayed by Congress' slow ratification of the treaty. The restless tribes had been warring on Pawnees and white settlers in the land they considered theirs when Gen. Phillip Sheridan took command of the U.S. Army in the Dept. of the Missouri in March, 1868
On November 22, 1868, Sheridan gave Custer orders to go on a 30-day scouting mission. When his scouts found evidence of an Indian trail, Custer followed it to the Cheyenne camp and a plan of attack was set in motion. The 7th Cavalry surrounded the camp and at dawn on November. 27 attacked the sleeping camp.
This camp was headed by Chief Black Kettle, a Suhtia, who had married into the Cheyenne band of his wife. No scouts had been put out to guard the sleeping village. The ensuing attack has been described as more of a "turkey shoot" or a genocidal massacre than a battle. Custer, however, described it as follows: