Bates Battlefield

Bates Battlefield

The Bates Battlefield was the scene of an 1874 action in which an Arapaho encampment was attacked by U.S. Army forces under Captain Alfred E. Bates.

The battlefield is a narrow valley in Hot Springs County, Wyoming near the junction of the Big Horn Mountains and the Owl Creek Mountains.

Variously called the Bates Battle, the Battle of Young's Point, the Battle of Snake Mountain and the Nowood Battle, the action was part of a campaign by forces under the command of Lieutenant General Philip Sheridan to protect the comparatively sedentary Shoshone under Chief Washakie from raids by their traditional enemies, the Northern Cheyenne, the Sioux and the Northern Arapaho.

Bates led thirty cavalrymen and twenty Shoshone against the encampment, occupied by Black Coal's people, at daybreak on July 4. Lt. Young took his scouts around to the other end of the village. Fighting went well at first for Bates' force, but the Arapaho moved to a nearby height and began to fire down onto Bates' raiders. Bates withdrew from the village without recovering his own dead., suffering four killed and five or six wounded, while reporting 25 Arapaho killed and 100 wounded.

Although Bates fought with help from the Shoshone Indians, he was dissatisfied with their help due to the fact that he was not experienced in Indian warfare enough to compete with their manner of fighting. This was not a major battle or massacre but was probably one of the causes of the great Custer battle which happened two years afterwards.
The Bates Battlefield was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

Location

On the head of Nowood River
Hot Springs
Washakie County
Wyoming
USA

Getting There

No public transportation available to Bates Battlefield on the head of Nowood River in Hot Springs, Wyoming. The nearest town is Thermopolis, which is approximately 20 miles away, but there doesn't appear to be any public transportation available from there either. It seems that the best way to get to Bates Battlefield would be by car or other personal transportation.

Nearby Airports

This is a list of primary airports in Wyoming that have scheduled passenger service on commercial airlines.