Back in ‘95, I visited the site of the Fetterman Massacre as well as the site of the Wagon Box Fight.
The Indians had no idea of Fetterman’s arrogance but they had seen enough of the Army’s tactics to realize that an ambush was likely to succeed.
I’m probably wrong but I always thought that what had Fetterman’s command so badly was their inability to keep up a good rate of fire on the Indians. IIRC, the infantry were still using primarily Civil War-era rifles.
If more of them had been equipped with repeating carbines, I suspect they could have kept up a rate of fire strong enough to drive off the Indians and hopefully let most of the command get back to the fort.
No, the basic problem of Fetterman was that he was stupid, brash and didn’t listen to orders.
Col. Carrington told Fetterman to NOT pursue the Indians, only to protect the woodcutting party, to NOT cross Lodge Trail Ridge, because supporting Fetterman’s party once they got beyond that ridge would be difficult from the fort.
Fetterman didn’t listen. Crazy Horse baited Fetterman by waggling his bare buttocks at Fetterman and Fetterman took the bait and led the men over the ridge and into the tall grass. See the similarity to Custer already?
On the reverse slope, there were thousands of Indians, who executed what could only be called a textbook-perfect ambush. They lured their quarry over the slope, away from supporting fire or observation, deep into the interior of a 10X+ numerically superior force who remained well hidden and under tight discipline until Fetterman’s forces were all within the kill zone. The US Army learned little to nothing from this slaughter, and blamed Carrington for a failure to call Fetterman back.
BTW - two civilians with the Fetterman group had Henry rifles, and many of the mounted men had 7-shot Spencer carbines. The infantry had muzzle-stuffers.
Again, looking at the lay of the land and how the ambush was sprung, I doubt that putting up a higher rate of fire with Henry or Spencer rifles would have enabled an escape, unless you have something akin to today’s SAW weapons with 200 round magazine belts. A huge problem was the mix of Fetterman’s forces - some mounted, some not. Pulling off a withdrawal from such a numerically superior force when you have two very different speeds of movement - very tricky. The US Army also had a very stupid reaction to engagement with the Indians - they’d dismount and form skirmish lines. The Indians seemed to intuit that rapid, fluid movement was more effective than attempts at a dug-in defense.