***The scenes of the Fetterman and Wagon Box fights are there,***
What the Indians did to the corpses of the cavalry men was so horrible that the government refused to release a detailed discription of what they found there for 25 years.
One good thing, it showed that the two civilian scouts with repeating Henry rifles took a large toll on the indians before the scouts ran out of ammo and were killed.
Yes, the mutilation at the Fetterman site was horrible. The soldiers sent to their aid returned with only half, or little more, of the 80. They had to go out again the following day to retrieve the balance. The two civilians in that circle of stones at the far-north limits of the ridge caused a lot of damage with their Henry’s. But there were just too many Indians, and their fate was sealed.
OTOH, the Wagon Box fight, to the West of the fort, was another story altogether. The wagon boxes were of heavy wood about 4’ high, and good protection from bullets. They were formed in a corral with wood stacked between boxes to complete the enclosure. Also, the men were armed with the new Allin Springfield of 1866 (second conversion) in .50-70. It allowed for a much higher rate of fire. The Indians, both here and at the Hayfield Fight in Southern Montana a day earlier, expected the soldiers to be armed with the older muskets. The rate of fire of these newer rifles allowed the soldiers to repel repeated charges where the Indians outnumbered the soldiers by as much as 30-1.