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Pine Ridge. November 1890- January 1891

Accumulated grievances, aggravated by teachings of an Indian prophet named Wovoka, brought about this last major conflict with the Sioux. The last feeble gasp of the Indian Wars occurred in 1890 and grew out of the fervor of the Ghost Dance religion. The Sioux were particularly susceptible to the emotional excitement and the call of the old way of life represented in these ceremonies, and their wild involvement frightened the agent on the Sioux Reservation into calling for military protection.

The Army responded by a series of military actions known as the Pine Ridge Campaign. General Miles, commander of the Department of the Missouri, responded to a Department of Interior request to check the rising ferment by ordering apprehension of the great Sioux leader, Sitting Bull, who was killed during the attempted arrest at Standing Rock Agency on 15 December 1890. Meanwhile, large numbers of Sioux had been assembling in the Bad Lands, and a serious clash took place at Wounded Knee Creek on 29 December 1890 between Col. James W. Forsyth's 7th Cavalry and Chief Big Foot's band with considerable losses on both sides.

One part of that campaign had the 7th Cavalry, now commanded by Col. James W. Forsyth, move to Wounded Knee Creek on the Pine Ridge Agency, where on December 29 the regiment attempted to disarm Big Foot’s band. An Indian’s rifle was discharged into the air as two soldiers disarmed him, precipitating a battle in which more than 150 Indians, including women and children, were killed and a third as many wounded, while 25 soldiers were killed and another 37 wounded.

Almost half the infantry and cavalry of the Regular Army (including elements of the 1st, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th Cavalry and the 1st, 2d, 3d, 7th, 8th, 12th, 16th, 17th, 20th, 21st, 22d, and 25th Infantry as well as the 4th Artillery) were concentrated in the area, and in January 1891 the warriors were disarmed and persuaded to return peaceably to their reservations.

The Battle of Wounded Knee was the last Indian engagement to fall in the category of warfare; later incidents were more in the realm of civil disturbance. The nineteenth century was drawing to a close, and the frontier was rapidly disappearing. Territories were being replaced by states, and new settlers, towns, government, and law were spreadng across the land. The buffalo were gone, and the Indians were confined to reservations to depend on the government for subsistence. An expanded rail system was available to move troops quickly to trouble spots, and the Army could now concentrate its forces at the larger and more permanent posts and relinquish numerous smaller installations that had outgrown their usefulness. By 1895 the Army was deployed more or less equally around the country on the basis of regional rather than operational considerations.