"buffalo herd used to attack a US infantry regiment" Topic

Looks like it almost worked. If i make it WORK it becomes an incredible scenario: 500 warriors vs 800 infantry after the buffalo run through them:

Now that I have a nice herd of buffalo . . .


Source: Colonel Henry Inman's The Old Santa Fe Trail: The Story of a Great Highway (Macmillan, 1897; free on Project Gutenberg as EBook #7984), in the chapter "The Buffalo." It has a preface by W. F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody. An excerpt also appears on the Legends of America site under "The Plight of the Buffalo."

Date and place: Early summer 1866, a short distance beyond Fort Larned on the Santa Fe Trail (in present-day Kansas).

Context from the book: A portion of the Fifth U.S. Infantry (nearly 800 men, including recruits and officers, many Civil War veterans) under General George A. Sykes was marching to New Mexico to reinforce posts there. One morning, just after the first halt of the day's march on the open prairie, a low, ominous rumbling was heard. Sykes sent scouts ahead. One returned and reported an immense herd (estimated at ~10,000) of buffalo stampeding toward the Trail, raising huge dust clouds. Behind the herd was a force of about 500 Cheyenne, Comanche, and Kiowa warriors who had deliberately "maddened the shaggy brutes, hoping to capture the train without an attack by forcing the frightened animals to overrun the command."

The herd split just before reaching the troops and passed on either side (within about 200 feet), leaving the command unharmed in the middle. The warriors, seeing the attempt fail and the soldiers too numerous for a direct charge, rode off into the sand hills.

Inman presents this as a firsthand-style frontier account from his long experience on the plains (he served as a U.S. Army officer and later wrote several western histories). The book mixes personal observation, contemporary reports, and anecdotes; this particular episode is tied specifically to Sykes's 1866 movement of the 5th Infantry. It is one of the clearer published descriptions of Plains tribes attempting to use a directed buffalo stampede as a battlefield tactic against a military column/train.

You can read the full surrounding passage (including related stampede stories) in the free Gutenberg HTML or plain-text edition. Fort Larned itself is a well-documented National Historic Site if you want to cross-check local military records or trail journals from mid-1866.

Here is the relevant text: Often there are serious results growing out of a stam-
pede, either by mules or a herd of buffalo. A portion of
the Fifth United States Infantry had a narrow escape
from a buffalo stampede on the Old Trail, in the early
summer of 1866. General George A. Sykes, who com-
manded the Division of Regulars in the Army of the
Potomac during the Civil War, was ordered to join his
regiment, stationed in New Mexico, and was conducting
a body of recruits, with their complement of officers, to
fill up the decimated ranks of the army stationed at the
various military posts, in far-off Greaser Land.

The command numbered nearly eight hundred, includ-
ing the subaltern officers. These recruits, or the majority
of them at least, were recruits in name only; they had
seen service in many a hard campaign of the Rebellion.
Some, of course, were beardless youths just out of their

THE BUFFALO 221

teens, full of tliat martial ardour which, induced so many
young men of the nation to follow the drum on the re-
mote plains and in the fastnesses of the Rocky Moun-
tains, where the wily savages still held almost undisputed
sway, and were a constant menace to the pioneer settlers.

One morning, when the command had just settled itself
in careless repose on the short grass of the apparently
interminable prairie at the first halt of the day's march,
a short distance beyond Fort Earned, a strange noise, like
the low muttering of thunder below the horizon, greeted
the ears of the little army.

All were startled by the ominous sound, unlike any-
thing they had heard before on their dreary tour. The
general ordered his scouts out to learn the cause ; could
it be Indians? Every eye was strained for something out
of the ordinary. Even the horses of the officers and the
mules of the supply-train were infected by something
that seemed impending ; they grew restless, stamped the
earth, and vainly essayed to stampede, but were pre-
vented by their hobbles and picket-pins.

Presently one of the scouts returned from over the
divide, and reported to the general that an immense herd
of buffalo was tearing clown toward the Trail, and from
the great clouds of dust they raised, which obscured the
horizon, there must have been ten thousand of them.
The roar wafted to the command, and which seemed so
mysterious, was made by their hoofs as they rattled over
the dry prairie.

The sound increased in volume rapidly, and soon a black,
surging mass was discovered bearing right down on the
Trail. Behind it could be seen a cavalcade of about five
hundred Cheyennes, Comanehes, and Kiowas, who had
maddened the shaggy brutes, hoping to capture the train
without an attack by forcing the frightened animals to
overrun the command.

222 THE OLD SANTA F& TRAIL

Luckily, something caused the herd to open before it
reached the foot of the divide, and it passed in two
masses, leaving the command between, not two hundred
feet from either division of the infuriated beasts.

The rage of the savages was evident when they saw that
their attempt to annihilate the troops had failed, and they
rode off sullenly into the sand hills, as the number of
soldiers was too great for them to think of charging.

Apologies for the "Greasers" language. So a wagon train pulled by mules. Most individual soldiers were veteran but the unit was green, and some recruits were green. Officers were probably all war veterans. I assume some good ncos.

Wonder how they would have formed up? And what they were armed with?

Interesting ideas, but we don't have enough buffalo.

Use horses then. But I have 50 buffalo. Anyone with access to a 3d printer can have as many as he wants.

I am using large bases with just a ingle animal glued in the center. But the battle will be after the animals pass through, and that pass=through could be handled abstractly.

Anyway, another scenario for my rules . . .

I would assume a cavalry unit was not a good target, but a train and infantry surely were. But targeting was obviously tricky. So have to assume initial success to make it a game.

I expect the buffalo herd split to go around the wagon train because they saw it. A stampede is not likely to collide with a significant obstacle unless it is constricted or only sees it at the last moment. How close is too close to swerve is anyone's guess and probably related to herd size, the bigger the herd the harder it will be to change direction.

Billy, yes. A successfully targeted stampede was obviously hard to pull off. But the Indians were experts and thought it worth a try. But again, for purposes of a game, I think we assume it works even though it failed in the real event.

I think Billy has the right of it--but that it would work much better against a skirmish line. Possibly an established technique in inter-tribal warfare? (And it worked so well in "How the West was Won.") Problem is, if it does work against a formed body, I don't see how you have a game. The experience level of 800 pieces of bloody paste isn't really important.

What you seem to be aiming for is more the effect of a prolonged bombardment--scattered survivors of varying quality--rather than than the effect of a stampede. Or am I missing something critical?

Being were participating in a scheduled break, I assume that they were at a water feature and broken ground. So the terrain may have slit and depleted the herd.
I speculate that this was not a first time use of the tactic. Maybe a wagon train or formation which was smaller was wiped out..
I good innovative scenario to try

robert, yes. My sense of it -- and I have now done quite a lot of reading and also study of the 19TH century paintings -- is that a stampeding herd was not one solid mass. Cows and calves clumped together, bulls also in smaller bachelor groups, and terrain as well as noise and other factors like smells mattered. The bombardment analogy is a good one. A few units might be hard hit, losing many men, but the more likely result would be confusion, scattering, unloaded weapons, and a lot of dust. A mounted attack by archers and lancers following right behind would be deadly to some subunits, but not perhaps to all. The US infantry did have twice as many men, with experienced leadership and a good many Civil War veterans. I think it would be an exciting scenario and not likely to play the same twice or thrice.