Wyoming in the American Civil War

When the American Civil War began in 1861, the state of Wyoming did not exist. Instead, it was part of the territories acquired in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Inhabited mostly by the Shoshone, Arapaho, and Crow Native American tribes, fur traders and settlers began to enter the area during the 1840s, where the US Army built forts and stationed troops to protect against the Native American tribes and any border incursions from the north or the south. Almost all of these soldiers were relocated east after the start of the war.
However, the Oregon Trail still needed to be guarded, and since Wyoming was not yet a political entity the job fell to the nearby states and territories. Before the Civil War, the US Army had been content to police the trail with very few troops assigned to cover massive distances. The states and territories that sent their forces to protect the trail did not take this approach. Instead, they created an entire chain of manned posts every few miles along the trail. The work was lonely, dangerous, and often done on very small rations. Troops were afraid of leaving their isolated posts as it could mean death, which was even more the case during the long Wyoming winters. In the later stages of the war, commanders of some of these state forces began taking their troops out on expeditions such as the Powder River Expedition, which ended in a Native American victory. Campaigns such as these would only serve to make policing the Western Territories harder for the US Army after the war, as the Native Americans learned that the American troops were not invincible. It was admitted into the Union as a state in 1890.
For information on areas that later became part of Wyoming, see:
*Dakota Territory Territory in the American Civil War
*Idaho in the American Civil War
*Nebraska in the American Civil War
*Utah in the American Civil War
*Washington in the American Civil War

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