The Battle of Platte Bridge, also called the Battle of Platte Bridge Station, on July 26, 1865, is the culmination of a summer offensive by the Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne Indians against the United States army.
In May and June the native forces raid army outposts and stagecoach stations over a wide swath of Wyoming and Montana.
In July, they assemble a large army, estimated by Cheyenne warrior George Bent to number three thousand warriors, and descend upon Platte Bridge.
The bridge, across the North Platte River near present-day Casper, Wyoming, is guarded by one hundred and twenty soldiers.
In an engagement near the bridge, and another against a wagon train guarded by twenty-eight soldiers a few miles away, the Indians kill twenty-nine soldiers while suffering at least eight dead.
