Alexander Gardner took some of our most important photographs of the Civil War and the 19th-century West. His images from the crucial 1868 treaty negotiations at Fort Laramie capture Sioux, Crow, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho people, mixed-race families and interpreters, government peace commissioners and vivid scenes of life at the fort.
On Aug. 2, 1867, a large force of Oglala Sioux attacked woodcutters near Fort Phil Kearny. Soldiers assigned to protect the woodcutters took cover behind a ring of wagon boxes. After the intense battle, both sides claimed victory, and estimates of the dead and wounded varied widely.