On July 17, 1866, two soldiers wagoners were killed by Sioux Indians. In the next two weeks, fourteen more men died in Sioux attacks. The attacks continued through the summer and fall. On December 21, disaster struck. Recklessly pursuing Indians across a wooded ridge, Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Williams Fetterman and his company fell into an ambush. It was the worst military blunder of the Indians Wars before the Battle of the Little Big Horn ten years later.