Fort Phil Kearney had been in a state of siege before: it was more closely invested now than ever. Contrary to their usual avoidance of the war-path in cold weather, throughout the long and bitter winter there was no intermittence to the watchfulness of the Indians. The garrison was constantly in arms. Attacks of all sorts were made with increasing frequency. The letters from the soldiers which got through to the East adequately describe their sense of the dire peril which menaced them. “_This may be my last letter_” is a frequent phrase. Travel on the trail was abandoned. As soon as possible in the spring, reinforcements were hurried up and the fort was completed, but the same state of affairs continued right along without intermission. With the advance of summer Red Cloud gathered his warriors and determined upon a direct attack upon the fort itself. He was tired of skirmishing, stampeding stock, cutting off stragglers, etc. He wanted war, real war, and he got it! If, or when, he captured the fort, he would advance upon the other two forts in succession and so clear the country, once and for all, of the detested invaders, whose soldierly qualities he seems to have held in contempt. For the campaign he proposed he assembled no fewer than three thousand warriors, the flower of the Sioux Nation. Probably half of them were armed with firearms, Winchester rifles, Spencer repeating carbines, or old army muskets, including those that had been captured from Fetterman’s party. Under cover of frequent skirmishes, which prevented much scouting on the part of the troops, Red Cloud gathered his warriors undiscovered and unmolested, and prepared to attack about the first of August, 1867. The limits of the military reservation had been fixed at Washington—without adequate knowledge of the ground and in disregard of General Carrington’s request and protests—so as to exclude the timber land of Piney Island, from which the post had been built, and from which the nearest and most available wood supply must be obtained. The post had been completed, but immense supplies of wood would be required for fuel during the long and severe winter. This was to be cut and delivered at the fort by a civilian outfit which had entered upon a contract with the government for the purpose. One of the stipulations of the contract was that the woodmen should be guarded and protected by the soldiers.