Pawnee Attack in "Circle of Fire"

"Circle of Fire" was apparently one of the first episodes produced, since it was the third broadcast, on 29 September 1959.

I just missed the first few minutes of the episode today, Feb. 5, 2019 - 60 whole years later - so I didn't catch the whole story.

But apparently a frightened stage passenger, Mrs. Prescott, shot Taka, son of Pawnee Chief Yellow Knife, and the stage with its passengers & the wounded Taka arrives at the stage station, with Yellow Knife's angry Pawnee warriors following.

Normally I am amused when when western movies depict hostile Pawnees, because the Pawnees were allies of the US government during most of the Indian Wars period. So I have actually posted about this with titles like "Pawnees Sioux?" about some movies.

But the writers of "Circle of Fire", John C. Champion, and John Dunkel, seem to have been better informed about Pawnee history than the writers of movies like Pawnee, Dances with Wolves, Little Big Man, and The Command.

There is a scene where former army Major Prescott negotiates with Yellow Knife, saying that the Pawnees have always been friendly to the Americans, and pointing out that Yellow Knife & many of his warriors have fought alongside himself, General Crook and Major North and General Carter against their common enemies. So the episode shows that Pawnee hostility against Americans is the result of some unusual and unfortunate event.

Major North recruited the Pawnee Battalion of scouts in 1865 and it served with the US army on and off for almost 12 years until 1877. Thus "Circle of Fire" might possibly happen sometime between 1865 & 1877. But there are a few chronological problems that the writers may have ignored for the sake of the story.

The Pawnee Battalion served as scouts from about 1865 to 1875. On 5 August 1873, a group of Pawnees buffalo hunting were attacked by a bigger group of Sioux and over a hundred men, women, and children were killed at Massacre Canyon. The Pawnees sold their reservation in Nebraska and moved to a new reservation in Indian Territory in 1875, and the Pawnee Battalion was disbanded.

General George Crook was assigned to command the Department of the Platte, which included Wyoming and Nebraska, in 1875, and the Great Sioux War began in 1876. After the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876, Major North reenlisted a number of Pawnees in the Pawnee Battalion to fight their Sioux enemies one more time, and they joined General Crook's command for the fall 1876 campaign, participating in the Dull Knife Fight, or Battle on the Red Fork, 25 November 1876.

So that is the chronological problem, "Circle of Fire" has to be after the fall of 1876, the only time the Pawnees fought alongside General Crook, and also before the Pawnees moved from Nebraska to the Indian Territory in 1875, in order for Yellow Knife's warriors to be hunting, or whatever they were doing, in southeastern Wyoming near Laramie. That is a contradiction.

If the Laramie episodes are supposed to happen in chronological order, there is another problem, since in a later episode, "The Pass", 29 December 1959, Jess is assigned to be a scout for General Custer, who is thus alive, placing "The Pass" sometime before 25 June 1876 and possibly in an earlier year.

Thus "Circle of Fire" seems to happen in a alternate universe where the Pawnees didn't move to the Indian Territory, and they fought for General Crook in some Indian war on the plains which happened before the Great Sioux War, despite the Great Sioux War being General Crook's first war with the plains Indians in real history. Just like General Howard in "The Pass" was never assigned to command in Wyoming in the 1870s in our timeline.

What about the third officer mentioned, General or Colonel Carter?

Dialog in "Circle of Fire" shows that Major Prescott was Carter's subordinate and decided to keep his own "two companies" with "300" men alive in a defensive position instead of riding to reinforce Carter's command who were all killed. So Carter and Prescott were like Custer and Reno at the Little Bighorn. So Carter's defeat is yet another fictional movie and TV cavalry disaster inspired by Custer's Last Stand, which together make being a movie or TV cavalryman much more dangerous than being a real cavalryman was.

Added 01-17-2020 I saw the beginning of the episode, with a scene with a damaged stage coach, and the railroad man said that won't be a problem once the railroad goes through. But the nearby town of Laramie is mentioned, and Laramie was created by the Union Pacific Railway. So possibly "Circle of Fire" happens in the short period in 1868 after the Union Pacific started selling lots in Laramie and before the railroad tracks reached Laramie.

A officer says that the Pawnees are being moved to a reservation in Indian Territory, except that Yellow knife's band refuse to go, which would put it in 1875 in real life.