On December 6, a force of Company C, 2nd Cavalry tasked to protect a wood train, was attacked by Red Cloud. Commanding officer Second Lieutenant Horace S. Bingham was among those killed as he had followed them as they retreated over Lodge Trail Ridge and been overwhelmed. Carrington worried about his officers' tendency to blindly follow such Indian decoy parties. Fetterman was outraged by what he considered the ineffectiveness of Carrington's leadership. He understood the commander of the Department of the Platte, Gen. Philip St. George Cooke, to have ordered the garrison to mount an aggressive winter campaign.