I am studying the 19th century in the american west as part of my history course and I have noticed that the description of battles features "25 soldiers were killed by Indians and 150 Indians were killed by the US soldiers at the battle of Wounded Knee ." Why are these battles so small scale compared to, lets say the US civil war?
Im not sure if this is the proper way to answer here but the answer is the Native tribes in the West lived in relatively small groups. They simply didn't have the numbers to form large groups.