"The Ghost Soldiers"
I don't know what the fictional date of "The Ghost Soldiers" (08 November 1959)was.
IMDB does have a quote from "The Ghost Soldiers" that gives a clue:
[first lines]
Bret Maverick: [narrating] This is the story of a Sioux Chief and how I came in contact with him. That's him. His name, Running Horse. Gold had been discovered in the Black Hills of the Dakotas. Naturally, this started something of a stampede. The Sioux resented the intrusion and demonstrated their resentment by sending back prospector after prospector, all dead. The Army resented the Sioux resentment and sent several regiments into the territory to build forts and protect the taxpayers.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0644498/quotes/?ref_=tt_dyk_qu
Gold was discovered in the Black Hills by prospectors and geologists attached to Custer's surveying expedition in 1874. Thus the stampede of prospectors started late in 1874 and into 1875 and 1875. But the Sioux were defeated in the Great Sioux war of 1876 to 1877 and moved onto their reservations, and the Black Hills thus became relatively safe for prospectors and miners in 1877.
Thus in real history the only possible date for this story would be in the period from 1874 to 1877.
But who knows what the fictional date of a television episode set in the wild west might have been.
As near as I can tell there never was a Fort Burnside in South Dakota, nor was the 6th US cavalry in the region in 1874-1877, so there are no clues there. share