Page 89 - 2007 DT 12 Issues

I n T h i s I s s u e

Featured Article
Frontier Forts...................................1

Special
Memorial Plaque Dedicated.............3
Departments
News & Notes....................................2
December 2007 Programs & Hikes..............................4
Desk Schedule..................................6
Bulletin Board..................................8

remembered. Famous or not, life at all
FRONTIER FORTS . . . toughing it out in the West. the frontier forts was tough. General
William T. Sherman described some
military outposts as “mere collections
by Chuck Kleber of huts made of logs, adobes . . . about
ention frontier forts in the own “Gary Owen,” as the cavalrymen as much forts as prairie dog villages.”
West and chances are most confidently passed in review on the pa- One problem lay with the expectation
Mpeople see a log stockade rade ground. As the column moved out, that soldiers would build their own
built around interior buildings, block- no one could have foreseen the disaster forts . . . barracks, officers’ quarters,
houses at the corners, and workshops, warehouses, corrals
a gate through which John (Indians were fond of running
Wayne and remnants of some off horses), administrative
cavalry patrol stagger. That offices, a trader’s store and
type of fort did exist (Forts perhaps a few more. Barracks
C.F. Smith and Phil Kearny were cold and soldiers slept
on the Bozeman Trail), but on straw mattresses. Water
the typical plains and far-West supplies were often scarce
fort consisted of a group of and food was both boring and
utility structures built around a bad— dysentery was common.
parade ground, out in the open Medical care was woefully
and without a stockade. Even deficient. No wonder, then,
so, these forts were rarely that more soldiers died from
attacked by the Indians; the sickness than from Indian bul-
1881 assault on Fort Apache Ft. Phil Kearney lets and arrows. For all this,
was an exception. The forts a private soldier got $16 a month. In
had a simple purpose; to protect set- that lay ahead at the Battle of the Little 1870, an economy-minded Congress
tlers, keep trails open and maintain the Big Horn, but there was a strange oc- reduced it to $13. With that, desertions
presence of the United States in the wil- currence that disturbed Custer’s wife, increased.
derness. To the Indian, along with the Libbie. The morning mist on the plains The typical frontier soldier could
“Iron Horse,” they were a highly visible began to rise, creating a rainbow and almost be equated with the French
manifestation of the white man’s incur- reflection against which the troopers Foreign Legion; no questions were
sion into their country. seemed to be riding into the sky. Libbie asked. He could be a whiskey-drink-
Hollywood’s portrayal is usually a saw it as a premonition, but she still ing gambler, profane and difficult, but
mix of fiction and fact. When George called out cheerfully to John Burkman, he would become a cavalryman or
Armstrong Custer led the 7th Cavalry Custer’s orderly, “You’ll look after the foot soldier and develop close bonds
out of Fort Abraham Lincoln in North general, won’t you?” with his comrades. Daily fort life was
Dakota, on May 17, 1876, it was quite There were many forts, covering
like the film, They Died With Their great regions of the West. Nearly all
Boots On. The band struck up the 7th’s were understaffed, and most are hardly Frontier Forts, continued on p. 6