USA > Wyoming > History of Wyoming, Volume I > Part 36
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The reserve proper on which the post is located consists of 5.500 acres or nine and one-seventh square miles, giving ample room for any enlargement in the future. Crow Creek, a fine mountain stream flows centrally through the reserve. The buildings are nearly all new, substantial, brick structures expressly built for and adapted to, the various branches of military service, including infantry, cavalry, artillery, signal service, pack trains, hospital service, target practice, etc .. together with all the necessary auxiliary equipment of stables, warehouses, workshops, gymnasium, guard houses, club houses, riding school building, etc. It has a fine hospital training school building for the education of nurses and medical assistants. Its main hospital building is the largest structure at the fort and is probably the largest military hospital in the country.
Auxiliary to Fort Russell the Government has established the largest military maneuver reserve in this country covering an area of nearly one hundred square miles. This reserve is ideal in topography and situation for handling large bodies of troops in brigades and divisions, for military exercises, mimic battles and marches, being remote from settlements and comprising hills, valleys, ravines, open and rolling ground, mountain streams and timbered areas.
Two secretaries of war (Stimson and Garrison), have personally visited this reserve and have expressed their admiration not only of its scenic beauty but of its rare. practical adaptability for military maneuvers on an extended scale. and as a beautiful summer and winter camp for large bodies of troops. These maneuver grounds are situated about twenty-five miles west of Fort Russell.
FINE WATER SYSTEM
Fort Russell has the largest, finest and most complete water system of any army post in this country. It has an unlimited supply of pure mountain water piped some twenty-five miles from reservoirs filled from running streams. This is brought to the fort through a new sand filter and purifying plant built by the city of Cheyenne at a cost of $80,000. The entire water system cost about $2,000,000 of which the United States Government paid $400,000 and thus became a partner and co-owner with the city of Cheyenne under a contract which assures to the fort a perpetual supply of pure water for all purposes for domestic, irrigation and garrison uses.
The total supply of water from the mountain streams of the water shed is estimated by the engineers at 20,000,000 gallons daily. In ordinary seasons with
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a garrison of 5.000 men the city and fort together use about 5,000,000 gallons daily, leaving 15,000,000 gallons daily surplus unused. The reservoirs of the system contain 4,178.093,000 gallons, enough to supply the city and fort for .nearly three years without any rain or inflow at all. An army of 50,000 can be assembled here and be amply supplied with water for all purposes. The City of Cheyenne pays the entire expense of the upkeep of the system for itself and the garrison at the fort. The Government contract with the city reads as follows :
"It is understood that the City of Cheyenne grants a perpetual water right in the system to the extent required for the use of the military post and its appurtenant reservation, and it hereby agrees to furnish to the United States perpetually a sufficient supply of potable, wholesome water for the uses of said military post and reservation through its connecting mains and service pipes."
In addition to this the fort has five artesian wells, one being connected with a pumping plant with facilities for supplying water at any time. This well alone flows sufficient water to supply the entire domestic wants of the fort at any time should an emergency arise when it would be needed.
This fort being practically in the center of the continent remote from any probable war zone and exempt from foreign invasion by armies advancing from either the Atlantic or Pacific coasts, is the most admirably situated of any army post in this country for the mobilization and assemblage of troops and supplies and with its great reserve camp for drill and practice in the school of the soldier where long marches and maneuvers of large army divisions are required. Its other important advantages have already been cited.
CAMP CARLIN
Shortly after the establishment of Fort Russell and the completion of the railroad across the continent, supplies that were formerly transported by wagon were shipped by rail and it became necessary to establish distributing points for handling army freight. Accordingly a quartermaster's depot was located at Cheyenne, or more properly, on the Fort Russell reserve about half way between the city and the fort. When first located it was given the name of Camp Carlin, but when enlarged and completed it obtained the official name of "Cheyenne Depot."
The central situation of Cheyenne between Omaha and Salt Lake City and its military trails going into the mountains and connecting with ten different army posts made it an especially advantageous location for an army depot, and in a short time it became the second in size of the military depots of this country, having sixteen large warehouses and many workshops for wheelwrights, blacksmiths, carpenters, saddle and harness makers, painters, etc. Two lines of railway side track ran through the depot connecting with the platforms of the warehouse for shipping or receiving freight. From three hundred to five hun- dred civilian laborers and teamsters were employed.
But its principal feature was the handling of wagon transportation to ten or twelve military posts, some of them four hundred miles away. Over one thousand mules were kept in the corrals of the depot and five trains of twenty. six-mule wagons and from three to five pack trains were a part of the regular
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equipment of the camp. The workshops were kept busy shoeing mules and horses, repairing wagons, making saddles and harness and outfitting expedi- tions into the Indian country.
Millions of dollars worth of supplies were assembled and sent out from this depot, including quartermaster stores, commissary stores, and ordnance and wagon equipment. Various Indian expeditions were outfitted at Camp Carlin, the last being the Milk River expedition, which under General Crook went to the relief of Thornburg forces in 1879. With the peaceful settlement of the Northwest and the subsidence of Indian outbreaks many forts were abandoned and the necessity for a supply depot disappeared, and Camp Carlin was aban- doned by the Government in the spring of 1882.
FORT BRIDGER
Some time in the year 1842 James Bridger and Benito Vasquez established a trading post on Black's Fork of the Green River, about thirty miles east of the present city of Evanston and gave it the name of Fort Bridger. Here was made the second permanent settlement in Wyoming. The post was several times attacked by Indians, one of the most disastrous occurring in August, 1843. The fort was surrounded by a number of Shoshone Indian lodges, that tribe being on friendly terms with the old trader and his partner. While the men were absent on an antelope hunt a large party of Cheyenne and Arapaho made a descent upon the place. killed several squaws and ran off a herd of ponies. They were pursued by the Shoshone warriors, the horses were recovered and several Arapaho Indians were killed in the encounter. Lieut. John C. Fremont, then on his Rocky Mountain expedition, encountered the same war party shortly after the fight and reported that a number of wounded men "were trailing along in the rear." These savages made a hostile demonstration against Fre- mont, but a shot from the howitzer put them to flight.
Joel Palmer, who led a company of Oregon emigrants westward in the sum- mer of 1845, made this entry in his journal for July 25th: "This day we trav- eled about sixteen miles, crossed the creek several times, and encamped near Fort Bridger. This is a trading post owned by Bridger and Bascus (Vasquez). It is built of poles and daubed with mud; it is a shabby concern. The fort is sur- rounded by about twenty-five lodges of Indians, or white trappers who have married Indian wives."
In 1854 Bridger sold his fort and a Mexican grant of thirty square miles of land to a Mormon named Lewis Robinson, for $8,000. The next year the Mormons built a bowlder wall fourteen feet high enclosing a space 100 feet square and a large corral for live stock. They changed the name of the post to "Fort Supply," the new post being intended as a supply point for westbound emigrant trains. When Col. Albert Sidney Johnston's expedition reached this place in the fall of 1857, the Mormons evacuated the fort and returned to Salt Lake. Part of Johnston's men wintered there during the winter of 1857-58, and when Colonel Johnston moved on toward Salt Lake City, Lieut .- Col. William Hoffman was left with a detachment of troops at Fort Bridger.
During the summer of 1858 Lieutenant-Colonel Hoffman erected a number of log buildings, cleaned up the place and the Government then established there
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a military post and reservation bearing the old name of Fort Bridger. A gar- rison was maintained there for about thirty years, during which time numerous changes were made in the fort and the adjacent country. In May, 1861, soon after the beginning of the Civil war, Colonel Cook sold the Government supplies at Fort Bridger to the Mormons and left the post in charge of an orderly sergeant. About a year later the Indians began to assume a threatening attitude toward emigrants, and a detachment of the Third United States Cavalry was ordered to Fort Bridger. During the next three years these soldiers were kept busy in guarding the mails, escorting trains and holding in check the hostile Indians in the vicinity.
In the fall of 1867 five companies were stationed at Fort Bridger to protect the surveyors and construction camps of the Union Pacific Railroad. The fol- lowing summer Gen. W. T. Sherman, Gen. A. H. Terry, Gen. C. C. Augur and Gen. W. S. Harney all visited the fort and there concluded a treaty with the chiefs of the Shoshone and Bannock tribes on July 3, 1868, by which those Indians relinquished all their lands in Wyoming except the reservation in the Wind River Valley. A full account of the negotiation of this treaty is given in another chapter of this work.
After the treaty a portion of the garrison was removed to other posts and for a number of years only a small detachment was kept at Fort Bridger. In 1881 Post Trader Carter constructed a road from the fort to Fort Thornburg, which was located at the junction of the Du Chesne and Green rivers in Utah. Two years later new barracks and quarters were erected and in 1884 the garrison was increased. Fort Bridger was finally abandoned about 1890.
FORT WALBACH
Under an order dated September 20, 1858, Fort Walbach was established on Lodge Pole Creek, near Cheyenne Pass, eighty-five miles southwest of Fort Laramie. It was named in honor of Brig .- Gen. John DeB. Walbach, a dis- tinguished soldier of the War of 1812. As the post was not intended as a perma- nent institution, only buildings of a temporary nature were constructed. The fort was abandoned on April 19, 1859. The site of this old fort was marked by the Wyoming Daughters of the American Revolution in 1914.
FORT HALLECK
Fort Halleck, named in honor of Gen. Henry W. Halleck, one of the noted Union generals in the Civil war, was established on July 20, 1862. It was located near the foot of the Medicine Bow Mountains and was for a time the most important military post in the Rocky Mountain region, being the center of the Indian warfare of that period. In the spring of 1863, when Capt. J. L. Humfre- ville of the Eleventh Ohio Cavalry was in command of the post, the troops worked both east and west from the fort, guarding mail coaches and emigrant trains, and saw hard service. Early in 1865, when the Indians began their raids on the Overland stations, the garrison at Fort Halleck was increased. A year later the seat of Indian warfare had shifted to the valleys of the Big Horn and Powder rivers, and on July 4. 1866, Fort Halleck was abandoned.
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FORT CASPER
Early in the year 1865 a military camp was established near the present City of Casper and was known as "Platte Bridge." Upon the recommendation of Lieut .- Col. W. O. Collins of the Eleventh Ohio Cavarly, it was changed from a small and occasional troop station to a permanent post. In his official communi- cation, Lieutenant-Colonel Collins said: "The permanent cure for the hostilities of the northern Indians is to go into the heart of their buffalo country and build and hold forts until the trouble is over."
On March 28, 1865, the District of the Plains was established by order of Gen. Grenville M. Dodge, with Gen. P. E. Connor in command of the new dis- trict. Platte Bridge was then made one of the most important posts of the district. Being located as it was, on the North Platte River, 120 miles west of Fort Laramie, it was in the center of the Indian hostilities. Lieut. Caspar Collins, a son of Lieut .- Col. W. O. Collins, had come west with his father in 1862, and when the latter returned east, remained with his company on the plains. An account of his death at Platte Bridge, in the engagement with the Indians on July 26, 1865, is given in the chapter on Early Military History, and on November 21, 1865, Maj .- Gen. John Pope issued the order changing the name of the post to Fort Casper, in his honor. The fort was finally abandoned in 1867.
FORT RENO
On August 11, 1865, when Gen. P. E. Connor reached the Powder River, 231/2 miles above the mouth of Crazy Woman Fork, he established there a small post which was named Camp Connor. In the latter part of June, 1866, Col. H. B. Carrington repaired and garrisoned the fort and the name was changed to Fort Reno, in honor of Gen. Isaac Reno, a hero of the Civil war. It was abandoned under an order issued by General Grant on March 2, 1868.
FORT SANDERS
By orders from the war department, Fort Sanders was established on July 10, 1866, three miles south of Laramie City, and was at first known as "Fort John Buford." On September 5. 1866, the name was changed to Fort Sanders, in honor of W. P. Sanders, captain in the Second United States Cavalry and later a brigadier-general of volunteers. It was established as a protection for the Denver & Salt Lake stage line and the emigrant trains passing over the Oregon Trail. The Union Pacific Railroad was completed to this point late in the spring of 1868, and on June 28th of that year the reservation was enlarged to embrace a tract of land nine miles square. At that time the buildings consisted of log structures with quarters for six companies, officers' quarters, a guardhouse, post store and stables. The fort was abandoned in May, 1882, and in 1889 part of the reservation was granted to the State of Wyoming for a fish hatchery.
On the highway from Laramie to Denver, where the old fort formerly stood. there is now a monument bearing the following inscription: "This monument marks the site of Fort Sanders, established September 5, 1866, abandoned May 18. 1882. Named in honor of Brig .- Gen. William P. Sanders. Erected by the
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State of Wyoming and Jacques Laramie Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, June, 1914. From July 10 to September 5, 1866, known as Fort John Buford."
FORT PHILIP KEARNY
This is one of two forts established by order of Maj .- Gen. John Pope on the Bozeman Road in 1866. Col. H. B. Carrington was commissioned to select the sites and build Forts Phil Kearny and C. F. Smith. The former was staked off on July 15, 1866, and the latter, ninety miles northwest, in Montana, early in August. Fort Phil Kearny was completed on the 21st of October and for several months the posts and the country immediately surrounding it were the scene of several conflicts with the hostile Indians. An account of the massacre of Capt. W. J. Fetterman and his command on December 21, 1866, is given in the chapter on Early Military History.
On March 2, 1868, Gen. U. S. Grant issued an order for the abandonment of all the forts on the Bozeman Road and the withdrawal of all troops from the Indian country in Northern Wyoming. Fort Phil Kearny was abandoned under this order in August, 1868, and the buildings were afterward burned by the chief Little Wolf. A monument commemorating the Fetterman Massacre was unveiled on the site of the fight on July 4, 1908. The massacre occurred seven miles from the fort, which was located on Piney Creek, four miles from the Big Horn Mountains and about fifteen miles northwest of the present City of Buffalo. After the fort was abandoned, George Geier purchased that part of the reservation where the buildings formerly stood and established thereon a ranch.
FORT FETTERMAN
On July 19, 1867, Fort Fetterman was established at the mouth of the La Prele Creek and was named in honor of brevet Lieut .- Col. W. J. Fetterman, captain in the Twenty-fourth Regular Infantry, who was killed near Fort Phil Kearny on December 21, 1866. By 1872 it had been enlarged to a post of four companies and was one of the best equipped military establishments in the state. At that time the nearest Indians were the Ogallala Sioux, 385 lodges ; the Chey- enne, 300 lodges : the Arapaho, 150 lodges ; and a few straggling bands of other tribes. A small garrison was maintained here until 1878. when the necessity for a military post in the locality no longer existed and the fort was abandoned by order of the secretary of war, nearly all of the reservation of sixty square miles being then transferred to the interior department.
FORT FRED STEELE
This fort was located at the point where the Union Pacific Railroad crosses the North Platte River, in Carbon County, and was established by Col. Richard I. Dodge on June 30, 1868, as a protection to the builders of the railroad. It was named in honor of Maj .- Gen. Frederick Steele of Civil war fame. Within Vol. 1-21
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forty-eight hours after the completion of the fort, camp followers to the number of five hundred or more had established the town of "Brownsville" near by. Five days later the population of the town was estimated at fifteen hundred.
On June 28. 1869, the Government established the reservation of thirty-six square miles. The frame buildings of the post provided quarters for four com- panies and a garrison was maintained here for more than ten years. On January 24. 1878, Gen. George Crook, in his annual report, stated: "While no military necessity now exists for troops at Fort Fred Steele or Fort Sanders * * * yet they are cheap places for the stationing of troops." The fort was finally abandoned in 1881.
FORT WASHAKIE
The Shoshone or Wind River Reservation was established by the treaty con- cluded at Fort Bridger on July 3. 1868, and on June 28, 1869, an order was issued for the establishment of a garrison at some point upon the reservation. A site was selected near the junction of Trout Creek and the Little Wind River and a post was established under the name of Camp Augur, in honor of Gen. C. C. Augur, one of the officers who had negotiated the treaty the year before. On March 28, 1870, the name was changed to Camp Brown and on December 30, 1878, it was changed to Fort Washakie, in honor of Chief Washakie of the Shoshone tribe. As early as 1872 the post consisted of log buildings with accom- modations for a garrison of 115 men. A few additional buildings were erected during the next twenty years, and in 1893 Congress made a considerable appro- priation for permanent improvements at the fort. Troops were stationed at Fort Washakie until 1909.
FORT STAMBAUGH
Soon after the discovery of gold in the South Pass region in 1867, a request was made for troops to protect the miners from Indian depredations. The request was ignored for a time, but in June, 1870, a small military station was established in Smith's Gulch, near Atlantic City, and given the name of Camp Stambaugh. Two years later it was garrisoned by two companies, which were quartered in four large log buildings. The presence of these troops kept the Shoshone and Bannock Indians from a possible outbreak. On January 27. 1878, Gen. Philip H. Sheridan recommended the removal of the garrison, and on August 17, 1878, the official order for the abandonment of the post was issued by the war department.
FORT MC KINNEY
On October 12, 1876, Fort McKinney was established on the northwest bank of Powder River, three miles above and south of the site of old Fort Reno. It was at first called "Cantonment Reno." On July 18, 1877, the location was changed to the north bank of Clear Creek. a short distance west of the present City of Buffalo and about two miles above the crossing of the old Bozeman Road. The
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old site was then used as a depot. The name of Fort Mckinney was given to the post on August 30, 1877, after the removal. The first substantial buildings were erected in the fall of that year.
Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, in a report dated March 9, 1882, stated that the fort was still incomplete and recommended that it be improved, as it would be a "necessity in Indian warfare for many years to come." Upon this showing Con- gress appropriated $40,000 for the improvement of the fort. In 1892 three cav- alry barracks were destroyed by fire and the following session of Congress made an appropriation to rebuild them.
Even then it was apparent to military experts that no further necessity for the maintenance of the post existed. As early as 1889 a small portion of the reservation had been annexed to the City of Buffalo. In 1895 all of the fort buildings and two sections of land were donated to the State of Wyoming and the remainder of the land was transferred to the department of the interior.
FORT MACKENZIE
On January 13. 1899, Francis E. Warren, United States Senator from Wyo- ming, introduced a bill for the erection of a Government military post near the City of Sheridan. The necessity for such a post had been brought to the atten- tion of President Mckinley the year before and an executive order had been issued for the establishment of temporary barracks, under the supervision of Gen. E. V. Sumner. In the debate on the Warren Bill the fact was brought out that there were over twenty-three thousand Indians upon the various reservations tributary to the proposed fort. These included the Fort Benton, Standing Rock. Cheyenne River, Lower Brule, Rosebud and Pine Ridge reservations in the Dakotas ; the Blackfoot, Flathead, Northern Cheyenne, Crow, Fort Belknap and Fort Peck Indians in Montana; the Fort Hall Indians in Idaho; and the Uintah and Uncompahgre Utes in Utah.
In 1905 the fort had become a well equipped military establishment. In February of that year the State of Wyoming granted to the post a large tract of land for the enlargement of the reservation, taking in exchange other Gov- ernment lands. The same year the post hospital was built and since then other buildings have been erected. A system of waterworks was constructed for the post at a considerable cost, and Fort Mackenzie became the second post of the state in importance, being exceeded only by Fort D. A. Russell at Cheyenne.
In the spring of 1918 the garrison consisted of Lieut. Herman Hurring and six men belonging to the quartermaster's department, and a movement for the abandonment of the post was inaugurated. In an article contributed to the Cheyenne Leader, the writer says: "Fort Mackenzie, with its 5,000 acres of land. would make an ideal location for a military school. Its buildings are of pressed brick and substantially constructed, and with little expense could be made to serve admirably the purpose of an academy. *
* If proper repre- sentations were made by those in authority, it is very probable that the fort could be secured upon most favorable conditions. Naturally, nothing can be done until formal orders come abandoning the fort as a military post, but in my judgment this order may be expected at no distant day."
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OTHER FORTS
In the states adjoining Wyoming were a number of forts that played a part in the military history of the state. Among these may be named Fort Hall, Idaho; Uinta and Thornburg, Utah; Sedgwick (first known as Fort Rankin), Colorado; C. F. Smith and Custer, Montana ; and Robinson and Sidney in Nebraska.
CHAPTER XXI
EARLY TRANSPORTATION METHODS
PROGRESS OF FOUR SCORE YEARS-EARLY TRAILS-THE OREGON TRAIL-CAMPING PLACES IN WYOMING-MARKING THE TRAIL-THE PONY EXPRESS-DAY OF THE STAGE COACH-THE OVERLAND LINE-CHANGING THE ROUTE-BEN HOLLIDAY- EQUIPMENT-EDUCATING A TENDERFOOT-MARKING THE OVERLAND- CHEYENNE & BLACK HILLS STAGE LINE-PERILS OF STAGE COACHING-ROAD AGENTS-PASS- ING OF THE STAGE COACH-FREIGHTING ACROSS THE PLAINS.
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