work of Lieutenant Z. M. Pike, the first American to explore and
chart the peak which bears his name. In 1805 this officer was in
command of an exploring expedition and held a conference with the
Sioux Indians on an island at the mouth of the Minnesota River
which now bears his name. He secured from the Indians for military
purposes a strip of land nine miles on each side of the Mississippi
River and extending from the conference island to the Falls of St.
Anthony, near which Fort Snelling is.
It is to be remembered that in 1805 the settlement of the American
nation did not extend beyond the Mississippi River. The country
west of Lake Michigan and on the headwaters of the Mississippi
River, though a part of the United States, thanks largely to George
Rogers Clark, was in a state of nature with only the trails of
Indians and traders and the remains of little French settlements as
the foundation for the civilization which was to grow up within it.
The privileges which Lieutenant Pike secured from the red men
were not immediately taken advantage of by the United States
authorities. Time passed and the War of 1812 with England gave the
War Department of this country quite as much as it could take
care of. Finally, in 1819, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Leavenworth,
of the Fifth United States Infantry, was sent with his regiment to
locate a fort upon the reserve selected by Lieutenant Pike. Colonel
Leavenworth reached the headwaters of the Mississippi without
incident and rendered his first monthly report in September, 1819.
Scurvy broke out now among the troops and this, added to the
natural inclemencies of the climate here in winter, prevented any
work being done until the spring of 1820. In May, 1820, Colonel
Leavenworth moved his troops to a point on the west bank of the
Mississippi River, about a mile and a half above the present
location of Fort Snelling. The site chosen by him for the fort was
the present military cemetery. He made preparations to commence the
work, but Colonel Josiah Snelling assumed command in August and
selected the location where the fort now stands.
Work actually commenced September 10, 1820, and went steadily ahead
until October, 1822, when the post was first occupied. During this
time Colonel Snelling was in command and his regiment was engaged
in the work.
For two years after it had been finished the post was known as Fort
St. Anthony--at Colonel Snelling’s suggestion--after the falls
which are near the place, but, in 1824, it was visited by General
Scott, who suggested to the War Department that the name should
be changed to that which it bears to-day as a compliment to its
builder.
The defences and some of the store-houses and shops were built
of stone, but the quarters for the soldiers were log huts until
after the Mexican War. The huts have now given way to comfortable
barracks of modern construction, but the stone construction and the
shops remain to-day as they were when the fort was far distant from
civilization.
During the Civil War the fort was a concentration point for
volunteers. In 1878 a plan of enlargement to accommodate a full
regiment was entered upon in accordance with the policy then
inaugurated by the War Department of having the soldiers of the
country concentrated at a few points rather than scattered through
a number of small posts.
While Fort Snelling has never seen active service itself it has
had an active existence as a distribution point for those posts
which were in conflict with the enemy during the United States’
occasional Indian Wars. During the serious Sioux outbreak of 1862
in Minnesota it was the head-quarters of the campaign against the
Indians, though the fighting took place from subsidiary posts in
contact with the red men.
For twenty years after its completion Fort Snelling was in the
midst of the Sioux with no white neighbors except traders, agents
of fur companies, refugees from civilization and disreputable
hangers-on. In 1837 an enlargement of the military reserve and the
coming of the first tide of white settlers who were to develop this
country caused the eviction of this last class of dependents. One
of the nearby squatters took his grog-shop to a point not far away.
Around this point a settlement grew up. This settlement is now the
proud city of St. Paul.
FORT LARAMIE
AT THE FORKS OF THE PLATTE RIVER--WYOMING
One of the most famous of the western Indian forts of the United
States is situated on the west bank of the Laramie River, one and
a half miles above the junction of that stream with the Platte.
Though deserted the post is still a picturesque figure, recalling
the days when it administered authority for seven hundred miles
around. The property now comprises part of the ranch of Mr. John
Hunton.
Before the white man had established a habitation where Fort
Laramie stands the whole of the country of the North Platte River
was a hunting-ground and battle-field for different tribes of
Indians. Countless herds of buffalo roamed the land and it was rich
in fur-bearing animals, as well.
In 1834 William Sublette and Robert Campbell, coming to this
part of the country to trap beaver, found themselves obliged to
construct some sort of protection against the roving bands of
vagabond Crows and Pawnees which occasionally swept along the
Platte, stealing where they could. They built in that year upon
the present site of Fort Laramie a square fort of pickets 18 feet
high, with bastions at two diagonal corners, and a number of little
houses inside for their employés. In 1835 they sold out to Milton
Sublette, James Bridger and three other trappers, who went into
partnership with the American Fur Company and continued the beaver
trapping business.
In that year the American Fur Company sent two men named Kiplin
and Sabille to the Bear Butte and Northern Black Hills to persuade
the Sioux Indians to come over and hunt their game and live in the
vicinity of the fort. Their ambassadors succeeded so well that they
returned with over one hundred lodges of Oglala Sioux under Chief
Bull Bear. This was the first appearance of the powerful Sioux
nation in this part of the country, which they speedily overran,
driving away Pawnees, Cheyennes, Crows and all others from its very
borders.
Of course the fort speedily became a trading post where the Indians
bartered a buffalo robe for a knife, an awl, or a drink of “fire
water.” Anything that the company had to trade was at least of the
value of one buffalo robe. An American horse brought fifty of them;
any pony was worth twenty or thirty. Any old scrap of iron was of
great value to an Indian and by him would be speedily converted
into a knife. Fire-arms he had none and his arrow-heads were all
made of pieces of flint or massive quartz, fashioned into proper
shape by laborious pecking with another stone. The Sioux then had
no horses, but herds of wild horses were abundant on their arrival
and it was not many years before they learned their use.
In 1836 the picket fort began to rot badly and the American Fur
Company rebuilt it of adobe at an expense of $10,000. The people
who lived inside of the fort at this time called it “Fort William,”
after William Sublette, but the name could not be popularized. The
fort being built on the Laramie River, not far from Laramie Peak,
the American Fur Company’s clerks in their city offices labelled it
Fort Laramie and by that name it was destined to be called.
It seems that Laramie was a trapper, one of the first French
voyageurs who ever trapped a beaver or shot a buffalo in the Rocky
Mountains. He was one day killed by a band of Arapahoes on the
headwaters of the stream which has ever since been called by his
name.
The American Fur Company retained possession of the fort until 1840
when it sold it to the United States government for four or five
thousand dollars. Bruce Husaband was the last representative of the
company who had charge of Fort Laramie.
The first United States troops which arrived here came in July,
1840, under the command of Major Sanderson of the Mounted Rifles.
They were companies C and D of that regiment. Company G of the
Sixth United States Infantry arrived in August of the same year
under command of Captain Ketchum. In the summer and fall of 1840 a
large number of additions were made to the buildings at the post.
In 1846, just prior to its occupancy by the United States,
Francis Parkman, the future historian, then little more than a
boy, visited Fort Laramie and wrote a description of the place in
that singularly vivid style which characterized his best work as a
historian. His description may be abridged:
Looking back, after the expiration of a year, upon Fort Laramie
and its inmates, they seem less like a reality than like some
fanciful picture of the olden time; so different was the scene
from any which this tamer side of the world can present. Tall
Indians, enveloped in their white buffalo robes, were striding
across the area or reclining at full length on the low roofs
of the buildings which enclosed it. Numerous squaws, gayly
bedizened, sat grouped in front of the rooms they occupied;
their mongrel offspring, restless and vociferous, rambled in
every direction through the fort; and the trappers, traders, and
engagees of the establishment were busy at their labor or their
amusements....
Fort Laramie is one of the posts established by the “American Fur
Company” which well nigh monopolizes the Indian trade of this
region. Here its officials rule with an absolute sway; the arm of
the United States has little force; for when we were there the
extreme outposts of her troops were about seven hundred miles to
the eastward. The little fort is built of bricks dried in the
sun, and externally is of an oblong form, with bastions of clay,
in the form of ordinary blockhouses, at two of the corners. The
walls are about fifteen feet high, and surmounted by a slender
palisade. The roofs of the apartments within, which are built
close against the walls, serve the purpose of a banquette.
Within, the fort is divided by a partition: on one side is
the square area, surrounded by the offices, store-rooms and
apartments of the inmates; on the other is the corral, a narrow
place, encompassed by high clay walls, where at night, or in
presence of dangerous Indians, the horses and mules of the fort
are crowded for safe keeping. The main entrance has two gates,
with an arched passage intervening. A little square window, high
above the ground, opens laterally from an adjoining chamber
into this passage; so that when the inner gate is closed end
barred, a person without may still hold communication with those
within, through this narrow aperture. This obviates the necessity
of admitting suspicious Indians, for the purposes of trading,
into the body of the fort; for when danger is apprehended, the
inner gate is shut fast and all traffic is carried on by means
of the window. This precaution, though necessary at some of
the Company’s posts, is seldom resorted to at Fort Laramie;
where though men are frequently killed in the neighborhood no
apprehensions are felt of any general design of hostility from
the Indians.
A train of emigrants encamped outside the fort for the night on
their long journey across the plains.
A crowd of broad-rimmed hats, thin visages, and staring eyes
appeared suddenly at the gate. Tall, awkward men in brown
homespun; women, with cadaverous faces and long lank figures,
came thronging in together, and as if inspired by the very
demon of curiosity ransacked every nook and corner of the fort.
The emigrants prosecuted their investigations with untiring
vigor. They penetrated the rooms, or, rather, dens, inhabited
by the astonished squaws. Resolved to search every mystery to
the bottom, they explored the apartments of the men, and even
that of Marie and the bourgeois (the commandant of the fort).
At last a numerous deputation appeared at our door but found no
encouragement to remain.... Having at length satisfied their
curiosity, they next proceeded to business.
On the 19th of August, 1854, a Mormon train was encamped about ten
miles below the fort on the Platte River. The Indians having killed
a cow or ox belonging to the train had been complained of by the
Mormons to the commanding officer, who sent Lieutenant Grattan,
of the Sixth United States Infantry, with thirty men of Company
G and two howitzers, to recover the cow and bring the thieves to
the garrison. They met a large number of Indians (Sioux) under the
leadership of a chief named Mattoioway about eight miles from the
fort and a conflict ensued in which Lieutenant Grattan’s command,
with the exception of one man, was annihilated. The survivor was
hidden in some bushes by a friendly Indian and brought to the fort
that night where he died two days afterward. The bodies of the
slain were buried in one grave where they fell and a pile of stones
marks their resting place.
THE ALAMO AND FORT SAM HOUSTON
SAN ANTONIO--TEXAS
The Alamo, which is famous for its heroic defence against the
Mexicans by Travis and his men, is situated in San Antonio, Texas,
and is the point of pilgrimage annually for many hundreds of the
visitors to the southwestern United States. On the outskirts of San
Antonio is the modern great military plant, Fort Sam Houston, the
Alamo’s lusty successor.
The Alamo, as late as 1870, was used for military purposes by the
United States government, but of recent years it has been preserved
purely as a monument to those brave men who lost their lives in
it fighting bravely to the last a battle which they knew to be
hopeless from the first. Upon the front of the building has been
placed an inscription which reads, “Thermopylæ had its messenger
of defeat. The Alamo had none.” The building, itself, is a low
structure of the familiar Spanish mission type, and its main walls,
though constructed in 1744, are almost as solid to-day as when new.
The chapel of the Alamo bears the date 1757, but this was of later
building than the rest of the place.
The city of San Antonio owes its foundation to the establishment
in 1715 by Spain of the mission of San Antonio de Valero, which
in accordance with the custom of that country combined priestly
enterprise with military prerogative. The Alamo was a quadrangular,
central court structure built to house the troops of Spain and
to sound the call to worship. It was acquired by Mexico with the
rest of the Spanish possessions when this southern neighbor of the
United States, in 1824, finally secured its independence from the
parent country.
At the time of the siege, San Antonio was a town of about 7,000
inhabitants, the vast majority Mexican. The San Antonio river
which, properly speaking, is a large rivulet, divided the town from
the Alamo, the former on the west side and the latter on the east.
South of the fort was the Alamo village, a small suburb of San
Antonio.
The fort itself was in the condition in which it had been left by
Cos, the Mexican general, when it had been surrendered in the fall
of 1835. It contained twelve guns which were of little use in the
hands of men unskilled in their use, and owing to the construction
of the works most of the guns had little width of range.
In command of the place at the beginning of the winter of 1835
was Colonel Neill, of Texas, with two companies of volunteers,
among whom was a remnant of the New Orleans Greys. Early in 1836
Lieutenant Colonel William B. Travis, a brave and careful officer,
was appointed by the Governor of Texas, which had as yet only a
provisional government, to relieve Colonel Neill of his command.
[Illustration:
By courtesy of the War Department
RUINS OF THE ALAMO IN 1845
From a sketch upon Map of the Country in the Vicinity of San
Antonio de Bexar made by J. Edmund Blake, 1st Lieut. Topographical
Engineers, U. S. A.]
The volunteers, a hard-headed and independent lot, wished to choose
their own leader though they were willing to have Travis second in
command, and called a meeting, where they elected as full colonel
one of their number, James Bowie, a forceful figure of early Texan
history. Bowie’s name to-day unfortunately is chiefly remembered
by virtue of the “Bowie” knife. Travis arrived at the fort early
in February, just two weeks before the Mexicans under the detested
Santa Ana came in view, and naturally enough refused to recognize
the superior authority of the officer so informally placed in
power, as did the men whom he had brought with him. There was thus
divided authority in the Alamo at the time of the siege.
All disputes were dropped, however, upon the approach of the enemy.
The advance detachment of the Mexican force which came in four
divisions arrived in San Antonio on February 22, and was welcomed
by an eighteen-pound shot from the little American garrison. Santa
Ana procured a parley and demanded the surrender of the entire
garrison, the terms to be left to his discretion.
A dramatic scene took place in the Alamo, tradition tells us,
when news of this proposal came to the ill-starred place. Colonel
Travis drew a line upon the ground. “All those who prefer to fight
will cross this line,” he is reported to have said. Every man
crossed the line and Bowie, who had been stricken to his bed with
pneumonia, roused enough to ask that his cot be carried with his
men. It was well understood that the issue of the fray, if once
Santa Ana succeeded in taking the post, would be the death of every
man without mercy; and the chances of withstanding an attack were
known to be weak.
When finally the Mexican host was assembled it numbered about
twenty-five hundred men. The American garrison, which was swelled
by a reinforcement of 32 men from Gonzales who managed to get
through the lines of the besiegers into the fort, numbered
altogether 188 men. The siege commenced on the 24th of February and
continued without cessation until the morning of the 6th of March,
when there was a grand assault.
The final assault occupied not more than half an hour. The blast
of a bugle was followed by the shuffle of a rushing mass of men.
The guns of the fort opened upon the charging columns which came
from all directions. The outer walls were taken despite the efforts
of the pitiful handful of their defenders, and the battle then
became a series of desperate fights from room to room of the old
structure. Travis fell with a single shot through his forehead
and his gun was turned on the building. Bowie was found on his
cot in his room at the point of death from the malady which had
stricken him; with his last flicker of strength he shot down with
his pistols more than one of his assailants before he was butchered
where he lay, too weak to move his body.
The chapel was the last point taken and the inmates of this
stronghold fought with unremitting fury, firing down from the upper
part of the structure after the enemy had taken the floor. Toward
the close of this episode Lieutenant Dickenson, with his child
strapped to his back, leaped from the east embrasure. Both were
shot in the act.
One of the garrison was Davy Crockett, a well-known and beloved
backwoodsman, known for his quaint sayings and homely wisdom.
Crockett was found beside a gun in the west battery with a pile of
slain around him.
The number of Mexicans killed has never been correctly estimated
though it has been placed as high as a thousand. The most accurate
estimate lies probably between 500 and 600.
A few hours after the engagement the bodies of the slaughtered
garrison were gathered by the victors, laid in three heaps and
burned. On February 25, 1837, the bones and ashes were collected by
order of General Sam Houston, as well as could be done, and buried
with military honors in a peach orchard then outside Alamo village
and a few hundred yards from the fort. The place of burial was not
preserved and the ground which contains the remains of these heroic
men has long since been built over.
During the Mexican War the walls of the Alamo buildings were
repaired and the buildings newly roofed for the use of the
quartermaster’s department.
Fort Sam Houston, the modern successor of the ancient Alamo, was
first located on Houston Street where one of San Antonio’s great
new hotels now stands. Its present ideal situation on a high
plateau 762 feet above the level of the Gulf of Mexico was chosen
in 1872 and the grounds first comprised 162 acres of land. The fort
was built around a quadrangle 624 feet square, in the centre of
which was erected a gray stone tower 88 feet in height. Of recent
years large accessions of land have made the post over one thousand
acres in extent and the buildings have been largely added to, over
two and a half millions of dollars being expended upon the fort by
the national government. It is now one of the most important of the
United States’ military possessions. During the Spanish-American
war the place acquired celebrity as being the scene of organization
and training of the Rough Riders.
Immediately before the outbreak of the Civil War the Alamo was
commanded by that soldier who was to lead the armies of the
Lost Cause and whose name is a household heritage in the south
to-day, Robert E. Lee. Associated with him here was Albert Sydney
Johnston. The house occupied by General Lee was situated on South
Alamo street and here he wrote his resignation to the United
States authorities before assuming command of the enthusiastic and
untrained masses of Southerners.
During the Civil War San Antonio was the headquarters of the
Confederacy in the southwest and the Alamo was used for storage.
OTHER WESTERN FORTS
FORT PHIL KEARNEY, NEBRASKA; FORT LEAVENWORTH, KANSAS; FORT
FETTERMAN, WYOMING; FORT BRIDGER, WYOMING; FORT KEOGH, MONTANA;
FORT DOUGLAS, UTAH
One of the most dreadful Indian fights in the history of the Middle
West is associated with Fort Phil Kearney, on the Platte River,
Nebraska, which was in 1848, at the time of its establishment,
the only United States post between Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 350
miles distant, and Fort Laramie, 420 miles to the west. It stood
midway between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains on the
California Overland route and was established for the protection of
west-bound emigrant trains from hostile Indians.
Fort Phil Kearney was a storm centre during the Sioux War, which
began in 1863 and continued intermittently for nearly ten years,
and the “Kearney Massacre” occurred during this time. On the
morning of December 21, 1866, the fort received word that the wood
train was being attacked by Indians and was in need of assistance.
Immediately Brevet Lieutenant Colonel W. I. Fetterman with
seventy-six men was ordered to protect the train.
Colonel Fetterman moved rapidly upon his errand, and the sound of
heavy firing soon showed that he was in contact with the enemy. The
firing continued so long that the commandant, Colonel Carrington,
became alarmed for the safety of the detachment and sent out as
many men as he could spare for reinforcement. These men were under
Captain Ten Eyck. The rest of the story may be taken up in the
words of Senate Document 13, 1867:
Colonel Ten Eyck reported as soon as he reached the summit
commanding a view of the battle-field that the valley was full of
Indians; that he could see nothing of Colonel Fetterman’s party,
and requested that a howitzer should be sent him. The howitzer
was not sent.
The Indians who at first beckoned him to come down now commenced
retreating and Captain Ten Eyck, advancing to a point where the
Indians had been standing in a circle, found the dead, naked
bodies of Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Fetterman, Captain Brown and
about sixty-five of the soldiers of their command.... At about
half the distance from where these bodies lay to the point where
the road commences to descend to Peno Creek was the dead body of
Lieutenant Grummond, and still farther on, at the point where the
road commences to descend to Peno Creek, were the dead bodies
of three citizens and four or five of the old, long-tried and
experienced soldiers.