After the Battle of Wounded Knee the Ghost Dance trouble ended, and
garrison life at Fort Robinson settled back to training, garden tending,
and policing the post, with few breaks in the routine.
In 1892 the Ninth Cavalry, accompanied by post scouts Little Bat
Garnier, Woman’s Dress, Yankton Charlie, White Antelope, and Joe
Mosseau, spent the months from June until October in the field at Camp
Bettens, Wyoming.
In 1897 an interesting report on recent minor tactical maneuvers at Fort
Robinson was submitted. It described the mounting of Lt. M. A. Batson
and two enlisted men on high wheel Columbia bicycles and the results of
a rugged test of their ability to keep pace with mounted troops in the
field. The bicycle-mounted men had “great difficulty” in keeping up with
cavalry in rough terrain but over rolling ground were able to
outdistance the horsemen. However, the report concluded that day in and
day out the bicycle men would not be able to perform as required. One of
the Columbia wheels was wrecked during the test. Lt. Batson later used
another of the bicycles to good effect while mapping parts of the
military reservation. Despite its humorous aspect, this test
foreshadowed the eventual replacement of cavalry by mechanized
troops.[39]
The war with Spain brought orders on April 16, 1898 for the Ninth
Cavalry to move to Chicamauga Park, Georgia; it later went to Cuba and
then on to the Philippine Islands. In a flurry of activity Fort Robinson
was stripped, not only of troops, but of artillery and other needed war
material, and the garrison was reduced to a minimum.
After the war the Tenth, Eighth, and Twelfth Cavalry regiments, in that
order, followed the Ninth as the Fort Robinson garrison. On December 16,
1900, Little Bat Garnier, the post scout who had served the Army so well
since 1876, was shot and killed by a barkeeper in Crawford. He was
buried in the post cemetery at Fort Robinson.[40]
In 1906 Fort Robinson was once again involved in Indian trouble. Col. J.
A. Augur, regimental commander of the Tenth Cavalry, had to order troops
from the garrison to take the field when three hundred Ute Indians fled
their reservation in an effort to relocate themselves in the Big Horn
country of Montana. The Fort Robinson troops intercepted the Ute and
escorted them to Fort Meade, South Dakota.
During World War I activity at Fort Robinson was reduced. A Signal Corps
Training Center was planned for the Fort, but the war ended before it
could be established.
After the war, in 1919, the post became a Quartermaster Remount Depot.
It eventually developed into the world’s largest remount station, with
thousands of horses and mules. At the Remount Depot horses were
received, conditioned, and issued to Army units and civilian breeders.
Some breeding of horses was also carried on at the post as a breeder’s
demonstration as well as to prove certain stallions. Many famous race
horses were at the depot after their racing careers ended and the 1936
U. S. Olympic Equestrian team trained at the Fort Robinson Remount
Depot.
Officers of the Remount service belonged to the Soldier Creek Hunt Club
and hunted coyotes with their pack of Welch, English and French stag
hounds. The men of the post during this period were proud of their
extensive swine and dairy herds and flocks of poultry maintained to add
variety to their regular rations, just as the troops of the garrison
during the Indian wars raised much of their own food.
The Fourth Field Artillery battalion joined the Remount Service at Fort
Robinson from 1928 until 1932. The artillery men made extensive tests of
pack artillery organization and equipment such as the Phillips pack
saddle. One such test was a five hundred mile march to the Black Hills
and return, during which they hauled a mountain howitzer to the top of
Harney Peak.
In World War II Fort Robinson’s remount activities were continued and
expanded, and thousands of horses and mules were conditioned for
military service. The post made other contributions to the war effort as
well. The Fort Robinson War Dog Reception and Training Center was
activated on October 3, 1942, and on March 15, 1943 a Prisoner of War
Camp was added.
There were kennels for 2,000 dogs and over 6,000 canine patients were
treated in the special dog hospital before the installation was closed
in September 1946. War dogs were trained for several types of duty,
including sentry, trail, tactical, sledge, pack and hospital service.
The internment camp had space for 3,000 German prisoners of war. Only
one prisoner escaped from the camp, and he was recaptured in York,
Nebraska.