FRONTIER ARMY TRUNK CONTENTS
Ammunition Belt
Bone Toothbrush
Bugle
Campaign Hat
Cavalry Jacket
Coffee Mug
Darning Egg
Fork
Hardtack
Holster
Infantry Fatigue Jacket
Infantry Trousers
Knife
Lead Cartridge
Map
Pistol Cap/Cartridge Pouch
Pocketknife
Razor
Shaving Brush
Spoon
Suspenders
Tin Plate
Underwear
Washboard
Wool Socks
Belt Plate
Brass Service Insignias (3)
.44 Caliber 1860 Army Revolver
Canteen
Cavalry Spurs
Compass
Enlisted Man’s Forage Cap
Hair Comb
Haversack
Housewife (Sewing Kit)
Infantry Shoes
Iron
Lead Balls(3)
Lye Soap
Officer’s Forage Cap
Playing Cards
Pocket Watch
Rifle Cartridge Box
Shoulder Straps
Sunbonnet
Tin Cup
Tin Shaving Cup
Waist Belts
Wooden Dice
Wool Undershirt
Video Cassette: A Day In The Life Of Fort Laramie
Audio Cassette: The Basic Bugler
Books: The Basic Bugler
Buffalo Soldiers
Feeding The Frontier Army 1775-1865
Brave Eagle’s Account Of The Fetterman Fight
A Frontier Army Christmas
A Frontier Fort On The Oregon Trail
Reading, Writing & Riding Along the Oregon-California Trails
Teacher's Guide
Grey Museum Folder (Masters for Duplication)
DESCRIPTIONS OF TRUNK ITEMS
AMMUNITION BELT: This belt allows soldiers to carry cartridge ammunition while
serving in the field on campaign. It was woven of drab-colored cotton and had either
forty-five or fifty loops for .45-caliber ammunition. The belt distributes the weight of the
cartridges evenly around the waist.
BELT PLATE: A solid brass rectangular shaped belt fastener slightly curved to
conform with the man’s body. In relief on the face of the plate were the letters “U.S.”
encompassed by an oval.
BONE TOOTHBRUSH: A personal article not issued to the soldier but purchased at
the post sutler’s store. Toothbrushes have changed little from the 19th century to the
present day. This one is made of boar bristles and an animal bone handle.
BRASS SERVICE INSIGNIAS: The branch devices for enlisted men were made of
thin stamped brass with attachment wires soldered on the back. These cap insignias
signified the wearer’s branch of the army: crossed cannons for artillery, crossed sabers
for cavalry and crossed rifles for infantry.
BUGLE: A brass musical instrument used to communicate numerous commands such as
reveille to charge. Often the bugle made pocket watches and clocks unnecessary as
residents of the post lived instead “by the bugle”.
.44 CALIBER 1860 ARMY REVOLVER: The primary cavalry sidearm from 1860
until the introduction of the 1873 single-action .45 caliber revolver. The revolver was
loaded with powder and ball from the front end of the cartridge cylinder using the loading
lever and had to be primed with a percussion cap. THIS PISTOL IS A NON-FIRING
REPLICA BUT STILL SHOULD BE SHOWN THE SAME CONSIDERATION AS
AN ACTUAL WEAPON.
CAMPAIGN HAT: Made of black felt, the wide brimmed hat was worn on campaign in
the field. The hat could be folded and the brim fastened together to present a more
military look.
CANTEEN: Issued to all branches of the army since 1858. It was made of two pieces of
pressed tin, soldered together and had a capacity of three pints. At the top was a pewter
spout with a cork stopper attached by an iron jack chain. Canteens had a two-piece fitted
cover made of either brownish-gray blanket cloth, sky-blue kersey or dark-blue wool.
CAVALRY JACKET: Issued to “horse soldiers”, this uniform jacket was similar to
jackets being worn by both the British and French cavalry in the mid-19th century. The
jacket was made of dark-blue wool uniform cloth with twelve brass eagle buttons in a
single row down the front. Yellow (indicating mounted troops) worsted lace extended
around the top and bottom of the collar and waist and the edged front closure. Located at
the lower back were two, small stuffed-cloth belt supporters, intended to help carry the
weight of the saber and belt, revolver and ammunition pouch.
CAVALRY SPURS: A pair of smooth-finished cast-brass pattern spurs with a black
leather strap were issued to all mounted troops. At one end of each strap was a standing
loop and a brass wire roller buckle.
COFFEE MUG: Standard coffee mug used in the mess room of the barracks. Some
units would decorate them with their insignias. This one has the insignia of 2nd Cavalry,
Company K that was stationed at Fort Laramie.
COMPASS: Made of solid brass, with folding sundial for telling the time. The early
military expeditions out West relied on the compass to accurately plot and document for
surveying and cartography, or map making.
DARNING EGG: This wooden darning egg or “hen’s egg” was used to mend holes in
the toes of socks. The egg was inserted into the sock and provided a solid form over
which to sew. Frontier army dependents frequently had to mend clothing because
clothing shortages were common at their posts in the West.
ENLISTED MAN’S FORAGE CAP: It was made of dark-blue wool broadcloth with a
thin, tarred-leather visor. On the front of the cap, above the visor, was a leather chin
strap, which was adjusted with a brass slide and fastened at either end by a small
regulation eagle button. The high crown, cut longer in back and lined with a brown or
black glazed cotton, was unstiffened so that it flopped forward. A circular piece of
pasteboard covered with cloth formed the top. There was little consistency in the manner
of wearing the insignia on the forage cap. Some units wore only the company letter on
the front of the cap. Photographs show that many soldiers wore the insignias atop the
crown while others wore no insignia at all.
FORK, KNIFE AND SPOON: Because the army did not issue mess equipment before
1872, soldiers would likely purchase these items from the post sutler. The styles of forks,
knives and spoons varied widely owing to the great many styles available on the
commercial market. Forks and knives were usually iron with plain, two-piece wooden
handles riveted to the shanks. Forks were made in both three and four-tine styles.
Spoons were made of tin.
HAIR COMB: Many combs of the time period were made from cow horn and featured
two sizes of teeth. The larger teeth were used to groom the hair while the smaller teeth
were used to comb out lice. Another personal item bought from the post sutler.
HARDTACK: Officially called “hard bread”, this was a very bland, plain flour and
water biscuit. It was issued three per meal for a total of nine per day. Many ate the
hardtack just as it was issued. Others tried to make it somewhat more palatable by
soaking it in coffee, crumbling it in soup or by soaking it in cold water and then frying it
in pork fat.
HAVERSACK: This was a bag that the soldier used to carry his rations of food and
personal items. It was about twelve inches square, made of either black tarred
(waterproofed) cotton or canvas, with a non-adjustable sling of the same material. A
single, leather strap fastened and closed the flap. Regulations prescribed that the
infantrymen wear the haversack with the canteen over it on the left side. This would
leave the cartridge box unobstructed on the right. Cavalry troopers were given the choice
to either wear the canteen and haversack while mounted or attach it to the saddle.
HOLSTER: The cavalry trooper wore on his belt a revolver holster (rightside, butt
forward). The holster body was made of black leather with a flap that was folded over to
cover the pistol grip and fastened by a brass stud mounted on the holster body.
HOUSEWIFE (SEWING KIT): This sewing hit was used by soldiers to repair their
clothing and equipment. It came in a roll-up canvas bag with pockets to house scissors, a
roll of sinew, a wooden case with pins and needles, a wooden thimble, extra buttons and
heavy cotton thread. Housewives were sold at every post sutler’s store.
INFANTRY FATIGUE JACKET: The most common outer garment worn by the
frontier soldier of all branches was the fatigue jacket or “sack coat”. Similar to the
common workingman’s clothing of the period, it was made of dark-blue flannel with four
regulation large eagle buttons down the front. It was authorized in both cotton-lined and
unlined versions. Both had a large pocket inside the left breast. The fatigue jacket was a
more comfortable and practical garment than the cavalry jacket. Its only flaw, besides a
rather slouchy appearance, was the loose weave of the material, which permitted dust and
grime to accumulate in the fibers. Consequently, soldiers had to have the jackets washed
frequently to keep them clean. Repeated washing took its toll by shortening the life of
the jacket.
INFANTRY SHOES: Shoes, officially known as “bootees”, were rather crude in form,
with distinctive lefts and rights not appearing until the beginning of the Civil War. The
upper part of the shoe was made with the dressed leather side turned outward and dyed
black. The soles were fastened by machine-set wooden pegs. The soldier was forced to
soak the shoes in water and then wear them until they were dry in order to get any sort of
reasonable fit.
INFANTRY TROUSERS: Army trousers were made of heavy sky-blue wool kersey,
with pockets and waistband lining of unbleached cotton. Plain two-piece pressed-tin
buttons were used for the waist fastening, suspenders and fly. The legs were cut full and
nearly straight, those of infantry being made plain and those of cavalry having a
reinforcement (or saddle piece) in the seat and legs.
IRON: Household servants used an iron to press clothes, tablecloths, napkins, curtains
and other item. A cloth would have been wrapped around the handle of this iron so that it
could be touched. Other metal irons had wooden handles which served the same purpose.
LEAD BALLS: These round bullets are of the type used before modern assembled
ammunition. (These bullets are .44 caliber.)
LEAD CARTRIDGE: Assembled ammunition that combined ignition, gunpowder and
projectile in a single metal cylinder. Significant advances in weapons technology during
the 1860’s helped increase the firepower of the frontier soldier.
LYE SOAP: Combination of liquid leached from wood ash, grease and water. Lye soap
was used in large quantities at frontier forts. Company laundresses used it for washing
clothing and for bathing. This was common merchandise sold at every post sutler’s store.
MAP: Early military explorers produced maps of the West from knowledge gained on
their expeditions. Emigrants used these maps during their journey West.
OFFICER’S FORAGE CAP: Made from lightweight indio-dyed woolen cloth. Visors
varied somewhat from one cap to another, regulations called for them to be made of black
patent-leather with an unbound edge. A black patent-leather chin strap, adjustable with a
small gilt slide, was attached by small buttons at each end of the visor. The total height
of the cap was about three inches in front and six inches in the rear, with a crown
diameter of about five inches. Officer’s cap badges were embroidered insignias centered
and sewn on the front of the cap above the band.
PISTOL CAP/CARTRIDGE POUCH: Black-dyed leather box that was worn on the
right side of the waist belt. It held ignition caps for the pistol and after the 1870
ammunition conversion, 12 metallic cartridges.
PLAYING CARDS: A typical deck of cards that could have been purchased at the post
sutler’s store. During the evenings when leisure time was available, playing cards was a
favorite pastime in the barrack rooms.
POCKETKNIFE: A standard civilian pocketknife purchased at the post sutler’s store.
This small utility knife was essential for numerous tasks while a soldier was on
campaign.
POCKET WATCH: A frontier army post was regulated by bugle calls at certain times
throughout the day and a watch was essential for that purpose. This common pocket
watch was not army issue, but one that all officers and many enlisted men would have
possessed.
RAZOR: Even though facial hair was fashionable and army regulation allowed for it,
many soldiers shaved their faces with a straight razor. Razors were made of steel and
reused by sharpening the edge on a leather strap. This item would have been purchased
from the post sutler’s store.
RIFLE CARTRIDGE BOX: The foot soldier carried forty rounds of ammunition in a
large rectangular box. It was constructed of heavy leather with tin compartments inside
to hold and protect the paper cartridges. The cartridge box was made with two flaps, an
outer one covering the entire front of the box and a short, stiff inner one to prevent
cartridges from jolting out when the outer flap was left unbuttoned. This box was used
until the manufacturing of the ammunition belt for modern fixed bullets.
SHAVING BRUSH: Lather brushes such as this were often made of animal hair, either
boar or badger, and attached to a wooden handle.
SHOULDER STRAPS: Officer rank was indicated by straps of cloth bordered by gilt
worn on each shoulder next to the seam of the arm. Within the border of each strap was a
device denoting the particular rank and colored cloth to indicate branch of the army.
SUNBONNET: During the late 19th century, fashion dictated that a fine, white,
porcelain-like skin was highly desirable by ladies of all walks of life. Laundresses wore
large, shady bonnets, sometimes called “sweepers” to protect them from the sun. These
shielded their faces from the sun but the laundresses’ hands, however, remained
sunburned and a source of embarrassment. When the soldiers and other men were
nearby, they often hid their unsightly hands in the folds of their aprons.
SUSPENDERS: Simple strips of linen cloth with metal buckles to adjust for size and
leather ends that fastened to the trousers. This personal item would have been purchased
from the post sutler’s store. Not until 1883 did the army begin issuing suspenders as part
of the clothing allowance for each soldier.
TIN CUP & PLATE: Before 1872, the army issued no personal mess gear to enlisted
men, consequently the frontier soldier had to purchase all his mess gear from the post
sutler. The pattern of cup most commonly sold was made of heavy tin, had straight sides
with a flat bottom. The upper end of the ear-shaped handle was attached to the cup by
two heavy-gauge wires and the bottom end was attached by a single rivet. The universal
round plate was made from heavy duty tin for durability.
TIN SHAVING CUP: Soldiers would often use tin or metal shaving cups because of
their durability.
UNDERWEAR: Flannel underwear were common to workingmen throughout society
during the 19th century. Army underwear was issued in only one weight of flannel,
which was too heavy for summer use. Many soldiers purchased cotton drawers from the
post sutler to wear in the summer or for duty in the Southwest.
WAIST BELT: This belt was made of black leather with a cast-brass clasp stitched and
riveted to the left end with the belt plate placed on the opposite end. Ammunition boxes
and pouches, bayonet or saber scabbard and holster were all carried on the waist belt.
WASHBOARD: The washboard, available in a variety of sizes, was the key piece of
equipment necessary for a laundress to accomplish her arduous work. Only after the
laundress hauled water, chopped wood for fuel, built a fire and heated water, was she
ready to begin scrubbing the soldiers’ dirty clothes against the washboard, using lye soap
and water.
WOODEN DICE: Gambling was a popular pastime activity during leisure time for the
enlisted frontier soldiers. Soldiers playing dice has a long history, dating back as far as
the Roman Empire. Gambling was a form of group entertainment with the legionnaires
of Rome who gambled as wildly on the outcome of battles as they did on the fall of the
dice.
WOOL SOCKS: Despite stockings being part of the regulation clothing allowance,
many soldiers preferred to purchase civilian socks from the post sutler because of their
greater durability. These are typical of socks produced during the 19th century.
WOOL UNDERSHIRT: This army issue grey flannel pullover shirt was worn under
the uniform jacket. Many soldiers preferred to buy from the post sutler non-regulation
shirts made of cotton for summer duty. In keeping with the propriety of Victorian
society, the shirt was not intended to be worn as an outer garment in polite company.
The soldier’s shirt, in fact, was considered to be an undergarment and was to be covered
by the coat or blouse. Exception to this custom were permitted when soldiers were
engaged in physical labor or were in the field during hot weather.
UNIT ONE
Introduction to
The Frontier Army
TOPICS COVERED:
• A brief history of the United States Frontier Army.
• Background on why the frontier army came to Wyoming.
• Warfare between the frontier soldier and Plains warrior.
STUDENT GOALS:
• Explain why the United States Army was stationed in
Wyoming during the 19th Century.
• Discuss how the frontier army and Plains Indians interacted.
SUGGESTED OBJECTS:
•Teachers may want to use the following books in the
Discovery Trunk for additional information:
Buffalo Soldiers
The Fetterman Fight
A Frontier Fort on the Oregon Trail
Reading, Writing and Riding Along the OregonCalifornia Trails
History of the Frontier Army
The regular army of the United States owes its existence to the American frontier.
From 1783 to 1890 the United States made good its claim to the vast region west between
the Appalachian Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Through treaties of peace and war, as
well as purchases, the United States had acquired the land, but paper title had to be
followed by physical occupation. It was in this occupation process that the regular army
played a most significant role. The surge of expansionism and nationalism that marked
these notable years of American history is indebted to the small frontier army.
There can be no doubt that the sovereignty of the United States in the West depended
upon the presence of regular army troops. The frontier army was the instrument of
Congress and the President for supporting American rights, meeting or preventing
challenges to American authority by Indian tribes or foreign powers, and functioning as
a police force that resolved conflicts between two diverse cultures: Native American
and Euro-American. In the transition period from early occupation to substantial
settlement on the frontier, order was maintained by, in the words of the first Secretary of
War Henry Knox, the “sword of the Republic”. It was in carrying out these political
directives that the United States Army was indispensable.
But the frontier army was not only an agent of empire and war. Its men were also
explorers, road builders, scientists, lumbermen and farmers, all part of the pioneering
process. They laid out roads and telegraph lines and aided significantly in the western
advance of the railroads. They guarded travel routes for wagon trains and protected
settlers. The economic and social effects of the army’s activities in the West assisted in
establishing white settlement that supplanted the nomadic hunting society of the
Plains Indians with the diverse life of America's growing and complex industrial society.
A prominent feature of the frontier army was the role of minorities. Black regiments
served on the frontier for three decades following their organization in 1866, and their
achievements are significant in the history of the West. They saw harder service than
white regiments, and because they afforded continuous and honorable employment in a
time when blacks found few other opportunities, black regiments had lower desertion
rates and higher reenlistment rates.
Immigrants, too, found an agreeable home in the army, as a place to learn English and
as a means to escape the overcrowded cities of the East where many of their countrymen
suffered in poverty and despair. From 1800 to 1900 Europeans, mainly Irish, German,
and English, comprised half of the United States Army.
Manifest Destiny and The Army
Soldiers made their first appearance west of the Mississippi River soon after the
Louisiana Purchase from France. President Thomas Jefferson sent a succession of
expeditions to determine the physical nature of the 800,000 square mile territory (an area
slightly larger than the entire United States at the time), and to assert the sovereignty of
the United States among the Indian tribes who occupied it. The first and most famous
expedition was led by Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. From 1804 to
1806 they traveled the newly obtained land from St. Louis up the Missouri River to the
Pacific coast and back.
Before Lewis and Clark returned, a second expedition, led by Lieutenant Zebulon
Pike, ascended the Mississippi River from St. Louis to locate the source of the great river
in northern Minnesota and inform the Indians of American sovereignty. On his return to
St. Louis Pike was dispatched in 1806 to the Southwest to explore the lands adjacent to
Spanish New Mexico and enter into Spain's domains to gather information. After
scouting the southern reaches of the Rocky Mountains, Pike and his company were
captured by the Spanish for trespassing on their land in what is now New Mexico. After
confiscating his maps and papers, Spanish soldiers escorted Pike and his men back to
U.S. lands.
After more than a decade of military inactivity Major Stephen Long was ordered in
1820 to explore eastern Colorado, central Nebraska, and the southern plains of Kansas
and Oklahoma. From this military expedition came the label for the West- "Great
American Desert."
These early military expeditions had lasting contributions to westward occupation.
Their objective was not to fight Indians but to bring back scientific knowledge and
increased geographic awareness of the West. This information, disseminated to the
American public, promoted economic development and encouraged population
movement into the West. Invaluable information and maps were published about
topography, Indian languages, plants and animals, geology, climate, and agricultural
potential. The establishment of American dominion of the area west of the Mississippi
River was a slow process. President Jefferson bought the Great Plains for the United
States in 1803, but for decades it remained in almost undisputed possession of the Native
occupants. A handful of trappers, Indian traders, and Missouri entrepreneurs engaging in
overland commerce with Mexican Santa Fe came to know the vast emptiness of the
Plains. Through their early contacts with these Euro-Americans, Indian residents learned
something of the white man's curious and sometimes reprehensible behavior. At that
time neither culture posed much of a threat to the other, and on the whole they got along
fairly well.
Not until 1820 were military forts built in the acquired lands. Ft. Snelling and Ft.
Atkinson on the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers were the first forts constructed. But
three events of great significance in the 1840s required an increased military presence
west. The first was victory in the Mexican-American War of 1846, which brought
millions of acres of new land in the West under the control of the United States. The
second was the discovery of gold at Sutter's Creek, California in 1849. Gold fever
prompted thousands to travel westward across the Plains in wagon trains to share in the
strike. Third, the mutual agreement between Great Britain and the United States on the
Oregon boundary officially established the Oregon Territory in 1847.
Bound for California or Oregon, emigrants by the thousands surged up the valleys of
the Platte and the Sweetwater Rivers. As a result of this migration the Indians who
inhabited the Plains became concerned. The immediate threat to the Indians lay not with
conquest of their lands, but rather in the impact of the white invasion on the resources
that supported and shaped their way of life--timber, grass, and above all bison and other
game. These simply did not exist in abundance to provide for both Euro-Americans and
Indians alike.
Ranging from the Canadian border on the north to the Rio Grande on the south, about
a dozen major tribes and a score or more of minor ones lived on the Plains country
crossed by the overland trails. The nomads of Wyoming were Crow, Shoshoni, Arapaho,
Cheyenne, and the Sioux. The last three of these tribes resided in the area most directly
affected by the overland trails and would present the greatest potential threat to travelers
along the Oregon-California Trails. The sudden volume of travelers across the Indians'
land brought together two different cultures that resulted in eventual and inevitable
conflict. By the end of the 1840s, there was a need for a strong military presence on the
northern Plains and in the northern Rockies. To prevent hostilities and protect emigrants,
troops were stationed in the West at the close of the Mexican War.
The Army Heads West
By 1850, the frontier army had advanced the thin line of forts from the eastern edge of
the Great Plains to the Pacific. It was an insufficient covering but the flag over each
isolated post brought the appearance of U.S. authority to an empire that a short decade
earlier was claimed by other nations and various Indian tribes.
Charged primarily with protecting emigrants from hostile Indians, the blueclad
frontiersmen conferred other benefits on the West. They provided a market for local
goods and services and more often than not became the indispensable foundation of the
civilian economy. They explored and mapped great sweeps of mountains, plains, and
deserts, which were unknown to the Euro-Americans, helping to stimulate further
emigration. They built new, and improved old, roads for both civilian and military use.
But in performing its primary mission, the frontier army had a marginal success in
bringing protection to life and property from belligerent Indians. The forts along the
overland trails brought a measure of security to a small area around each fort and limited
security to the large territory beyond. For safety most westerners had to rely mainly on
their own weapons, on luck, and on the ever changing and uncertain temper of the
Indians.
The frontier soldier who marched west to conquer the Indians and make the frontier
safe for settlement and exploitation discovered that he could not function as a conqueror
at all. A conqueror must have a definable enemy to conquer, and rarely could any tribe
or band be clearly defined as the enemy. During the 1850s most tribes signed treaty
arrangements with the federal government that explicitly defined them as friend rather
than foe. But Indian aggressions and sporadic hostilities of a few warriors confused the
formal definition of friend. Hostile actions were usually the work of small warrior
groups acting without the sanction of tribal authority which made it hard for the Army to
separate the guilty from the innocent within a tribe or band.
The would-be conqueror found himself cast instead in the role of a policeman,
patrolling his sector in an effort to detect the presence of "criminals" and giving chase
when "crime" had been committed. Harassed by westerners for not treating all Indians as
criminals, and chastised by sympathetic easterners and Indian agents for inflicting
punishment upon those who did not necessarily commit the crime, the army and the
soldiers within it were little liked or respected by American society.
Officers who had been west knew that western weather and terrain were unlike any
encountered east of the Mississippi River. The High Plains exemplified vast distances,
climatic extremes, and scarcity of such life-sustaining resources as water, food, and fuel.
The Army would find an enemy in the hostile environment that would have to be
conquered along with hostile Indians.
To the army's frustration, the Plains warrior had achieved a near perfect adaptation
to the environment. Over the centuries, Plains tribes had learned how to make the land
sustain life and, of more serious significance, how to turn the hostile environment to their
military advantage. Plains Indians rode lean ponies which were acutely adapted to the
environment. Plains warriors proved to be such formidable opponents that frontier army
officers often considered them the finest light cavalrymen in the world. Plains Indians
were nomadic, following and hunting the bison with no defined or established towns.
The frontier army would find that its concepts of warfare would not succeed out west. A
new geography and a new enemy dictated that the Army evolve new attitudes and new
capabilities.
The Frontier Army's Opponent
The Plains horse warrior from childhood devoted himself to the occupation of war.
He excelled in horsemanship. Mounted or dismounted, he used his bow and arrows,
lance, tomahawk, and knife with skill born from long practice. He had an aggressive,
warlike spirit, courage, physical strength and endurance, mental alertness, stealth,
cunning, and a thorough knowledge of the land and how to make full military use of it.
The warrior was a member of a people whose highest values centered on war and whose
highest rewards--material, social, political, and religious--were earned by success in war.
In training and in combat, the warrior rarely lacked motivation.
If the western Indian was a first-rate light cavalryman, he did not often function as
a member of a first-rate combat unit of light cavalry. To the Plains warrior, individual
abilities attained the highest expression. This meant that group abilities suffered severe
limitations. The explanation lay in a loose social and political organization that exalted
the individual at the expense of the group.
The Indian's emphasis on individual freedom manifested itself both in the
objectives and methods of war. The objective was rarely, as in "civilized" warfare, to
smash the enemy and compel him to surrender. Rather, the
The Indian's emphasis on individual freedom manifested itself both in the objectives
and methods of war. The objective was rarely, as in "civilized" warfare, to crush the
enemy and compel him to surrender. Rather, the individual sought to enrich himself by
seizing booty and to gain war honors by performing feats of personal courage. These
objectives were always the same if on defense against invasion, raiding, revenge for tribal
deaths, or simple aggression.
War expeditions generally numbered between five and thirty men, sometimes more,
and on rare occasions the whole strength of a band or tribe. A war party was led by any
warrior with the prestige to enlist and organize one. In the field he "commanded" only to
the extent that his followers chose to obey.
Plains Indians practiced a democracy so radical that it was incomprehensible to EuroAmericans. Never was a tribe, or even a band, a uniform entity with a leadership
hierarchy that controlled the actions of its people. This concept would lead to endless
friction between the two cultures. Euro-Americans not only had a misconception about
Indian leadership in battle, but their assumption that a chief who signed a treaty could
obligate his people to honor it caused constant misunderstandings. A chief could not
order young men to comply with rules of a treaty. If certain warriors failed to obey a
treaty, punishment would not come from tribal leadership, but from the army and this
punishment was usually dispensed to the whole tribe.
The Plains Indians' mode of warfare was unlike any that the frontier army had been
trained to fight. The major difference was the small unit guerrilla tactics of hit-and-run
and the Indian's reluctance to stand and fight unless his family was endangered. As one
veteran army fighter said, "In a campaign against Indians the front is all around, and the
rear is nowhere."
One fruitless, disheartening pursuit after another made up by far the largest share of a
soldier's field service. Sometimes there were skirmishes, but they rarely lasted any
longer than the time it took the Indians to disengage and escape. Large battles in frontier
history were atypical and only occurred because the Indians chose to stand and fight.
The Indian style of warfare did have some advantages for the frontier soldier,
however. Teamwork was stressed in battle by the army and this training would prevail
over a mob of superb warriors fighting individually. Subsequently when its soldiers
worked as disciplined combat units instead of fragmenting into single fighters in the
Indian method of personal encounter, the frontier army won some stunning victories.
Another big advantage lay in the inability of a tribe or group of tribes to unite for a
vigorous and sustained offense or defense that would employ their full military potential.
Even with their very existence as a people endangered by the white advance, Plains tribes
could never, collectively or even individually, present a solid opposition front for very
long. They continued to respond with the same traditional method of sporadic raids that
ultimately failed against the white invasion. When the frontier Army invaded the
Indians’ homeland in force, it was every band for itself, with all efforts directed at
eluding the aggressor and little or none at confronting the soldiers. If the Army could
manage the logistical problems and find the quarry, victory was probable.
Two apparent military requirements dictated by the nature of the terrain and the nature
of the enemy had to be overcome before Plains Indian warriors were defeated. First, a
vast inhospitable terrain demanded an army that could either live off the land in the
Indian manner or develop a logistical system to permit operations independent of local
resources. Second, a highly mobile enemy skilled in hit-and-run tactics demanded either
a highly mobile counter hit-and-run force, or a heavy defensive army large enough to
erect an impenetrable shield around every settlement and travel route in the West. That
the Army, for reasons not wholly or even largely its fault, never met these requirements
explains its lackluster record against the Plains Indians beginning in 1848.
Westward Migration on the Oregon-California Trail
All the activity of thousands of emigrants bound for Oregon and California had an
immediate effect on the Indians who lived along the routes. This sudden encounter
between two distinct cultures was the beginning of a half century of misunderstandings
and war. Throughout the decade of the 1850s civil agents, mountain men, and military
officers who knew the Plains Indians repeatedly stressed to representatives from
Washington that war and stealing were part of the Indians' culture. Stealing from, and
fighting, neighboring tribes was an old and honored livelihood with the male Indian. He
was born and bred a warrior and the new parade of alien people offered excellent
opportunities for enrichment. Euro-American distrust, fear, and racism pervaded among
many of the emigrants. Any ignorant or belligerent action initiated by either side would
certainly create a crisis.
In dealing with the Plains tribes the federal government devised measures for guarding
the overland trails. In 1848 Ft. Kearney was established on the Platte River in central
Nebraska. During the summer of 1849 troops arrived at Ft. Laramie on the North Platte.
The army had paid the American Fur Company $4000.00 for the old trading post and it
became the second of the trail forts. A third fort, the former fur post of Ft. Hall on the
Snake River, was appropriated from the Canadian Hudson's Bay Company to complete
the string of isolated forts guarding the overland trails
Diplomatic means as well as military measures were used to keep the Plains Indians
peaceable. In 1850 Congress authorized the Indian Bureau to bring these indigenous
"nations" into formal relations with the United States. This was accomplished by a treaty
concluded with the northern Plains tribes at Fort Laramie in September of 1851 by which
the Indians agreed to guarantee safe passage for emigrants on the trails. The treaty not
only obtained security for overland travel but it required the Indians to refrain from
warring with traditional enemies and with Euro-Americans. It also permitted the United
States to build roads and military posts in their country, and required the Indians to make
restitution for damages inflicted on emigrants.
It is highly doubtful that many, if any, of the chiefs fully understood the treaties due to
language differences or inaccurate translations or seriously intended to adhere to these
pledges. And even if they did, the government failed to understand that the treaty's
good intentions could not, immediately, overcome customs solidified by generations of
practice. This treaty, as in practically all others arranged over the next thirty years,
became a powerful inducement to encourage cooperation. The incentive for the chiefs to
sign was the distribution of presents, termed annuities by the federal government, to all
members of the tribes, not only then but for a certain period of time in the future. The
government officials thought they had bought security with a signed treaty. For a time it
seemed so.
War Comes To The Plains
The early 1850s passed in comparative harmony along the Oregon Trail. The peaceful
period at Fort Laramie persuaded the War Department to economize by keeping a meager
71-man garrison. Each summer the tribes would come to Fort Laramie to receive their
treaty presents and stare in wonder at the never ending procession of emigrants. The
present disbursement thus acted as a magnet which attracted Indians to the roads, where
they were antagonized by travelers and intimidated by the handful of feeble bluecoats.
Sooner or later a collision of cultures was bound to occur.
That collision was foreseen by Thomas Fitzpatrick, Indian agent and former mountain
man. At Fort Laramie he commented, "There is not a single day that passes in which the
Indians could not, if disposed to do so, strip and deprive these posts of all their resources,
murder the different fatigue parties in detail, and drive off all the horses and stock
belonging to the post." The old mountain man, with intimate experience of thirty years,
knew the Indians and asserted that larger garrisons were needed to impress them,
particularly the warlike Sioux. Wise military leadership was required each summer
when, in anticipation for the annual annuity issue, thousands of Sioux gathered at Fort
Laramie. Instead of adopting the prudence that such a small force warranted, the Army at
Ft. Laramie believed its duty was to assert the authority of the United States whenever
opportunity offered itself.
The right set of circumstances for the inevitable crisis occurred in the summer of 1854
when a Mormon emigrant came to the fort to report that an Indian had stolen and
butchered one of his cows. Young Lieutenant John Grattan, seeking promotion, eagerly
jumped at the opportunity to teach the Sioux that the United States Army ruled at Fort
Laramie. Marching boldly to the Indian village with twenty-seven soldiers and two
cannon, Grattan demanded the surrender of the culprit who stole the Mormon cow. Upon
refusal he ordered his men to fire into the village. In a matter of minutes the Sioux
annihilated the handful of bluecoats. Next the enraged Indians pillaged the warehouses
containing the government annuities and stole animals from the fort's horse corral. For a
time they discussed wiping out the remaining troops at Fort Laramie but withdrew
northward from the Platte to await developments.
The security of the Trail demanded retaliation for the loss of Grattan and his men.
Within a year the army organized a large expedition and defeated the Sioux at the Battle
of Blue Water. Afterward the Sioux agreed to abide by the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851.
For a time peace returned to the Plains. But during the late 1850s tensions again mounted
between Indians and non-Indians. Gold was discovered in Colorado near present day
Denver. Thousands of miners rushed recklessly into land assigned to the Cheyennes and
Arapahos by the Treaty of Fort Laramie--prime buffalo country that the tribes would not
willingly yield.
When the bombardment of Fort Sumter in 1861 finally plunged the nation into the
Civil War, the frontier army suddenly ceased to protect the frontier. Officers and enlisted
men who were from the South resigned and marched east within a few months after the
outbreak of war. The remaining loyal bluecoats soon found themselves in the East, as
part of the armies being formed to save the Union.
Volunteer Frontiersman
The discovery of gold in Colorado and later Montana and Idaho attracted new
emigrants migrating over established travel routes. Miners also ventured into new
territories which created instant roads and overnight urban communities. These mining
strikes produced a rising flow of traffic on all the travel routes as freight trains shuttled
back and forth between the mountain settlements and the sources of consumer goods
back east. For the Plains Indians and Euro-American travelers, the threat of conflict grew
steadily more certain. In 1862, a bloody outbreak of war in Minnesota between the Sioux
and settlers triggered a chain reaction that within three years had locked the Sioux,
Cheyenne, and Arapahos in a war with the frontier Army that overspread the Great
Plains.
The news from Minnesota had a powerful effect in producing a climate of fear and
distrust among miners and travelers on the frontier in 1862 and 1863 which provoked the
Plains War of 1864-65. But the only serious hostilities on the central Plains during 1862
and 1863 centered on the emigrant and mail route west and south of Fort Laramie. With
the outbreak of the Civil War, federal troops had been drawn east, leaving Fort Laramie
seriously undermanned. Seizing opportunities for raiding, Indian war parties began
attacking stagecoaches and isolated stations all along the trail. Passengers died, buildings
were burned, livestock was stolen. For a time, no mail traveled to California.
The army had to find troops during wartime to guard the overland route. Since troops
of the regular army were not available for guard duty, headquarters in Washington
decided on volunteers. Troops from California took over patrolling the trail west of the
Continental Divide and troops from Ohio had the responsibility east. The appearance of
the volunteer units checked the Indians for a time. Peace did not last long, however,
especially in Colorado where ominous tensions were building.
The sudden and unexpected growth of Denver and other mining communities along
the front range of the Rockies placed extreme strain on the Indians' territory. Their old
hunting grounds were now dotted with the invaders' towns, homesteads, and wagon
roads. To head off any possible conflict, Colorado Governor John Evans attempted to
relocate all the Cheyenne and Arapaho bands to an Indian reservation in southeast
Colorado. But Indian refusal to resettle during the summer of 1864 forced Evans to find
another solution to clearing Indian title from land already being appropriated by miners
and farmers.
Rumors and reports of Indian restlessness warned Evans to expect warfare with the
Cheyenne and Arapahos in the spring of 1864. The origins of the Plains War that broke
out that spring lay largely in the prevailing belief of Colorado officials that the Plains
Indians intended to go to war. A few warriors may well have been guilty of stealing
livestock, but evidence subsequently obtained revealed that all the tribes of the Plains
considered themselves at peace with the white man. When stolen animals turned up in
Cheyenne villages, Governor Evans decided to strike first. Colorado Volunteer troops
under Colonel John Chivington started a few skirmishes with Cheyenne warriors, which,
to the Plains Indians marked the beginning of war.
Widespread Indian attacks erupted on the Colorado plains and quickly spread into
Kansas and Nebraska. During the summer of 1864 ranch houses and stage stations were
burned, stagecoaches and wagon trains came under attack. Many white civilians died,
while others were carried into captivity. Fear swept the frontier ranches and hamlets
propelling the settlers into Denver. Attempting to control the rapidly expanding hostility,
Colorado authorities sought to separate hostile from friendly bands by ordering the latter
onto new reservations. Peace overtures were sent to all Indians in an attempt to halt the
killings.
At the same time, the anger of the hostile warriors cooled as their thoughts turned to
the approaching winter and the autumn bison hunt. The chiefs who had counseled
against the war from the start regained some of their influence. One such chief, Black
Kettle of the Cheyennes, obeyed the decree, separated his band from the hostiles, and
moved to Sand Creek. Whether or not the majority of the males in his band were
"friendlies" or were warriors seeking respite during the cold winter months has never
been determined.
No military man in Colorado at the time tried to distinguish between the two. Black
Kettle's band were Indians and that was justification enough to attack them. At dawn on
November 29, 1864, while most of the warriors were away hunting, Colorado troops
under Chivington’s command attacked the Sand Creek sanctuary without warning. When
the abrupt carnage was over, 150 or more Indians were dead, two-thirds of them women
and children. The massacre was the scene of ghastly, obscene atrocities against many of
the inhabitants of the village.
Word of the slaughter quickly traveled to all the winter camps on the Plains.
Retaliatory attacks then commenced, with the Sioux joining the Cheyenne and Arapaho.
To the Indians, this did not really mean a fight to the finish but rather massive raids,
followed by a return to their customary pursuits. During the winter, warriors attacked
and burned stage stations and ranches, captured Denver wagon trains, ran off cattle, killed
civilians without hesitation, and ripped up miles of telegraph line. The allied tribes left
the Platte roads and settlements in shambles.
The summer of 1865 brought no respite to the frontier. Indian hit-and-run tactics
resumed in earnest along the Oregon Trail. Small army columns were attacked, telegraph
wire was cut and all east-west traffic was brought to a standstill. On July 25, the Indians
struck Platte Bridge Station, Ft. Laramie's principal outpost 125 miles to the west. The
large force of Cheyenne and Sioux failed to destroy the fort but claimed victory by killing
28 soldiers and young Lieutenant Caspar Collins.
The end of the Civil War in early May suddenly released unexpected reinforcements
for the western commands. To punish the warring Indians the army sent punitive
columns into the Powder River country of northeastern Wyoming. Led by General
Patrick Connor, a force of over a thousand men marched north from Ft. Laramie in
August of 1865. After one engagement with the Arapahos the campaign began to
disintegrate due to an early winter, a poor supply system, and rebellious troops.
By 1865, Eastern humanitarians were vigorously protesting the nature of the western
Indian fighting. Peace overtures from Washington would now be used to quiet the
frontier. A new peace commission was appointed, and Indian messengers were sent
through the Sioux lands telling them that many presents would be given to chiefs who
came to Ft. Laramie with their bands in the spring. “The Great White Father” in
Washington wanted to sign a new treaty with them.
The news of the new treaty was carried to all the bands, but attainment of peace
looked doubtful. On one side there were those who wanted an accommodation with the
whites, and then there were many who had succumbed to the lure of plunder obtained
through theft along the trails. The warriors living in the Powder River country, who had
fought General Connor's columns, were not going to agree to any peace concessions to
withdraw from the roads, especially the Bozeman Trail. In fact, most of the Sioux not
only had no intention of withdrawing from the Bozeman Trail which led to Montana's
goldfields, they had no intention of allowing the whites to use it at all.
Red Cloud's War
Not one of the hostile chiefs except Red Cloud--and he arrived two weeks late-responded to the messengers' invitations that they attend the government's new peace
council, scheduled for June 1, 1866. As anticipated, the Bozeman Trail was a primary
topic of discussion. The United States wanted transit rights along the road already in use
and would give generous annuities for that privilege. But the government had not done
its planning very well. Like the Indians, the government's policy toward the Powder
River country was not united. The Bureau of Indian Affairs wanted to move slowly and
not force the issue, allowing the Indians time to accept the migration through their
hunting grounds along the Bozeman Trail. The army, however, was responsible for the
protection of travelers and began preparations to defend the Trail. At the very time the
council was being held to seek peace, the War Department planned for war by ordering a
string of forts built along the Bozeman Trail.
Troops assigned to build these forts arrived at Fort Laramie while the peace council
was in session. When the assembled Indians learned of the soldiers' assignment they
were astounded. The Indians had not agreed to anything yet--especially not forts in the
heart of their country--but here the United States government was acting as if it already
had rights to the area.
Red Cloud was furious and stormed in the council, "The Great Father sends us
presents and wants us to sell him the road, but White Chief goes with soldiers to steal the
road before Indians say yes or no." He left the scene in a fury, vowing to fight anyone
trying to use the trail and was followed by about half the gathered Indians.
Under the command of Colonel Henry Carrington the army built three forts along the
Bozeman Trail. At the forks of the Powder River, 169 miles from Fort Laramie, Fort
Reno was built, 67 miles north, Fort Phil Kearny was established with, Fort C.F. Smith
being erected 90 miles north in Montana. Immediately after Carrington's arrival Red
Cloud struck. Warriors harassed all traffic along the Trail, attacked wood cutting parties,
ran off stock, and killed anyone who strayed from the forts. The Powder River country
was in the grip of a full scale war.
During the summer and fall, continuous harassment from war parties kept the army in
a state of siege. Finally the hit-and-run tactics of the warriors culminated in one big fight
with the bluecoats in December 1866. The ambush and annihilation of 81 men, under the
command of Captain William Fetterman near Ft. Phil Kearny on December 21, panicked
Colonel Carrington into sending relief rider John "Portugee" Phillips on an epic four-day
ride through bitter cold and drifting snow to Fort Laramie with the news of the disaster
and an appeal for help. Relief did arrive after a frozen and grueling two week march.
Standard army procedure following such a humiliation at the hands of the Indians was
a punitive campaign. The Sioux expected one and scattered to avoid pursuit and
punishment. But the winter of 1867 prevented any army retaliation. Military concerns
for protecting the building of the Union Pacific Railroad through southern Wyoming was
also a significant factor for not sending more troops north to the Bozeman Trail. In
addition, a new government policy calling for removal and concentration of Indians to
two vast reservations began to gain support. Congress authorized a new peace
commission in 1867 to negotiate with the Indians about the removal, and also to threaten
war if they refused.
Red Cloud refused to talk. War parties returned to their attacks on the hated forts
along the Bozeman Trail once spring arrived. Following the unsuccessful attack on a
group of 32 soldiers and woodcutters at the Wagon Box Fight, it was hoped that the
warriors would agree to meet the new commission at Fort Laramie in November of 1867.
Instead, Red Cloud sent word back that there could be no peace until the three hated forts
were abandoned.
The government yielded to his demands. By 1868, President Andrew Johnson ordered
the forts closed and new negotiations to resume at Fort Laramie. Red Cloud's triumph
was hollow because by the end of 1867, the Trail was no longer considered important.
Alternative routes now were favored instead of the hazardous Bozeman Trail. Steamboat
transportation up the Missouri River, and overland travel on the Bridger Trail were other
choices. The Union Pacific Railroad would soon reach Utah from which prospering stage
and freight lines rolled north to the Montana gold fields. In reality, losing the Bozeman
Trail would cost very little-- especially if the concession persuaded the Sioux to settle on
proposed reservations in South Dakota.
As anticipated by the government, the prospects of freeing their land of the forts and
the Trail overshadowed everything else in Sioux thinking. The new reservation located
in South Dakota would be where the Sioux would live, receive education in farming, and
rations to survive the Dakota winter. They could also hunt in the Powder River country
where whites would be excluded. In exchange, the Indians had to promise not to attack
railways, wagon roads, or military posts.
One after another the chiefs signed the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. Even Red Cloud
gave in. After seeing the posts evacuated, he and his followers burned them to the
ground and then rode to Fort Laramie, where he signed the treaty. Only Sitting Bull and
Crazy Horse and their followers insisted that the war was not yet over and remained
roaming the High Plains.
The Great Sioux War of 1876
The peace that many had hoped for was only brief. For some, both Indian and white,
the treaty was something to be ignored. Non-treaty Indians under Crazy Horse and
Sitting Bull, continued raiding whites in Wyoming, Nebraska, and Montana. Crow and
Shoshoni Indians were plundered on their reservations in Wyoming and Montana by
Sioux raiding parties. Railroad surveyors were attacked in Montana along with their
army escorts. But the Sioux had no monopoly on breaking the 1868 treaty. Whites
refused to respect the treaty boundaries and resented being excluded from the Powder
River country. In addition, there were steadily mounting rumors of gold in the Black
Hills. That country, too, was closed to whites, much to the anger of western prospectors.
By 1873, military interests began to favor invading the Black Hills. The result was the
expedition of 1874 led by Lieutenant Colonel George Custer. Its chief purpose was to
locate a suitable site for a military post to counter raids from the non-treaty Indians.
Curiously, Custer allowed several civilian scientists, newspaper reporters, photographers,
and two prospectors to accompany the military expedition.
After scouting the Black Hills Custer found a good location for a fort. Along with
reporting suitable land for grazing, farming, and lumbering, traces of gold were
discovered in the streams of the Black Hills. At once the press began whipping up a gold
fever. Miners rushed to the Black Hills through the spring and summer of 1875. The
army attempted in vain to keep the intruders out but some 800 miners worked the streams
of the Black Hills during the summer.
Meanwhile the government tried to solve the problem by purchasing the Black Hills
from the Sioux. The reservation Indians rejected the offer and the non-treaty Sioux
soundly refused. This presented the government with a pressing dilemma. The Black
Hills belonged to the Sioux in every legal and moral sense, and miners had no right to be
there. Yet the miners already held effective possession of the Hills, and the government
could not resist the public demand for an official opening of the coveted territory.
The failure to negotiate for the Black Hills culminated seven years of mounting
frustration between the non-reservation Sioux and the whites. The hostile Indians had
contested the advance of the railroad in Montana, which was outside of land given to the
Indians for their reservation. Sioux warriors continued to raid whites outside the
periphery of the unceded hunting area of the Powder River country and terrorized the
reservation Crow and Shoshoni tribes. They had, from the very beginning, disrupted the
management of the reservation Siouxs while obtaining supplies, munitions, and young
recruits at the agencies for their hostile activities.
Almost from the ratification of the Treaty 1868, military leaders knew that the nontreaty Indians, with their repeated aggressions, would eventually have to be forced to live
on the reservation along with the rest of the Sioux. The government decided that the nonreservation Indians should be compelled to quit the Powder River country and settle on
the reservation thus ending their raiding activities and diminishing their power to obstruct
the sale of the Black Hills. The army also withdrew troops from Black Hills duty,
thereby allowing the region to fill up with prospectors. By the winter of 1875-76, 15,000
miners had invaded the Black Hills.
The government sent messengers to all the non-reservation Sioux notifying them to
move to the reservation or otherwise they would be considered hostile and the army
would pursue them. The winter of 1875-76 in Wyoming was very hard and many of the
bands received the ultimatum late, while others said they never got it at all. Given the
recalcitrant nature of the non-treaty Indians, it is doubtful if many would have made an
effort to comply.
When only a small percentage of the tribes reported to the reservation, the army set in
motion troops to force compliance. Columns from Wyoming, Montana, and North
Dakota marched for the Powder River country to find, and if need be fight, and drive the
hostile tribes onto the Great Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. But the non-treaty
Indians assembled a large warrior force to resist the army. The Sioux and their ally the
Cheyenne at first were victorious. They halted the Wyoming column under General
George Crook at the Rosebud River, and later in June stunned a nation on the eve of its
centennial by destroying part of Custer's regiment at the Little Bighorn River. But in the
end the army's superior strength wore down the Indians. One by one the bands were
hunted down and their villages destroyed.
Chief Dull Knife's Cheyenne village was attacked and destroyed in a canyon on a fork
of the Powder River. Worn out by the severe winter and relentless pursuit by the army,
most non-reservation bands, including Crazy Horse's and Dull Knife's, surrendered.
Sitting Bull and most of his band escaped to Canada, but they would return after a two
year exile and surrender.
The last Indian battles involving the army in Wyoming occurred in 1879. The Ute
uprising in northern Colorado at White River Agency led to troops from Fort Steele in
Wyoming being dispatched. After a very bloody engagement the insurrection was
quelled. Part of the garrison at Fort Laramie was ordered to apprehend Northern
Cheyennes who had escaped from their reservation in Oklahoma and marched north to
Montana. Army detachments in Nebraska and Montana killed or captured most of the
Cheyennes after a relentless pursuit.
Settlement
During the 1880s, cattlemen crowded onto the open range of Wyoming vacated by
bison and Indian. Towns were built overnight. New railroad lines spread over the West.
Subsequently, most of the forts assumed a peacetime character. Soldiers engaged in
routine duties with fort maintenance and patrols. The need for troops diminished sharply
after 1880 with the appearance of other law enforcement agencies. By then, most Indian
reservations had Indian police units, controlled by Indian agents, to keep order on
reservation lands. Outside the reservations, policemen employed by Wyoming territory,
city, and county governments kept the peace.
As the number of Indian policemen and civil officers increased, the need for the U.S.
Army troops decreased. By 1890 Fort Laramie and Fort Bridger, the last remaining early
outposts, were closed and the bluecoats marched away. Euro-American civilization had
been established and the need for army protection passed into history.
ACTIVITIES
1) THINGS TO DISCUSS:
• Why was there a military presence in Wyoming from the
purchase of Ft. Laramie in 1849 to 1890?
• Review Wyoming's major wagon trails and the important
forts that were built to protect them.
• Treaties were meant to bring peace but in reality brought
war many times to the frontier. Why?
• Compare and contrast the fighting styles and objectives of
the frontier army and the Plains warrior.
2) RESEARCH PAPERS:
• Have the students write a brief paper on the conflict
between the frontier soldier and Indian warrior. They might select
a battle to report on, such as: Platte Bridge, Dull Knife, or Wagon
Box; or officers that commanded troops in Wyoming, such as:
Caspar Collins, William Fetterman, Ranald Mackenzie, or George
Crook.
UNIT TWO
The Frontier Soldier and
Life at a Frontier Post
TOPICS COVERED:
• The typical frontier soldier of the 19th century.
• Daily work activities of soldiers stationed at a western fort.
• Recreational activities of soldiers at frontier posts.
• Frontier forts located in Wyoming.
STUDENT GOAL:
• To be knowledgeable about the enlisted soldier of the
frontier.
• To describe a day in the life of a frontier soldier.
• To discuss how the soldier spent his free time.
• To become familiar with the location, purpose, and history
of Wyoming forts.
SUGGESTED OBJECTS:
Bone Toothbrush
Bugle
Coffee Cup (2)
Hair Comb
Hardtack
Housewife (Sewing Kit)
Lye Soap
Playing Cards
Pocketknife
Pocket Watch
Spoon/Fork/Knife
Tin Plate
Tin Shaving Mug
Wooden Dice
• We suggest that teachers use the video to help introduce the
topics for this unit. More background information can also be
obtained from the tapes and books listed below.
Video: A Day in the Life of Fort Laramie
Audio: The Basic Bugler
Books: The Basic Bugler
Buffalo Soldiers
A Frontier Army Christmas
A Frontier Fort on the Oregon Trail
Feeding the Frontier Army 1775-1865
The Common Frontier Soldier
The men who made up the enlisted ranks of the regular army came from all
backgrounds. Most were poor, unskilled laborers who were all but illiterate. Many came
from the urban East, enlisting only for the pay and a roof over their heads. Others came
from Europe and regarded enlistment in the American army as a good opportunity to
become acquainted with the country. At least one-third of the soldiers in the army from
1850 to 1890 came from Ireland, Germany, Scotland, and England, many having served
previously in European armies. Some were criminals who joined in an attempt to escape
punishment from the justice system, enlisting under a false name to decrease the risk of
detection. And there were those who were attempting to escape life or problems at home,
or the drudgery of their daily lives.
After enlisting, new recruits received only rudimentary training at one of three depots
in either Missouri, New York, or Ohio before being sent to their units. Once at their
station they theoretically received training from company officers and noncommissioned
officers. But the reality of daily fatigue duties, guard and other work activities left very
little time for adequate training. Training deficiencies were most glaring in horsemanship
and marksmanship.
Most of the recruit’s instruction was actual “on the job” training. To keep an army
trained at a high level of efficiency requires maintaining a core of good, career soldiers.
This too, the U.S. Army failed to do since turnover of personnel was quite high. The
enlisted ranks were depleted yearly by desertion and discharge. Those who deserted
would represent one-third of the total army from 1850 to 1890.
When enlistments ended, many soldiers had little reason to re-enlist. Certainly, the
wages were nothing to write home about. Before the Civil War a private earned $8.00 a
month, and a sergeant $13.00. This rose to $16.00 a month for a private during the Civil
War, but dropped down to $13.00 thereafter. Moreover, the troops were paid in paper
money, which was not yet readily accepted in the West and which had to be exchanged,
at a loss, for coin.
The food was less than appetizing, consisting of poor quality beef or pork--either salt
or fresh; bread, if the fort was large enough to justify a bakery; hardtack (a large soda
cracker); large amounts of strong coffee; beans; peas; and rice. This bland diet was
supplemented with locally hunted game, and occasionally with dairy products, if cows
were available, and vegetables--though the location of many posts in harsh terrain and
climate limited the possibilities of gardening for the soldiers. The post sutler's store (a
business where provisions, dry goods, and liquor were sold) might offer the occasional
expensive imported treat, such as canned oysters, hams, and sardines. In later years the
army did make some attempt to improve and balance diets by issuing dried fruit and
vegetables, but these were unappetizing, and not well received by the frontier soldier.
Cooking the food was a shared responsibility. The job of company cook was assigned for
ten day stints by the luck of the draw. Cooks, their helpers, and dishwashers received
extra pay for this duty. Bakers received an extra 20 cents a day because they had to live
at the bakery and keep the ovens at proper temperature. During their terms of work,
bakers and cooks were excused from drill and guard duty.
Daily Life at a Frontier Army Post
In isolated frontier forts, boredom was a serious problem—Hollywood
notwithstanding. Actual battles with hostile Indians were few and far between with fights
being intense, quick, and over in a matter of minutes. The soldier's life was more
commonly a repetitive cycle of marching, inspections, formations, and work details. In
fact, the work details were a good deal more common than drilling. Soldiers complained
that instead of real soldiering they were put to work building quarters, stables,
storehouses, bridges, roads, and telegraph lines; logging, lumbering, quarrying, adobe
brick making, lime-burning, plastering, carpentering, painting, repairing wagons and
harnesses, blacksmithing, wood-chopping, and hay-making. The legionaries of ancient
Rome would have found this life entirely familiar.
The reason for all this work is not hard to understand. Each fort on the Plains was, in
effect, a small and necessarily self-sufficient community, far from other towns and
dependent on its own population for upkeep and operations. Since enlisted engineers
were not stationed on the Plains, the garrisons themselves had to build and maintain their
posts, and do all the other work involved in maintaining a community and its immediate
links with the outside world, such as roads, bridges, and telegraph lines.
Since the men were even less well trained in building than they were in riding and
fighting, the forts they constructed for themselves often left much to be desired. Many
times troops first lived in unlighted log cabins with dirt floors and rough wooden bunks
covered with straw. Later, more substantial structures of stone, brick, or wood frame
construction replaced the crude buildings.
The army strategy entailed a network of little forts spread over the West whose
garrisons were to protect white settlers and force Indians to obey treaties. It was rare for
walls or defensive works to be built around the frontier forts. Most were little more than
a collection of buildings huddled together on the High Plains with a barracks for the
enlisted men facing other buildings for officers, and a structure for the commanding
officer (CO). Other buildings would include a stable; warehouses for storing food,
equipment and uniforms; powder magazine where gunpowder was kept; a sutler's store;
post headquarters; a jail; hospital; and perhaps a blockhouse. The buildings were
grouped around a parade ground, over which flew the U.S. flag. As decades passed,
those forts which remained in active use, such as Fort Russell, (now Warren Air Force
Base in Cheyenne), tended to become more sophisticated and better built, but many of the
small forts were hardly improved at all before they were finally abandoned.
At frontier posts, a bugle's piercing call sounded reveille at dawn or earlier,
announcing the beginning of the enlisted man's day. From then until tattoo (call to
quarters) at 8 p.m. he was expected to be constantly busy. If not assigned to a patrol
outside the fort or guard duty the soldier would be given fatigue duties (routine chores)
which would occupy his whole day. Drilling (marching) on the parade ground would
also be practiced unless inclement weather forced instruction inside the barracks. Noon
bugle call sounded mess call for the midday meal. After lunch the soldier resumed his
duties from the morning.
Of all the daily duties, none was quite so hated as guard duty. All except specially
detailed enlisted men were liable for guard duty, drawing assignments as their names
came up in rotation. Starting at 9 a.m. soldiers selected from each company were
inspected by their first sergeant and marched to the parade grounds where they relieved
the previous day's guards. For the next 24 hours, in alternating spells of two hours on
duty and two off, the men stayed fully dressed and equipped. They would function as
sentinels around the fort no matter how severe the weather became. During their twohour breaks, the guards returned to the guardroom where they would rest fully clothed.
The work day ended with the retreat ceremony at 5 p.m. where the garrison
paraded, a cannon fired a salute and the bugle blared while the flag was lowered. Then
each company was dismissed for supper and the free time that remained before the
sounds of taps announced lights out--as early as 8:15 p.m. on dark winter nights.
The daily routine varied slightly from day to day through the week. There was no day
off in the frontier army except for an afternoon pass granted to leave the post after
Sunday morning inspection.
Health
If the men fell sick from exposure, bad living conditions or inadequate diet, they
were in real trouble due to the fact that the average post did not have its own surgeon. If
the fort offered the services of a hired civilian doctor or hospital steward, it was lucky.
Medicines were few, compared to the vast number of hazards encountered by the frontier
soldier's body. Cholera, acute dysentery, fevers, respiratory ailments, scurvy, and
venereal diseases were all common, and killed more bluecoats than Indian arrows ever
did.
Little consideration was given to maintaining high standards of hygiene. Privies
were outside and bathhouses were practically nonexistent. One soldier recalled in 1878
that in the thirty years he had served in the Army, he had never seen a bathhouse. He
continued by saying that it was not as bad as it seemed for everybody smelled and one
just got used to it. Records from 1850 to 1890 indicate that of every 1,800 men treated
by doctors, 1,550 were suffering from disease and only 250 from wounds. As well as
indicating the frequency of disease, these figures suggest the rarity of battle on the
frontier. A soldier could easily spend his entire five-year enlistment without ever firing
his weapon in action. In fact, the average trooper seems to have enlisted for no more than
one enlistment. It was a rare soldier who saw anything like a major battle on the Plains.
Leisure Time
When not on work detail or patrol, the enlisted men had little to do in their off-duty
hours. Most sutlers sold liquor, especially beer, whiskey, and various wines, and the
soldier's main leisure activity was drinking. Not surprisingly, this contributed to
disciplinary problems with numerous court-martial convictions of drunkenness. Fort
Laramie's records reveal that during the year 1876, of 114 court-martials, 60 percent dealt
with offenses related to drinking.
The second most popular pastime was gambling--at least when the soldier had money.
Dice and penny-ante poker were played in the barracks at every frontier post.
Neighboring “hog ranches” outside the post confines were powerful attractions for the
off-duty soldier, offering liquor, gambling, and women.
There were some more edifying pastimes for the frontier soldier. Dominoes, cribbage,
and checkers were played for amusement when soldiers lacked money, or some played
banjos, guitars, accordions, and harmonicas. Some larger forts like Fort Laramie
established post libraries where, by 1890, the shelves held some 600 books. Newspapers
and magazines could be read in each company's dayroom. The soldier could also watch
theatrical productions, minstrel shows, pantomimes, and burlesques performed by the
fort's garrison.
During legal holidays all duties not essential to the security of the post were
canceled. Banquets of otherwise rare meats and desserts were featured, and officers
traditionally spent part of Christmas with their men in the company barracks. The Fourth
of July produced thunderous cannon salutes at noon and fireworks in the evening.
Officers enjoyed more dances than enlisted men but whenever the musicians of the fort
could be persuaded to play, stag dances were held in the barracks, 'women' being
designated by white handkerchiefs around their arms.
Organized sports such as baseball, foot racing, and boxing furnished recreation for
both contestants and spectators, the latter usually betting money. Hunting and fishing
were favorite leisure activities indulged in by enlisted men and officers alike. Many
officers were avid hunters, keeping special horses and dogs to assist in their pursuit of
game.
Officers and Enlisted Men
The U.S. Army enforced an official and social ranking of its military personnel.
Officers of the frontier army lived in a world apart from the enlisted men in their
regiment. Rank determined privilege, authority and social standing. Each officer and
enlisted man had his part to play. Officers had higher pay, easier duty, and better living
quarters. Their private living quarters usually had two to four rooms, and was a separate
structure. The enlisted men, however, were crowded into barracks where rows of bunks,
or cots lined the room in orderly arrangement. NCOs were sometimes given the luxury
of a small room or two next to or near the barracks.
A rigid class system was set in place to control the enlisted men. Officers seldom
spoke directly to enlisted men. The first sergeant was the key individual in the daily
operation and maintenance of the frontier posts. In fact, enlisted men were not even
allowed to speak to an officer without first acquiring permission from the first sergeant.
Officers' orders and wishes were communicated through the first sergeant to each
company.
The distinct indication of the gulf between enlisted men and officers was the post
school, held for a few winter months whenever enough children were on hand to justify
it. The children of enlisted men were required to attend. Officers' children were invited.
Many officers’ wives taught their children at home as long as possible and then sent them
east to live with relatives or attend private schools. In 1877, for example, 20 children
between the ages of 5 and 11 attended the Fort Laramie school, three hours each morning
and three each afternoon, weekends excepted. The roll showed 14 girls and 6 boys.
Twelve were the children of enlisted men, 8 of civilians. But no officer let his child walk
through the doors of the classroom.
The chaplain, post surgeon, or the wife of an enlisted man at times would fill the
position of schoolteacher. But usually, like bakers and cooks, teachers were appointed
from the ranks of enlisted men for which they received extra pay. Most hated it. Their
fellow barracks mates ridiculed them and their undisciplined students disliked the
confinement as much as they did. The result was pandemonium, frequent spankings, and
an occasional distraught teacher who got himself fired by coming to class drunk.
Military Justice
When a man joined the army he agreed to obey, during his five year enlistment, the
extensive and complex regulations of military life. Enlisted soldiers found that the
punishment dispensed for violating the many rules was much different than they had been
used to as civilians. A nonconformist would discover that the army was intolerant of
anything that threatened the security of the system by which it operated. If for any reason
an enlisted man struck an officer, or ran during the heat of battle, the sentence of death by
court-martial would be the penalty.
The most common offense in the frontier army was desertion. Given the poor pay,
daily labor, living conditions, dislike of tyrannical officers, fear of punishment for
breaking the rules, and fear of campaigning against the Indians, enlisted soldiers had no
regrets about breaking their enlistment contracts.
In fact, many deserted because they knew their chances of avoiding apprehension
were about 80%. But those who were caught were punished harshly. Until 1870, a small
"D" was branded on their left buttock. The rest of their enlistment period, and sometimes
more, was then spent at hard labor in the gloomy military prison at Fort Leavenworth,
Kansas.
Trivial infractions such as sitting down while on guard duty or failing dress inspection
would incur fines, imprisonment, and heavy labor. But at least flogging was abolished in
1861. It is not known whether or not such extreme punishments made the offender a
better soldier, but it is known that many were not very contented with the life of an
enlisted man.
Buffalo Soldiers
On July 28, 1866 President Andrew Johnson signed a Congressional Act which
authorized two cavalry and four infantry regiments of black enlisted soldiers with white
officers to be organized. These regiments would serve on the frontier performing the
same duties as white troops. Yet they remained segregated from the rest of the army
while stationed at their posts in the most disagreeable areas of the frontier. These six
regiments proved to be among the steadiest and most reliable soldiers serving on the
frontier.
The black soldiers excelled in army discipline, morale, patience, and endurance. They
performed well on campaign and in combat. The black regiments enjoyed high
enlistment coupled with low desertion rates. Despite their exceptional record, some
white officers shunned duty with them. Black regiments were discriminated against with
the quality and quantity of supplies, equipment, and horses issued to them.
To the Indians, however, blacks were a respected adversary whom the warriors called
"the buffalo soldiers." The term came from a resemblance Indians saw between the black
soldier's hair and the buffalo's shaggy coat, and since the buffalo was a sacred animal, the
Indians honored the blacks by linking them with it. Despite all the hardships black troops
faced, their record of service was impressive. While serving on the frontier, eighteen
black soldiers won the country's highest military award for bravery, the Medal of Honor.
Indian Scouts
The Indian scout was another contributing minority with the frontier army.
Commonly referred to by hostile Indians as "wolves for the bluecoats," these Indians
served as scouts with the duties of reconnaissance: discovering and following the enemy's
trail, locating the enemy and determining their strength, and leading the soldiers to the
enemy. The value of the Indian scout to the military was obvious. They knew the terrain
and its resources. The Indian scout understood the tactics of warfare employed by the
tribes, tactics which were often misunderstood or underestimated by the United States
Army.
The Indian scouts would also have psychological effects on hostile Indians. General
George Crook, a strong supporter of using Indians as scouts, said:
To polish a diamond there is nothing like its own dust. It is the
same with these fellows. Nothing breaks them up like turning
their own people against them. They don’t fear the white
soldier, whom they easily surpass...but put upon their trail an
enemy of their own blood, an enemy as tireless, as foxy, and as
stealthy and familiar with the country as they themselves, and it
breaks them all up.
Major Forts In Wyoming
Fort Bridger - (1842-1890) This began as the trading post of famous mountain man Jim
Bridger and later became an important army post along the Oregon-California-Mormon
Trails.
Fort Caspar - (1862-1867) Troops were assigned here during the Civil War to guard the
1,000 foot bridge across the North Platte River. Named for young Lieutenant Caspar
Collins killed by Sioux and Cheyenne warriors during the Battle of Platte Bridge
(formerly called Station at Platte Bridge).
Fort D.A. Russell - (1876-1948) This major fort was built to protect the Union Pacific
Railroad from Indian attacks. It is still in use today by the military as an important U.S.
Air Force missile base. Originally named for General David A. Russell who was killed
during the Civil War, the fort was renamed Fort Francis E. Warren by Congress in 1930.
The U.S. Air Force officially took command in 1948 from the U.S. Army and the post is
now called F.E. Warren Air Force Base.
Fort Fetterman - (1867-1882) Located at the junction of the Bozeman Trail and OregonCalifornia-Mormon Trails. General George Crook led his expedition north from here to
fight the Sioux in 1876. Named for Captain William J. Fetterman killed by the Sioux in
1866.
Fort Fred Steele - (1868-86) Another important fort built to protect the Union Pacific
Railroad. Its buildings were located only a few feet from the railroad tracks. Named for
General Fred Steele who was killed during the Civil War.
Fort Laramie - (1834-1890) This fort originated as one of the leading trading posts on the
frontier. Despite officially being named Fort William and later Fort John, the name “Fort
Laramie” was used because of the fort's location on the Laramie River. A critical
military fort during the Indian Wars, it witnessed treaty negotiations, military
expeditions, and the great migration of civilians.
Fort Phil Kearny - (1866-1868) Built as the headquarters post along the Bozeman Trail.
During its two years of existence it was under a virtual siege by Chief Red Cloud and the
Sioux. The Wagon Box Fight and the Fetterman Fight were fought only a few miles
from this fort. Named for General Philip Kearny who was killed during the Civil War.
Fort Sanders - (1866-1882) Built to protect the Union Pacific Railroad. Named for
General William Sanders who was killed during the Civil War. Today, part of the city of
Laramie.
Fort Stambaugh - (1870-1878) This army post was built near Atlantic City for the
protection of the South Pass miners during gold mining operations. By the late 1870s,
the drop in miner population made this post unnecessary. Named for Lieutenant Charles
Stambaugh killed nearby fighting the Sioux.
Fort Washakie - (1871-1909) A rarity, this fort was named in honor of an Indian Chief,
Shoshoni leader Chief Washakie. Built to protect the Shoshoni Indians on the Wind
River Reservation from their traditional enemy the Sioux.
Fort Yellowstone - (1892-1918) This military post was constructed to protect the natural
resources of Yellowstone Park before the organization of the National Park Service.
Many former army buildings are still in use today by the NPS.
ACTIVITIES
1) THINGS TO DISCUSS:
• What type of men became soldiers in the U.S. Army? Why did they
join the army?
• Examine the relationship between officers and the enlisted men of the
frontier army.
• What were the living conditions like for the frontier soldier? Ask the
students if they think they could live as soldiers did. Why or why not?
• Have the students list the many duties of the frontier soldier.
2) HOW TO BUILD A FORT:
• Materials needed:
Fort Worksheet (provided)
Popsicle sticks
White glue
• Have each student construct their own frontier army fort. Don’t forget
to name the post.
3) TO THE FORT—CAN YOU GET THERE SAFELY?
• Materials needed:
To the Fort Maze Game (provided)
• Students need to help the supply wagons reach the fort. This activity
should be completed individually.
4) FRONTIER SOLDIER WORD SEARCH:
• Materials needed:
Word Puzzle Worksheet (provided)
• Find these words backward and forward, up and down:
FT. LARAMIE
FT. FETTERMAN
BOZEMAN TRAIL
CRAZY HORSE
FT. PHIL KEARNY
TREATY
OREGON
RED CLOUD
WAGON
INDIAN
RIFLE
UTAH
MORMON
CHEYENNE
CALIFORNIA
5) TRAILS AND FORTS:
• Materials needed:
Wyoming Outline Map & Keys (provided)
• Students should label the map where the trails and forts were located in
Wyoming.
6) ELEMENTS OF MILITARY LIFE:
• Have the students write a short essay on the various crimes committed by the
frontier soldier. Also include the punishments for those crimes.
• Assign an essay on the system of rank and the relationship between officers and
enlisted men.
7) KITCHEN DUTY:
• Have the students pretend that they are soldiers assigned to kitchen duty. Each
student should develop a menu, including breakfast, lunch, and dinner, according to the
staple foods that were used by the frontier army.
• Use recipes from the cookbook Feeding the Frontier Army 1775- 1865 to
prepare a meal for the class.
NEWSCASTING:
• Have the students pretend that they are newscasters with a time machine that
can travel back in time. They arrive at a frontier army fort and find the soldiers doing
their daily duties. Have them describe what they see happening in a live “broadcast” to
the classroom.
9) CLASSROOM REPORTER:
• Materials needed:
Interview Worksheet (provided)
• Have the students divide into pairs, with one person acting as the reporter, and
the other as the frontier soldier. The reporter should develop some questions to ask the
soldier—for example, what is it like to be in the frontier army? The soldier (student)
should answer the questions as completely as possible. Interview sheets might be
organized into a classroom (fort) newspaper.
10) THE DAILY LIFE OF A SOLDIER:
• Materials needed:
Private Chrisman’s Sketches (provided)
• Using Private C.C. Chrisman’s sketches as a model, have the students draw
pictures illustrating different aspects of a soldier’s life.
11) THE REGULAR ARMY O!:
• Materials needed:
Sheet Music (provided)
• Singing and playing instruments were favorite pastimes of the frontier soldier.
Students might want to sing the most popular song that was sung by the enlisted soldier
out west.
UNIT THREE
Uniforms and Military Equipment
TOPICS COVERED:
• Uniforms and military equipment of the frontier soldier.
STUDENT GOAL:
• Identify and explain the use of the uniforms and equipment.
SUGGESTED OBJECTS:
Infantry Fatigue Jacket
Cavalry Spurs
Cavalry Fatigue Jacket
Pistol Cap/Cartridge Pouch
Infantry Trousers
Cavalry Bugle
Shoulder Straps
Lead Bullets
Brass Service Insignias
Canteen
Infantry Shoes
Enlisted Forage Cap
.44 Caliber 1860 Army Revolver
Haversack
Rifle Cartridge Pouch
Holster
Wool Undershirt
Wool Socks
Campaign Hat
Belt & Belt Plate
Underwear
Ammunition Belt
Officer's Forage Cap
The Frontier Army’s Uniform
During its long service on the frontier (1849-1890), the U.S. Army was preoccupied,
philosophically at least, with preparing itself for the next conventional war. The army
viewed itself as a conventional military force, improving its professionalism through
education in the military sciences and emulating the great European powers of Germany
and France. In reality, though, the army found itself employed as a frontier police force
pitted against the highly unconventional Plains Indians.
In the development of armament, clothing, and accouterments, conservatism was the
policy employed by the U.S. Army. During the post-Civil War years a period of
stagnation resulted from warehouses that bulged with stocks of accumulated inventory
from the Union Army. Depletion of these reserves would take up to fifteen years with
both Congress and the army emphasizing frugality because of the costly Civil War.
Innovation thus came very slowly and modestly.
When they finally occurred, the most significant advances were in weapons
technology. Breech-loading arms and metallic cartridges, employed on a limited basis
during the Civil War, became standard issue to the frontier soldier after 1866. The Civil
War musket had to be loaded at the muzzle with powder and ball, and a percussion cap
for ignition placed in a holder under the hammer. In contrast, the new fixed ammunition
combined ignition, powder, and projectile in a single metal cylinder inserted at the breech
of the weapon. Besides ease of loading and rapidity of fire, the metallic cartridge
permitted greater velocity and accuracy.
The standard infantry weapon following the Civil War to 1898 was the single-shot
Springfield .45 caliber rifle. Cavalry troops were issued a Springfield carbine (a short
rifle) and pistol. In addition, cavalrymen also received a saber. It was heavy,
cumbersome, and noisy on the march, and its owner rarely got close enough to an Indian
to use it. Although it was used in a few engagements with Indians, for most cavalrymen
the saber remained almost exclusively an ornament for inspection and parade.
The regular army that went west in 1849 was attired in the familiar blue that had been
worn since the Revolutionary War. A dark blue woolen blouse and light blue woolen
trousers trimmed in the distinctive colors of the wearer's arm of service was the basic
work and dress uniform. Both cavalry and infantry wore a simple four-button, and later,
five-button blouse with a falling collar, although the cavalry also wore, for a few years, a
shell jacket with yellow trim, twelve buttons, and a standup collar.
In many respects, the officially prescribed uniform was ill-adapted to campaigning on
the Western Plains. Although the fatigue blouse was comfortable in cold and fairly
moderate weather, it was almost unbearable to a soldier riding or marching under a
blazing sun. Despite what one has seen in movies and on television, blue shirts were not
worn by enlisted men until the late 1880s. Up until that time the enlisted man sweated
out his western duty in a gray flannel shirt and heavy blue jacket.
In addition to shirts, soldiers were issued long flannel drawers, which were common to
workingmen throughout society of the time period. The main complaint about the under
drawers was that they came in only one weight of flannel, which was too heavy for
summer and not heavy enough for winter temperatures at the northern posts. Some
soldiers desperate to find relief from the stifling heat opted simply to dispense with
underwear altogether. But the rough kersey trousers usually chafed even the most hardy
man into submitting to wearing his drawers.
The frontier soldier wore a dark blue wool forage cap or kepi on his head while in
garrison and a wide brim black felt hat while on campaign. The headgear for the frontier
soldier was not only unpopular but also completely unsatisfactory for his needs. Soldiers
complained that the kepi gave no protection to the head from the elements and indeed
could only be kept there with great difficulty. A soldier in 1876 remarked, "A clam-shell
would be as good." The brimmed campaign hat gave scarcely greater satisfaction either
for comfort or durability. "Hence in the field," wrote one campaigner in 1877, "we see
no forage caps, but in their stead hats--white hats, brown hats, black hats, all kinds of hats
except the Service hat, for that, too is unsuitable." For many soldiers a civilian broadbrimmed straw hat, purchased from the post sutler, performed the best under the intense
western sun.
The absence of satisfactory summer and winter clothing inflicted hardships on the
frontier soldier. Troops in the desert southwest appealed for lighter, better ventilated
clothing. Farther north, even the regulation heavy, light-blue wool overcoat gave
inadequate protection against the winter blasts of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains.
In the 1870s the army experimented with a variety of Arctic overcoats, caps, gloves, and
boots. Buffalo, beaver, bear, seal and muskrat furs were tried, along with canvas lined
with sheepskin or blanket material. The buffalo garments proved the most effective
against the cold and became regulation issue special winter clothing for northern posts by
the late 1870s.
Wool stockings that were issued to enlisted troops were not worn by the majority of
soldiers because of their poor quality. Colonel George Woodward called them "the
poorest articles issued to troops... On campaigns they will not last over ten days." Most
enlisted soldiers purchased civilian-made stockings that were a better quality article.
Shoes, officially known as bootees, and boots were rather crude in form, with
distinctive lefts and rights not appearing until the beginning of the Civil War. Boots,
having tops about fourteen inches tall, were to be worn by cavalrymen, whereas shoes
with leather laces were issued to foot troops. The uppers of both styles of footgear were
made with the dressed side turned outward and were dyed black. The soles either were
stitched to the uppers or were fastened by machine-set wooden pegs. Neither of these
methods held up very well under harsh frontier conditions.
Other individual regulation equipment including belts, holsters, carbine slings, and
ammunition pouches were constructed largely of leather. A few items, such as
haversacks, cartridge belts, and knapsacks, were made of leather and canvas.
Rank and Insignia
The uniform not only set the soldier apart from civilians and enabled the fighting man
to identify, quickly and easily, friend from foe in battle, but they were also descriptive for
fellow soldiers. Details such as the color of straps and hat cords, enlisted chevrons or the
officer's insignia all conveyed an instant message about a soldier's rank, his skills and
even his duties in the army. To the trained eye, the uniform was as easy to read as a
book.
Officers' and enlisted mens' uniforms were decorated about the shoulders, arms, and
on the headgear. Officers wore shoulder straps of wool with gold-embroidered edges
across the shoulder seam of the fatigue coat. The center of the shoulder straps were the
color of the branch--light blue for infantry, yellow for cavalry, and red for artillery. The
straps also bore the respective rank of the officer: general, a star; colonel, an eagle;
lieutenant colonel, two silver leaves at each end of the strap ; major, had gold leaves;
captain, two silver bars at each end; first lieutenants, one silver bar at each end; second
lieutenant straps were simply left plain.
Noncommissioned officers wore chevrons on both arms above the elbows, points
down, identifying their rank and branch. Light blue denoted infantry, yellow meant
cavalry, and red signified artillery. Corporals wore two bars, sergeants three, first
sergeants three bars with a diamond set in the angle. Additional bars and symbols
identified other regimental NCOs.
Officers and noncommissioned officers also wore stripes of facing cloth down the
outer leg seams of their trousers. Regulations called for a strip of 1 1/2 inch wide for
officers, 1 inch for sergeants, and 1/2 inch for corporals. The upper ends of the strips
were sewn into the waistband seam and lay centered down the outer leg seams to the
cuffs. The trouser stripes not only were ornamental but also served a functional purpose
to further distinguish the NCOs, particularly in the field, where blouses might not be
worn. Stripes for infantrymen were dark blue, those for cavalry were yellow, and
artillerymen wore red ones.
Headgear ornamentation signified rank, branch, and regiment with company
designation. Officer's forage cap symbols were gold embroidered crossed sabers, edges
upward for cavalry; for infantry a bugle, later to be replaced by crossed rifles; and
crossed cannon tubes for artillery, on dark blue cloth, with the regimental number in
silver in the upper angle. These were centered on the front of the cap above the band and
sewn in place.
The branch symbols for enlisted men were made of thin stamped brass with
attachment wires soldered on the reverse. Crossed sabers, the bugle, and later crossed
rifles, and crossed cannon tubes remained the respective branch insignia for cavalry,
infantry, and artillery. The letters and numbers for regiment and company were issued
separately, measured one-half inch high, and were also stamped brass with fine wire
loops on the backs for fastening them to the cap. Insignias were worn on top of the
forage cap until 1872, when they were moved to the front of the caps, similar in
placement to those of officers. Although the regulations did not provide for wearing
branch insignia on the campaign hat, photographic evidence indicates that, in rare
instances, some individuals did so.
Frontier Reality v. Hollywood
Contrary to how motion pictures have portrayed the cavalry of the old west, the
frontier army was not issued colored suspenders and yellow neckerchiefs. Both were
fabrications by Hollywood to make the troops look more colorful on the big screen. The
motion picture industry has used adventure, battles, flags fluttering, romance, and
colorful uniforms to depict the frontier army. The great director John Ford was a master
contributor in creating a national nostalgic memory of the cavalry. In the climatic scene
of Fort Apache cavalry officer John Wayne philosophizes on the courage, stamina, skill,
and good nature of the regular army troopers who opened the American West. A cavalry
column with banners flying marches in silhouette against a desert sunrise as swelling
music proclaims the majesty of their part in the epic of America. With such stirring
scenes Ford shaped a whole generation's conception of the frontier army.
In fact the frontier soldier looked anything but military while in the field. A
perceptive English observer in 1882 remarked that the American frontier soldier looked
like "banditti." Comfort and informal practicality were the rule for frontier army soldiers
while on campaign. Campaigning against hostile Indians was not a grand maneuver or a
large set piece battle. Columns of soldiers would have to first hunt down their
adversaries before bringing them to battle. Sometimes that would take months of hard
marching experiencing harsh conditions from both the weather and the land.
Besides a variety of hats in many shapes and colors, a typical column on campaign
displayed blue, gray, or even checkered shirts and faded regulation trousers. Cavalrymen
often lined the seat of their trousers with canvas, to prolong the life of the trousers, or
wore trousers made entirely of canvas. Some wore white corduroy clothing or buckskin.
Although an occasional shoulder strap identified an officer, evidence of rank was scarce
in the field.
A New York Times reporter described the arrival of the Fifth Cavalry at Fort Fetterman
in July 1876:
...They came along in thorough fighting trim, flanking parties out,
to a fastidious eye, . . . there was something quite shocking in the
disregard of regulation uniform. . . About the only thing in their
dress which marked them as soldiers were their striped pants and
knee boots, both well bespattered with mud. Their blue Navy
shirts, broad brimmed hats, belts stuffed with cartridges and loose
handkerchiefs knotted about the neck, gave them a wild,
bushwhacker appearance...
With only slight changes in detail, the journalist might have been describing almost
any frontier column on the march between 1849 and 1890.
Bullets & Cartridges of the Frontier Army
During the Civil War, reloading a soldier’s rifle was time-consuming. The powder
and bullet were loaded separately through the muzzle, using an 8-step process. These
steps were hard to remember during the confusion of battle and the best soldiers could
load and fire only a few rounds per minute.
In 1873, the U.S. Army simplified the loading process by adopting the breech-loading
.45 caliber Springfield rifle and carbine. Both weapons used a one-piece cartridge,
allowing both powder and bullet to be loaded as a single unit. The new cartridge
consisted of a metal casing fitted with a lead bullet. When struck by the weapon’s firing
pin, the cartridge primer exploded, igniting the powder inside the casing and propelling
the bullet towards the target.
The first casings were made of copper, but by 1888, brass had replaced copper
because it was more durable and eliminated jamming problems. The rifle cartridge held a
500 grain bullet and 70 grains of powder, while the carbine cartridge used a 405 grain
bullet and 55 grains of powder.
During the 1870’s and 1880’s, the Springfields were widely used against hostile
Indians and outlaws on the western frontier. The Springfields remained the standard
army issue shoulder arms until more efficient repeating arms were introduced in the
1890’s. Although primitive by today’s standards, the Springfield cartridge set the stage
for the development of modern ammunition.
ACTIVITIES
1) THINGS TO DISCUSS:
• How could a civilian or fellow soldier tell a soldier’s rank and branch
of the army by his uniform?
• Was the uniform practical for use in the West? Why or why not?
• Have students try on the uniform. Ask them, would they enjoy wearing
wool year around here in Wyoming?
2) ITEM IDENTIFICATION:
• Materials needed:
Item Identification Worksheets (Provided in Grey Folder)
• This activity may be done individually or in small groups of two to four students.
Students should draw a picture of the item listed and provide a brief description of its use.
3) DRESS THE SOLDIER:
• Materials needed:
Dress the Soldier Worksheet
(Provided in Grey Folder)
Crayons or colored pencils
• Have the students complete this activity individually. The soldier should be
dressed in the proper uniform with the appropriate accouterments. The students should
decide whether the soldier is an infantry man or cavalry man, enlisted man or officer.
4) COLOR THE SOLDIER BY THE NUMBER:
• Materials needed:
Color by Number Worksheet
(Provided in Grey Folder)
Crayons or colored pencils
• Allow the students individually to properly color the cavalry man, infantry man,
and horse.
5) WHAT DID THE FRONTIER SOLDIER NEED ON CAMPAIGN?:
• Materials needed:
Campaign Worksheet
(Provided in Grey Folder)
Answers on Page 93
UNIT 4
Dependents of the Frontier Army
TOPICS COVERED:
• Dependents of the frontier army, that is, those women, children, and
servants whose husbands, fathers, and employers were soldiers.
• Life for dependents at a frontier army post, including information
about housing, food and leisure activities.
• Dangers, both real and imagined, faced by dependents at a frontier
army post.
STUDENT GOAL:
• To become knowledgeable about the dependents of the frontier
army.
• To describe the disparate experiences of the officers’ wives,
children, laundresses and servants at a frontier army post.
• To understand how the contributions made by the women, children
and servants improved the lives of the officers and enlisted men of the
frontier army.
SUGGESTED OBJECTS:
Darning Egg
Iron
Lye Soap
Sunbonnet
Washboard
Dependents of the Frontier Army
The story of the frontier army is mainly that of its soldiers, its enemy and its battles,
but the presence of army dependents should not be overlooked. This unit examines the
dependents--the wives, children, and servants--whose husbands, fathers and employers
were soldiers in the frontier army.
“Let all young ladies who are dazzled with the glare of gilt buttons at some of the
fashionable parties of the East bear...deprivations in mind, before saying ‘yes’ to the
fascinating sons of Mars.” In spite of this 1852 warning offered by an anonymous soldier
stationed at desolate Camp Arbuckle, Indian Territory, many women married soldiers.
All army wives found themselves in a bigamous relationship, that is, they had married not
only a man but also a military system that officially considered them nothing more than
“camp followers,” second always to the mission and the “needs of the service.” Children
might be dying, epidemics might be raging in the garrison, but the officers automatically
assumed that wives would willingly subordinate themselves to orders from the third party
in their marriages--the United States Army.
General William T. Sherman encouraged army wives to move westward when he met
a group of them in St. Louis just prior to his third inspection of the West in 1866. The
general urged the ladies to accompany their husbands on their new western assignments.
Speaking optimistically, the general predicted that not only would garrison life on the
frontier prove “healthful and pleasant” for all army dependents, but also they need have
no fears about the hostile Indians. Sherman advised the women to “take with them all the
needed comforts for a...life in the newly opened country.” In contrast, army wives
quickly discovered that the “healthful and pleasant” benefits of the West’s wide-open
spaces and clean crisp air were often counteracted by diseases caused by the military’s
marginal diet, substandard quarters, and lack of adequate medical care. If they did bring
with them “all the needed comforts” wives often witnessed their damage or destruction
due to the harsh elements of the West. Things considered “necessities” in the East
became “luxuries” in the West. Sherman’s over-optimistic predictions for life in the
West were not realized until the twentieth century.
With or without Sherman’s encouragement, army wives accompanied their soldier
husbands to the frontier for many reasons. Primarily, they went out of love and a sense
of duty. The women considered their role as that of a refuge where their husbands could
find comfort, and the reassurance that the task they had undertaken was justified.
Victorian values embraced the “cult of domesticity,” the belief that a woman’s sphere
was the home, where she provided domestic tranquility for her husband and children. A
woman’s responsibility was also to create cheerful surroundings and communicate moral
and cultural values to her family. Single women also accompanied the army, as
laundresses and household servants. The majority of these were immigrants, many Irish
and some German, of humble backgrounds. Some were former slaves from the South.
Others were recruited and hired from the native populations near the frontier posts.
It is difficult to estimate how many army wives there were on the frontier during the
Indian Wars because as a general rule, the United States Army kept no statistics on the
number of married enlisted men. In fact, the War Department kept no accurate account
on the number of civilian dependents with the army until 1891. Although far
outnumbered by the military men, women associated with the frontier army were
nevertheless important. Some of the most important were the wives of officers.
Officers’ Wives: Political Assets or Painted Dolls?
Most officers’ wives originated from middle- or upper-middle-class Eastern homes
and brought romantic and unrealistic concepts of life on the frontier. Some were socialite
daughters of old established families, who naively expected all army posts to be like the
picturesque West Point in New York. Although these women were perhaps the most illprepared mentally, ultimately they were also the best positioned to endure the hardships
of life at a frontier army post because their husbands’ salary and prestige afforded them
servants and other comforts. For some, marriage into the army simply meant a
continuation of the only lifestyle they had ever known, for they had been reared in the
army, as had their mothers before them. To be sure, a woman who married an army
officer led a grueling life that usually shocked her at first and then tested her stamina as
never before.
An officer’s wife was an extension of the man himself. This was readily apparent in
the custom of addressing the wife by reflecting her husband’s status. Alice Kirk
Grierson, for example, was referred to as “Mrs. Colonel Grierson.” At the top of the
female social hierarchy was the commanding officer’s wife. She was expected to set the
standards of conduct on the post, function as its social leader, and, as official hostess,
receive all civilian and military guests with equal courtesy, among other duties. When a
dignitary such as General William T. Sherman or writer Mark Twain visited the post, the
commanding officer’s wife and her colleagues marshaled all resources in order to serve
the finest meals and decorate the quarters to impress and honor the distinguished guests.
Captain Charles King of the Fifth U.S. Cavalry once commented, “There is only one
social position harder to fill than that of a minister’s wife. The woman who can succeed
as ‘the lady of the commanding officer’ in a bustling garrison could charm the most
discordant parish that ever squabbled.” Not only was the commanding officer’s wife
subject to intense public scrutiny, but all officers’ wives and children, especially
daughters, were placed on a figurative pedestal and perceived as being untouchable.
The most outstanding asset to an officer’s career was a wife who could carefully
maintain her own personal honor while diplomatically advancing his career. This was
not an easy task in the microcosm of a western post, where the residents of the garrisons
knew the intimate details of one another’s lives and gossip flourished. Politically astute
and skilled wives wielded considerable influence. King explained, “A lady of fine social
qualities, whose husband may be an irredeemable drunkard, a disgrace to the Army, and a
fraud on mankind, insures his commission by the adroit manipulation of her admirers.”
Regardless of the positive effect their presence had upon their husbands, army wives,
to their chagrin, enjoyed the status of “camp followers.” Elizabeth Bacon (Libbie)
Custer, wife of General George A. Custer, observed that, in spite of the great value
placed on the presence of an officer’s wife with him on the frontier, army regulations
ignored wives entirely. She and other wives saw this as an insult, considering that the
same regulations contained the minutest details concerning such matters as how long
bean soup should be boiled. Even servants and company laundresses rated mention in the
regulations, and the army provided its laundresses with quarters, a daily ration, and
access to the post surgeon. The only heading, however, which could be interpreted to
cover army dependents such as wives and children was the rule concerning the status of
camp followers. The commanding officer of a post had complete control over the camp
followers and could detain or ban them from the post as he chose.
Although most officers’ wives considered themselves the most important women on
the post and resented their lack of recognition by the army. The enlisted men generally
didn’t view them in the same light, however, and one even referred to them as “painted
dolls.” The enlisted men preferred the women at the other end of the social hierarchy, the
laundresses, and of course, their own wives.
Laundresses and Enlisted Men’s Wives
Because of their social and financial status, officers’ wives could afford the servants
and comforts that improved their lives on the frontier. Other women were not as
fortunate but they endured the lifestyle of the frontier army nevertheless. These women,
the laundresses and enlisted men’s wives (often one in the same), played important roles
at Western posts. Many of these women were Irish. Others were German. The majority
of the laundresses had little formal education.
The U. S. Army inherited the institution of the company laundress from the British in
1802. A laundress was the only woman who received any legal recognition within the
military hierarchy. She received housing, a daily ration, fuel and the service of the post
surgeon in addition to her pay for doing the company wash. An act of 1802 allowed
women to accompany the troops in the capacity of laundresses in the ratio of one for
every twenty-five men. Over the years, the ratio was changed to one laundress for every
nineteen and one-half men. During the 1870s, laundresses generally earned one dollar
per month per enlisted man, thereby making approximately nineteen dollars per month.
Compared to Privates’ pay of thirteen dollars, Corporals’ pay of fifteen dollars and
Sergeants’ pay of eighteen dollars, the laundresses’ income was substantial. To earn
additional money, laundresses sometimes made and sold pies with fruit and flour
provided by the government, took in mending and sewing, and worked as servants in the
homes of officers. Laundresses served at the post commander’s pleasure and were
subject to military law.
Single laundresses inhabited quarters often referred to as “Sudsville” or “Suds Row.”
Suds Row usually consisted of tents, dugouts, sod buildings, log huts or shacks. Quarters
were too cramped for healthful or comfortable living. Sanitary conditions were primitive
and ungoverned. Foul and dirty water might be dumped anywhere convenient, for
example. Often Suds Row was adjacent to the outdoor privies and stables, within close
range of the nauseating odors. The harsh weather of the West only aggravated the
primitive living conditions. During the winter a laundress might pour water over the
outside of her canvas tent, forming a sheet of ice, to help keep out some of the wind and
snow. Even allowing for the deprivations experienced by all persons at military posts in
the West, it is apparent that the laundresses lived in the most hideous circumstances of
all.
A laundress’ day began early and ended late, with hard, steady work throughout. In
addition to caring for her children (the typical laundress had several), and husband if she
had one, she also washed her company’s laundry. Only after she hauled water, chopped
wood for fuel, built a fire and heated water was she ready to begin the task of scrubbing
the soldiers’ dirty clothes against a washboard. Although the laundress was provided a
daily ration of fuel, it was her responsibility to split the wood. At Fort Laramie,
laundresses hauled water from the river year round. In the winter they had to chop a hole
in the ice to reach the water below. In the spring snowmelt caused the river to run
dangerously fast and high.
Laundresses performed many more duties than their narrow job descriptions of
washing the soldiers’ clothes. They provided a home life for their husbands who usually
were the senior non-commissioned officers. They also nursed the sick and helped the
officers’ families in times of need. Laundresses could be depended on to care for the
sick, dress the dead, deliver babies and take in orphans. More importantly, they provided
some elements of a home life for the enlisted men. Soldiers enjoyed visiting Suds Row
where they played with children, fed chickens and petted dogs. Sometimes laundresses
gave teas for the enlisted men, or even invited them for an occasional meal. Unlike
officers’ wives and children, laundresses had little leisure time. When they did indulge in
hobbies, they played card games, especially cribbage.
Laundresses, and servants, too, provided female companionship for the enlisted men.
Laundresses were frequently the honored guests at hops or dances given by the men and
they were never without a dancing partner. It was said that no woman was too old or
ugly to have fun at an enlisted men’s party. Often dancing partners evolved into marriage
partners. Laundresses frequently married enlisted men, in spite of the bureaucracy and
living conditions which made life for married soldiers difficult and unappealing. It was
to the benefit of the enlisted man and laundress to marry. Their joint pay, daily rations
and military housing produced a more comfortable life on the frontier.
Opinions were polarized about the utility and character of company laundresses.
During army reorganization hearings in Congress in 1876, General Edward O. C. Ord
testified that laundresses “tended to make the men more cheerful, honest and
comfortable.” Nevertheless, General Orders No. 37 two years later decreed that in the
future, women would not be allowed to accompany the troops as laundresses. A woman
who was the wife of a soldier and now permitted to accompany the troops in that capacity
could continue to do so at the discretion of the regimental commander until the expiration
of her husband’s enlistment. In 1883 Army Circular No. 3 canceled the issuance of
rations to laundresses and thus the official recognition of the army laundresses ended.
Soldiers’ wives continued to supplement the family income by taking in company
laundry, however.
Servants
One of the most important “necessities” to an officer’s wife was servants. Twentyfive percent of American households had them during the latter half of the nineteenth
century. Many officers’ wives had little or no experience with, or knowledge of, the
physical drudgery presented by cooking, cleaning, sewing and taking care of children.
One solution to running a household on the frontier was to employ an enlisted man as
a servant during his off-duty hours. A soldier serving in this capacity was officially
known as a “striker.” But sometimes fellow enlisted men contemptuously called him a
“dog robber,” suggesting that he was eating scraps from the table that would otherwise go
to the family pet. The job offered enough benefits, however, to overcome the stigma.
Many enlisted men were happy to work for the extra five to ten dollars a month paid by
an officer, to live in private quarters, to eat better than in company messes, and to be
excused from guard duty, drills and roll calls. Typical duties performed by a striker
included taking care of the family’s horses, cutting the grass, chopping firewood and
hauling water. Some army wives wrote that they could not have survived their lives on
the frontier without the assistance of their strikers. Often strikers were blacks who had
enlisted in the army immediately after the Civil War while several of the regiments were
stationed on police duty in the South. General Orders No. 92 of 1870 outlawed the
striker by stating that “it shall be unlawful for any officer to use any enlisted man as a
servant in any case whatever.” This order was not enforceable, however, and the practice
of officers employing enlisted men as servants continued.
Officers’ wives also imported cooks, maids and governesses from the East or
South or else employed members of the native population. Female servants proved as
hard to retain as to obtain. At first the officers’ wives wanted attractive servants. Soon,
however, they found that pretty servants became enamored of their own good looks and
popularity and then refused to work or resigned and got married. Libbie Custer
deliberately chose plain, middle-aged women as her servants and then marveled at how
they began to “metamorphose” in a world of admiring men. Officers’ wives always
considered it a bad sign when female servants began to “primp and powder.” The wives
soon discovered that they were running a de facto marriage bureau by bringing in single
women to an isolated army post. It was said that pretty maids or cooks could be married
within two weeks of arrival at a post, the homely ones within a month.
The Frontier Army Post: A Children’s Paradise
Children were cherished in the frontier West. Childbirth and early infancy carried
high mortality rates. And the “usual childhood diseases” such as scarlet fever, whooping
cough, measles, influenza, meningitis, cholera and malaria claimed many young lives as
well. The post army surgeons had no training in obstetrics for army women, they also
lacked training in pediatrics. Thus, in spite of their good intentions, care and compassion,
they could not properly combat the deadly diseases that often killed the youngest
residents of the garrison.
Those army children that survived into their childhood years found frontier life
exhilarating. Their playgrounds were, in times of conflict, parade grounds and stockade
enclosures. In times of peace, their playgrounds stretched for miles. Young boys,
especially, found a paradise on the frontier. Boys quickly mastered firearms. Not
surprisingly, they often played games of “Soldiers and Indians.” A few officers’ sons
experienced a unique form of recreation and adventure when their fathers allowed them
to accompany the command on an expedition. Children of both genders took greatest
pleasure in horseback riding. Virtually all children of officers enjoyed affectionate
relationships with enlisted men, many of whom treated the children as favored pets.
Officers’ children also formed special relationships with the family’s striker, too.
Although army children tended to have free rein of the post, there were norms that
regulated their behavior. One army dependent reminisced about her childhood, “Army
children are taught early to observe the rules of the garrison: [for example] not to walk on
the grass in certain places; not to ‘cut corners’; to keep off the parade ground during
guard mount and drill.” Their parents could earn a rebuke from the post commander if
the children misbehaved, for the soldiers were responsible for the actions of their
families.
The major drawback of growing up at a frontier post was the lack of adequate
educational facilities. Therefore, army parents who could afford to do so sent their
children away to boarding schools. In other instances, children were sent back East to
live with grandparents or aunts and
surgeons had no training in pediatrics. Thus, in spite of their good intentions, care and
compassion, they could not properly combat the deadly diseases that often killed the
garrison’s youngest residents.
Those army children that survived into their childhood years found frontier life
exhilarating. Their playgrounds were, in times of conflict, parade grounds and stockade
enclosures. In times of peace, their playgrounds stretched for miles. Young boys,
especially, found a paradise on the frontier. They quickly mastered firearms and not
surprisingly, they often played games of “Soldiers and Indians.” A few officers’ sons
experienced a unique form of recreation and adventure when their fathers allowed them
to accompany the command on an expedition. Children of both genders took greatest
pleasure in horseback riding. Virtually all children of officers enjoyed affectionate
relationships with enlisted men, many of whom treated the children as favored pets.
Officers’ children also formed special relationships with the family’s striker.
Although army children tended to have free rein of the post, there were norms that
regulated their behavior. One army dependent reminisced about her childhood, “Army
children are taught early to observe the rules of the garrison: not to walk on the grass in
certain places; not to ‘cut corners’; to keep off the parade ground during guard mount and
drill.” Their parents could earn a rebuke from the post commander if the children
misbehaved, for the soldiers were responsible for the actions of their families.
The major drawback of growing up at a frontier post was the lack of adequate
educational facilities. Therefore, army parents who could afford to do so sent their
children away to boarding schools. In other instances, children were sent back East to
live with grandparents or aunts and uncles while they attended school. Children whose
parents could not arrange for their education in the East were forced to do the best they
could with the school on post. Not surprisingly, these were often the children of enlisted
men and laundresses.
For children of both the officers and enlisted men, Christmas was a very special
time. All children, regardless of the parent’s rank, were treated equally when it came to
Christmas gifts. Christmas was the one time of the year when everyone worked together
for the benefit of the post’s youngest residents. One army wife and her sister obtained
yellow paper from the post quartermaster and made candy-filled “cornucopias” as
Christmas gifts for the children. An army major had the post carpenter craft sleds for his
children. Sometimes obtaining Christmas gifts was easier than finding a Christmas tree
under which to put them. Many posts, for example, were located in remote regions
where a green tree--or even a green branch--could not be found. In these instances, the
creative residents fashioned “Christmas trees” from unorthodox materials. At Camp
Hancock, Dakota Territory, for example, the post carpenter arranged a pair of
“magnificent” elk horns loaned by the post surgeon upright in the center of the dining
room. This improvised “Christmas tree” was decked with ribbons and brightly colored
fringes and little gifts and candies were attached to it.
Housing: ‘Uncle Sam’ Must Be an Old Bachelor
Living conditions for army dependents in the West were governed by several factors:
climate, location and age of the post, available building materials, distance from
civilization and the army supply line, and, most important, the friendliness of the
“neighbors.” Housing, or “quarters,” was varied, ranging from damp dugouts, tents,
adobe huts and bug-infested log cabins to elegant wood-framed multi-story houses.
One’s rank and seniority determined one’s housing. A second lieutenant stood at the
bottom of the hierarchy, and every officer his senior in rank and length of service took
precedence. When an officer with higher rank or seniority arrived on post, the “ranking
out” process began. In this tradition, a senior officer could evict a junior one so that he
could occupy the desirable quarters himself. The protocol of rank and the scramble for
quarters resembled both children’s games of dominoes and musical chairs. The
outcomes, however, were more serious for the adults and children forced to play
according to the army’s tradition. Given notice at ten in the morning requesting that they
vacate their quarters by one o’clock that afternoon, one army wife observed that she felt
like a poor woman evicted for nonpayment of rent. A post with a high turnover of
officers was constantly in flux due to the “ranking out” tradition.
Libbie Custer described typical army quarters as “severely plain with plastered walls,
wood-work...usually disfigured by huge stoves.” She further observed that “it was hard
to give a cosey [sic], home-like look to a sitting room without blinds, with plastered walls
and without an open fire.” Army wives nevertheless endeavored to make the best of the
housing situation. They constantly bombarded the post quartermaster with requests for
supplies in order to beautify their frontier homes. Furniture was improvised from
wooden crates and barrels, oftentimes disguised with a popular cloth of the day such as
calico or chintz. Elizabeth Burt fashioned floor coverings from army blankets sewn
together to improve her family’s quarters at Fort Bridger in 1866. Officers’ wives
learned that it didn’t always pay to improve living conditions too much, however,
especially if married to a junior officer. If a wife made their quarters too comfortable and
attractive, it was an invitation to get “ranked out.”
One lieutenant’s wife expressed her dissatisfaction with army quarters in this poem:
I know ‘Uncle Sam’ must be an old bachelor,
For he made no provision for an officer’s wife:
And the very worst fate that I ever can wish him
Is one room and a kitchen the rest of his life.
Not only were army quarters small, as the poem alludes to, in Wyoming they were
frequently cold. One army wife described the winter of 1867 at Fort D. A. Russell near
Cheyenne, “...when the wintry gales began, threatening to lift the flimsy structures from
their iron anchorage, no amount of fuel would keep them warm... Every knot-hole was
plugged. Extra sheets of tarpaper were tacked together throughout the interior, and ten
thicknesses of the Chicago Times were laid beneath the carpets...” Virtually identical
conditions existed at Fort Laramie. One army wife wrote, “We could keep comfortable
in our living room at least. At night it was impossible to make the dining room and
kitchen warm. Milk was found frozen solid in the pans in the morning...The precious
sack of potatoes was covered with a buffalo robe and placed near the stove in the living
room each night.”
Large amounts of material goods and furniture were not acquired, or if they were, they
were not retained. It was simply too expensive to transport them from post to post.
Families often sold much of their furniture and material goods when preparing for a
move. During a move, the army provided an officer with only accommodations for
himself and two horses, fuel and light for his quarters, and food for the horses.
Everything else, including moving expenses for his dependents, came out of his pay.
Sometimes relatives in the East had to lend money to defray moving expenses. With the
constant expense of travel and the frequency of moves, the lifestyle of the average army
officer’s family might best be described as a state of genteel poverty.
Food: Beef, Beef and More Beef
All army wives faced the difficult problems created by the scarcity or high price of
certain foodstuffs on the frontier. In some places, for example, potatoes and onions sold
for fifteen dollars per bushel! Eggs, butter and milk were so rare that they were
exchanged as presents. According to Margaret Irvin Carrington, at Fort Phil Kearny in
1866, “fresh vegetables were most precious and rare.” Sometimes foodstuffs were not
available at any price. In those situations, wives began to take pride in knowing how to
use substitutes or make concoctions out of almost nothing. Recipe titles such as “Cake
Without Eggs” reflect the ingenuity of army wives on the frontier. They also learned to
make apple pies without apples and custards without milk or eggs. One army wife
commented that army men studied tactics, and that their wives also had to do so in a land
where there were no stores.
Beef, beef and more beef was the constant complaint around many a Western army
post. Not surprisingly, the hunting of wild game became a popular sport, to obtain
different kinds of meat and for entertainment. The lack of variety in army rations was not
only monotonous to the palate, it caused nutritional problems as well. Scurvy, a disease
resulting from a deficiency of vitamin C, was common at many frontier posts. When the
army did try to provide a more balanced diet, the results were often unsatisfactory.
Elizabeth Burt described the desiccated food issued to the residents of Fort Bridger in
1866. “Small squares of the vegetables were dried and compressed into cakes, supposed
to be a good substitute for real potatoes and vegetable soup; but alas! They were a sore
disappointment to us, and after one trial we never wished to add them to our larder.”
Because of the lack of variety in their meat and vegetable dishes, army wives
depended on desserts to add flavor and distinction to their meals. Of all desserts, the
nineteenth century homemaker’s pride was her cakes. Cakes were associated with
entertaining and there were special ones for Christmas, Valentine’s Day, elections, and
even funerals. Cake baking more than a century ago was considered an art, and the actual
baking of the cake was judged to be more critical than the mixing of its ingredients.
Army wives also made their own soap, toothpaste, some medicines and even perfume.
Recipes for such concoctions were included in most cookbooks of the day.
Leisure Activities
Although difficult and dangerous, life for dependents of the frontier army was
sweetened by leisure activities in a new and different land. Army wives worked hard to
provide as many social, recreational and religious opportunities as possible. As they
collaborated to create entertainment, the women relieved their own boredom and
sometimes brought a greater sense of cohesiveness to the post. Some of the leisure
activities they coordinated crossed class barriers between officers and enlisted men,
ladies and laundresses. When the river froze at Fort Laramie, for example, army wives
helped to organize a skating party that was attended by the entire garrison. That many
army wives preferred winter to summer, even severe winters on the Northern Plains, may
be surprising at first. The explanation is simple: wives appreciated the winter because it
kept the soldiers at the post and gave them abundant free time for family and social life.
The opposite was true of the summer, as the army dependents anxiously awaited the
return of their men.
Army women sewed as a way to overcome the clothing shortage on the frontier,
complete group projects such as a wedding gown and trousseau, and for enjoyment. The
women ordered Butterick patterns in an attempt to keep up with Eastern fashions. In
sewing circles, as well as other ways, army wives trained brides much as a recruit or new
officer had to be trained. In addition to exchanging patterns, the women shared recipes,
books and letters from their husbands out on campaign or expedition.
Daytime leisure activities included riding horses or driving in buggies, day-long
picnics, and enjoying lemonade on the veranda. Seasonal sports such as tennis, croquet,
ice skating and sleigh riding provided entertainment as well. During any season,
photograph albums were very popular. Neighbors and guests would pore over these
while listening to countless stories about the people in the photographs; it mattered not
that the photos’ subjects were strangers. At one post an officer’s wife and her sister paid
a French soldier in the frontier army to instruct them in his native language during the
long winter. Leisure activities scheduled for the evenings and nights included musical
and theatrical performances, dinners, charades, card parties, dances and occasionally a
masquerade ball. One army wife commented that military wives were able to keep their
youthful figures because of regular exercise provided by the weekly dances, or hops, that
women organized at each post. It is no exaggeration to say that the frontier army and its
dependents loved to dance.
Horseback riding was the most popular form of recreation available on the frontier.
One of the first questions officers’ wives were asked when they arrived in the West was,
“Do you ride?” This question was often followed by “Do you shoot?” If the answers
were no, army wives learned these skills as soon as possible. While horseback riding,
some women displayed their loyalty by wearing riding habits fashioned after the uniform
of their husbands’ arm, and many wore forage caps.
Godey’s Ladies’ Book and Harper’s Bazaar magazines weren’t the only pretty,
feminine imports from the East. Especially in the larger posts, the social circle was
enlarged and enlivened by young ladies spending a season with relatives or friends. The
visitors usually had a common agenda: they were husband-hunting. The soldiers on post
eagerly participated in this “frontier marriage mart.” They swarmed around the
unmarried ladies like bees to a flower, keeping them busy literally from morning till late
at night.
Both women visiting from the East and those residing at the posts were very
concerned about the strong Western sun. During the late nineteenth century, fashion, as
it had for centuries, dictated that a fine, white porcelain-like skin was highly desirable by
ladies of all walks of life. A wife’s complexion was a status symbol for her husband; her
fair skin meant that she didn’t have to work outside. To have a heavy, sun reddened skin
was the mark of a low-class immigrant farm woman. Therefore, direct sunlight on the
skin was shunned by most women. Bonnets of immense size and parasols were
indispensable fashion accessories and weapons against the sun. Libbie Custer lamented,
“[For] Eastern-bred ladies...trouble with complexion was truly a source of worry.” Hair
was also susceptible to damage. Custer wrote that “the sun fades and streaks the glossiest
locks...and the wind breaks and dries the silkiest mane.”
Dangers Real and Imagined
Dependents of the frontier army faced many of the same trials and dangers as did the
soldiers. But the wives, children and servants experienced none of the “excitement” or
relief from routine boredom provided by the campaigns against the Indians and mapping
expeditions.
Varieties of insect, arachnid and reptile life alien to the East infested the West and
endangered the health and well-being of the dependents. Rattlesnakes were especially
feared. The climate, marked by extremes proved to be dangerous as well. Of her journey
between army posts in Nebraska and Wyoming, Margaret Irvin Carrington wrote, “We
had known some such hot days as are never found in the Eastern or Middle States; had
drank water that had small virtue beyond its name and moisture; had used sage brush and
buffalo chips for variety of fuel...” At the other extreme, during the winter of 1866-67 at
Ft. Bridger, one army wife recorded that “at times the mercury froze, and the
thermometer stood below zero for weeks.”
By far the greatest danger for army women at frontier posts was that of pregnancy and
childbirth. These were the leading causes of premature deaths among those women
during the Indian Wars. Quite often, because of the conditions under which babies were
born and the medical practices of the day, women developed “childbed fever” as a
complication of childbirth. Most army women were frightened of motherhood because
they understood that the post surgeons were more accustomed to treating bullet wounds,
snake bites, and hangovers than performing obstetrics services. In fact, one wife stated
that the post’s young surgeon appeared “much better versed in the sawing off of soldiers’
legs than in the treatment of young mothers and babies.” Although the army’s caste
system socially stratified the women, pregnancy and childbirth was the common ground
on which the officers’ wives, enlisted men’s wives and laundresses met. The latter two
groups often provided invaluable services to the first group. Laundresses also assisted as
nurses, particularly to young, inexperienced mothers.
One danger that was more imagined than real was capture by Indians. Although the
chances were slim, dependents at frontier army posts worried a great deal about this
possibility. Captivity narratives were a popular genre during the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, and these stories, largely fictitious, increased the women’s fears. If
capture by Indians was imminent, women were instructed to kill their children and
themselves rather than endure torture, captivity or death at the hands of their captors.
Before husbands left they sometimes placed in their wives’ possession a loaded pistol,
usually a Derringer, and warned them not to let the Indians take them alive. During the
intense Red Cloud’s War of 1866, troops at Fort Phil Kearny had orders that if the
Indians overran the post, the women and children were to be put in the powder magazine
and destroyed “all together, rather than have any captured alive.” Libbie Custer informed
an aunt that women captives suffered unspeakable degradation, and she assured her
relative that “death would be merciful in comparison.” Army dependents’ dread of
captivity, of course, far exceeded its likelihood.
A more likely danger than being captured by the Indians was being widowed by the
Indians, that is, that one’s soldier husband would die in battle. When their husbands went
out on campaigns, army wives had to endure the ordeal of parting. As they listened to
“The Girl I Left Behind Me,” the tune traditionally played as companies marched out of
the post, the wives, sweethearts and children of the soldiers attempted to repress fears that
their men would not return alive. Libbie Custer wrote, “It is infinitely worse to be left
behind, a prey to all the horrors of imagining what may happen to one you love. You eat
your heart slowly out with anxiety, and to endure such suspense is simply the hardest of
all trials that come to the soldier’s wife.” Not only did the husband’s death mean the loss
of a spouse and father, it also meant eviction. A widow, regardless of the circumstances
of her husband’s death, lost all claim to government housing and had to vacate the
quarters as soon as possible. Exceptions occurred, however, on the Northern Plains
where the harsh winters made travel impossible. When a widow was forced out of the
garrison, compassionate residents would buy her personal possessions for more than they
were worth. Survivors of soldiers killed during the Indian Wars faced numerous financial
difficulties because the government provided only a meager pension to the widows and
their children. Before 1908, the monthly sum paid a widow was less than twelve dollars.
“I Could, I Can, And I Do !”
The dependents of the frontier army, along with their husbands, fathers, and
employers, shared life on an alien and often hostile frontier, far removed from the
comfort of friends and relatives in the East. In spite of those soldiers who complained
that wives and whiskey were the two greatest evils to ever befall a military post, wives
unquestionably improved the lives of the frontier army soldiers. Wives, especially those
of the officers, introduced social refinement, family life and gracious hospitality to a
frontier world that often lacked all three. Laundresses and servants also brought Eastern
civilization to the frontier and made possible the lives of relative leisure enjoyed by the
officers’ wives. In addition, these hardworking women provided female companionship
for the enlisted men and offered compassion and vital skills such as midwifery to the
post residents. Children, generally exhilarated by life on the frontier posts, enlivened
them and were cherished by parents, servants and enlisted men alike. The sons and
daughters of the frontier army also contributed to the formation of a home atmosphere.
Those wives who could not endure the bleakness of the frontier and the stresses of life
under uncertain and dangerous conditions quickly became disillusioned with army life
and returned to the East. These were the exception. The majority persevered. The
Victorian saying of “I never could, I never would, and I never will” became almost
obsolete, replaced by “I wouldn’t, but I must and I will” or “I could, I can, and I do!”
Observers admired the strength of the women accompanying the frontier army. Mr.
Simonin, a French gentleman accompanying the Indian Peace Commission which arrived
in Cheyenne in November 1867, remarked, “These courageous women have said farewell
to New York or Boston, and have come without a word of complaint to settle at the end
of the desert with their husbands and children. After all, they are only a thousand leagues
from their native land.”
Frontier army wives quickly shed many conventions of Victorian society and became
productive members of the frontier community. While husbands were out on campaign,
wives increasingly filled the role of head of the household, managing finances, making
important decisions and carrying out certain quasi-military functions in their husbands’
absences. The title of the song played when troops marched out of the post on campaign,
“The Girl I Left Behind Me,” could be borrowed to describe how the Victorian ladies
from the East transformed themselves into Western women.
The Girl I Left Behind Me
The hour was sad I left the maid,
A lingering farewell taking;
Her sighs and tears, my steps delayed,
I thought her heart was breaking.
In hurried words her name I blessed,
I breathed the vows that bind me,
And to my heart in anguished pressed
The girl I left behind me.
Then to the East we bore away,
To win a name in story,
And there, where dawns the sun of day,
There dawned our sun of glory;
Both blazed in noon on Alma’s height,
When in my post assigned me
I shared the glory of that fight,
Sweet girl I left behind me.
Full many a name our banners bore
Of former deeds of daring,
But they were of the days of yore,
In which we had no sharing;
But now our laurels freshly won
With the old ones shall entwined be,
Still worthy of our sires each son,
Sweet girl I left behind me.
The hope of final victory
Within my bosom burning,
Is mingling with sweet thoughts of thee
And of my fond returning.
But should I never return again,
Still worth thy love thou’lt find me;
Dishonor’s breath shall never stain
The name I’ll leave behind me.
ACTIVITIES
1) THINGS TO DISCUSS:
• Why did army wives follow their soldier husbands to the frontier posts?
• What were some of the dangers faced by the women, children, and servants of
the frontier army?
• Explain the army tradition of “ranking out.”
• What happened to a woman whose soldier or officer husband died and left her a
widow?
• Life on a frontier army post was considered “paradise” for whom? Why?
• What was the official role of the company laundresses? Did they perform any
other roles at the frontier army post?
2) FRONTIER ARMY DEPENDENTS WORD SEARCH:
• Materials needed:
Word Search Worksheet
(provided)
• Find these words backward and forward, up and down and diagonally:
SERVANT
SUDS ROW
STRIKER
WIDOW
CHILDREN
PARASOL
LYE SOAP
WIFE
HOSTESS
SWEEPER
RECIPE
DUTY
SCHOOL
RANK
LAUNDRESS
CAKE
3) FOOD FOR THOUGHT:
• Virtually all of the frontier army dependents complained in their diaries and
letters about the lack of fresh vegetables, fruit, and dairy products. Examine the frontier
army dependent’s typical diet. Discuss scurvy and its cause and prevention.
4) A CHILD’S EXPERIENCE:
• Have students pretend that they are children living at a frontier post.
They could write “diary entries” about playing “Soldiers and Indians,” learning to ride
horses, or describe how they felt when their fathers went off on a campaign. Other topics
to write about from a child’s point of view are being sent to the East to live with
grandparents in order to attend school, or celebrating Christmas with a Christmas tree
made of elk horns.
• Assign an essay that outlines, from a child’s perspective, the pros and
cons of living at a frontier army post during the Indian Wars. Ask students if they would
want to trade places with the children on the post. Why or why not?
5) VICTORIANISM:
• This unit refers to Victorian values and fashions, but what exactly does the term
“Victorian” mean, anyway? Have students research this question and find out. They
could write about a Victorian game, fashion or social custom. Perhaps students could
interview a grandparent or an elderly neighbor to learn if that particular piece of
Victorianism was still popular when he or she was a child.
6) COLOR THE LAUNDRESSES:
• Materials needed:
Laundresses Worksheet
(provided)
• Color these hardworking laundresses. They are scrubbing the soldiers’ dirty
clothes with lye soap against a washboard and hauling baskets of laundry. The typical
laundress also had a husband and several children to care for.
Unit 5
Legacy of the Frontier Army
TOPICS COVERED:
• Influence of the U.S. Army on the development of the West.
• Army contributions that endure today in Wyoming.
STUDENT GOAL:
• To understand the significance of the army’s role in the history
of the American West.
SUGGESTED OBJECTS:
• Teachers may wish to use the enclosed books and examine the
bibliography for additional information.
• Buffalo Soldiers
• A Frontier Fort on the Oregon Trail
The Frontier and the U.S. Army Tradition
America's military tradition is largely indebted to its frontier experience. From the
earliest colonial times until the end of the nineteenth century, the frontier was the home
of the army. In the decades between the Revolutionary War and the close of the frontier,
the army marched west with the expanding nation. A child of the frontier, whose needs
called it into being, the army grew (although never quite enough) as the nation grew, and
it devoted its energies to national development. As the agent of a government that sought
to exert its authority in the western lands over which it claimed jurisdiction, the army
upheld American sovereignty. For a nation whose leaders struggled to find a humane
solution to the difficult problem of providing for the orderly advance of a rapidly growing
population over lands tenaciously held by thinly spread tribes, the army served as the tool
to hold back lawless frontiersman as well as to chastise Indians for hostile actions.
Impact On The West
Officers and men of the frontier army made major contributions to national expansion
that went far beyond the romantic image of snapping guidons, thundering charges and
bugles in the afternoon. These frontiersmen in blue were explorers, topographers,
engineers, administrators, writers, scientists, and policy makers. They left more than a
combat record for history.
As explorers searching out secrets of unknown areas within the vast domain of the
young nation, army officers and their detachments skillfully explored the land, which
informed the public of the potential of agricultural difficulties on the Plains. Information
from army reports on weather, indigenous plants and animals, and geology assisted in
exploiting the natural resources. Army topographical maps facilitated migration and
settlement to all parts of the West. Today the Army Corps of Engineers controls
irrigation and water use throughout the West.
The frontier soldiers were agents of a new social life on the frontier. They introduced
some of the amenities and cultural aspects of the more civilized east to which most of the
officers, their wives, and enlisted men had been accustomed. At all the western posts
dinner parties and balls were given, theaters and libraries started, and churches and
schools organized, tempering with a measure of levity and cultural activity the otherwise
drab and monotonous military routine. In 1868 the Cheyenne Daily Leader reported on a
party hosted by the post commander at Fort Russell for the residents of Cheyenne, "Long
will the occasion be remembered by many who had the good fortune to be present at Fort
Russell last evening."
Frontier army posts represented not only the authority and enforcement of laws of the
federal government, but a support force for local economies. Fort Russell (present day
F.E. Warren Air Force Base) has had a continuing stabilizing force on the Cheyenne
economy. In an early attempt to make the civilian community more aware of the
economic impact of Fort Russell, the army in 1871 released the amount of the payroll,
$52,000, soon to be paid the garrison by the visiting paymaster. By January 23, 1950,
local newspaper headlines announced that "Francis E. Warren Air Force Base is Now
Cheyenne's Leading Industry." The air force released information that more than 8,000
airmen plus their families were living on base and in Cheyenne. The monthly military
payroll exceeded $1,130,000 and an additional 900 civilian employees received a
monthly payroll of $237,000. Combined, these two payrolls totaled over $16 million
annually, much of it spent locally. By 1987 the annual economic impact amounted to
$184,526,324, not including the growing retired military members in the area, whose
annual retirement payment exceeded $17 million. For 131 years the military and
Cheyenne have enjoyed a close economic relationship that has been tremendous for the
city and continues today.
Imperial Agents
Few topics in frontier history have generated as much popular and scholarly interest as
the military conquest of the West. It is an important story, filled with heroes and villains,
glory and infamy, triumph and tragedy. Elements of American popular culture--novels,
paintings, motion pictures--have imprinted an enduring image of rugged men in dusty
blue uniforms manning far-flung outposts that formed a picket line of civilization. In
recent times the heroic image has been tarnished by charges of genocide and military
brutality. Both images have elements of truth, but neither is entirely correct. The story
of the military frontier of the American West is far more complex.
Hero and villain are both stereotypes of the frontier army that contain some small
truths and some large falsehoods. Just as campaigning soldiers wore both black and
white hats--and any other color that suited their fancy--so a fair appraisal of the frontier
Indian-fighting army must acknowledge a mix of wisdom and stupidity, humanity and
barbarism, selfless dedication and mindless indifference, achievement and failure, victory
and disaster.
From 1846 to 1890 the frontier army figured prominently in the conquest of the
American West. Their part is recorded in more than 1,000 combat actions, involving
2,000 military casualties and almost 6,000 Indian casualties. But other statistics are
revealing too. In 1890, four transcontinental railroads spanned the West, where in 1846
there had been none. In 1890, 8.5 million settlers occupied the Indian's former hunting
grounds, where in 1846 there had been less than 500,000. The buffalo herds that
blackened the Great Plains with perhaps 13 million animals in 1846 had vanished to just
a few by 1890. These figures tell more about the way by which the Indian was
subjugated than do battle statistics.
The frontier army deserves mention in the conquest of the West, but only as one of
many groups that pushed the frontier westward and doomed the Indian. Other
frontiersmen--trappers, traders, miners, stockman, farmers, railroad builders, merchants-all share largely in the process. They, rather than the soldiers, deprived the Indian of the
land and the sustenance that left them no alternative but to submit. The army's particular
contribution was to precipitate a final collapse that had been ordained by other forces. In
this perspective the frontier army finds its true significance.
Thus the frontier army was not, as many people view it, the heroic vanguard of
civilization, crushing Indians and opening the West to settlers. Still less accurate is the
idea that soldiers were a barbaric band of butchers, eternally waging unjust war against
unoffending Indians. Rather the army was delegated a job by the President, Congress,
and the American people to subjugate the Native American, who quite often was not even
an enemy to the army. That was the most difficult of all military assignments given to
the U.S. Army. The bluecoated soldiers carried it out as well as could be expected in the
absence of a later generation's perspective and hindsight. In the process the frontier army
wrote a dramatic and stirring chapter of American history, one that need not be
diminished by today's recognition of the monstrous wrong it inflicted on the American
Indian.
ACTIVITIES
1) THINGS TO DISCUSS:
• How was the frontier army important to the history of the West?
• Besides the role of combat troops, what else did the frontier army do?
• Does the military impact Wyoming today? If yes, how so?
2) RESEARCH PAPERS:
• Have the students write a brief paper on the contributions of the army to the
frontier of yesterday and Wyoming today.
• Have the students write a brief paper on the misconceptions that
American popular culture - - novels, paintings, and motion pictures- - have presented of
the frontier soldiers.
Please contact the Wyoming State Museum for a complete bibliography.