Part 18

Fort Laramie is one of the posts established by the “American Fur Company” which well nigh monopolizes the Indian trade of this region. Here its officials rule with an absolute sway; the arm of the United States has little force; for when we were there the extreme outposts of her troops were about seven hundred miles to the eastward. The little fort is built of bricks dried in the sun, and externally is of an oblong form, with bastions of clay, in the form of ordinary blockhouses, at two of the corners. The walls are about fifteen feet high, and surmounted by a slender palisade. The roofs of the apartments within, which are built close against the walls, serve the purpose of a banquette. Within, the fort is divided by a partition: on one side is the square area, surrounded by the offices, store-rooms and apartments of the inmates; on the other is the corral, a narrow place, encompassed by high clay walls, where at night, or in presence of dangerous Indians, the horses and mules of the fort are crowded for safe keeping. The main entrance has two gates, with an arched passage intervening. A little square window, high above the ground, opens laterally from an adjoining chamber into this passage; so that when the inner gate is closed end barred, a person without may still hold communication with those within, through this narrow aperture. This obviates the necessity of admitting suspicious Indians, for the purposes of trading, into the body of the fort; for when danger is apprehended, the inner gate is shut fast and all traffic is carried on by means of the window. This precaution, though necessary at some of the Company’s posts, is seldom resorted to at Fort Laramie; where though men are frequently killed in the neighborhood no apprehensions are felt of any general design of hostility from the Indians.

A train of emigrants encamped outside the fort for the night on their long journey across the plains.

A crowd of broad-rimmed hats, thin visages, and staring eyes appeared suddenly at the gate. Tall, awkward men in brown homespun; women, with cadaverous faces and long lank figures, came thronging in together, and as if inspired by the very demon of curiosity ransacked every nook and corner of the fort. The emigrants prosecuted their investigations with untiring vigor. They penetrated the rooms, or, rather, dens, inhabited by the astonished squaws. Resolved to search every mystery to the bottom, they explored the apartments of the men, and even that of Marie and the bourgeois (the commandant of the fort). At last a numerous deputation appeared at our door but found no encouragement to remain.... Having at length satisfied their curiosity, they next proceeded to business.

On the 19th of August, 1854, a Mormon train was encamped about ten miles below the fort on the Platte River. The Indians having killed a cow or ox belonging to the train had been complained of by the Mormons to the commanding officer, who sent Lieutenant Grattan, of the Sixth United States Infantry, with thirty men of Company G and two howitzers, to recover the cow and bring the thieves to the garrison. They met a large number of Indians (Sioux) under the leadership of a chief named Mattoioway about eight miles from the fort and a conflict ensued in which Lieutenant Grattan’s command, with the exception of one man, was annihilated. The survivor was hidden in some bushes by a friendly Indian and brought to the fort that night where he died two days afterward. The bodies of the slain were buried in one grave where they fell and a pile of stones marks their resting place.

THE ALAMO AND FORT SAM HOUSTON

SAN ANTONIO--TEXAS

The Alamo, which is famous for its heroic defence against the Mexicans by Travis and his men, is situated in San Antonio, Texas, and is the point of pilgrimage annually for many hundreds of the visitors to the southwestern United States. On the outskirts of San Antonio is the modern great military plant, Fort Sam Houston, the Alamo’s lusty successor.

The Alamo, as late as 1870, was used for military purposes by the United States government, but of recent years it has been preserved purely as a monument to those brave men who lost their lives in it fighting bravely to the last a battle which they knew to be hopeless from the first. Upon the front of the building has been placed an inscription which reads, “Thermopylæ had its messenger of defeat. The Alamo had none.” The building, itself, is a low structure of the familiar Spanish mission type, and its main walls, though constructed in 1744, are almost as solid to-day as when new. The chapel of the Alamo bears the date 1757, but this was of later building than the rest of the place.

The city of San Antonio owes its foundation to the establishment in 1715 by Spain of the mission of San Antonio de Valero, which in accordance with the custom of that country combined priestly enterprise with military prerogative. The Alamo was a quadrangular, central court structure built to house the troops of Spain and to sound the call to worship. It was acquired by Mexico with the rest of the Spanish possessions when this southern neighbor of the United States, in 1824, finally secured its independence from the parent country.

At the time of the siege, San Antonio was a town of about 7,000 inhabitants, the vast majority Mexican. The San Antonio river which, properly speaking, is a large rivulet, divided the town from the Alamo, the former on the west side and the latter on the east. South of the fort was the Alamo village, a small suburb of San Antonio.

The fort itself was in the condition in which it had been left by Cos, the Mexican general, when it had been surrendered in the fall of 1835. It contained twelve guns which were of little use in the hands of men unskilled in their use, and owing to the construction of the works most of the guns had little width of range.

In command of the place at the beginning of the winter of 1835 was Colonel Neill, of Texas, with two companies of volunteers, among whom was a remnant of the New Orleans Greys. Early in 1836 Lieutenant Colonel William B. Travis, a brave and careful officer, was appointed by the Governor of Texas, which had as yet only a provisional government, to relieve Colonel Neill of his command.

The volunteers, a hard-headed and independent lot, wished to choose their own leader though they were willing to have Travis second in command, and called a meeting, where they elected as full colonel one of their number, James Bowie, a forceful figure of early Texan history. Bowie’s name to-day unfortunately is chiefly remembered by virtue of the “Bowie” knife. Travis arrived at the fort early in February, just two weeks before the Mexicans under the detested Santa Ana came in view, and naturally enough refused to recognize the superior authority of the officer so informally placed in power, as did the men whom he had brought with him. There was thus divided authority in the Alamo at the time of the siege.

All disputes were dropped, however, upon the approach of the enemy. The advance detachment of the Mexican force which came in four divisions arrived in San Antonio on February 22, and was welcomed by an eighteen-pound shot from the little American garrison. Santa Ana procured a parley and demanded the surrender of the entire garrison, the terms to be left to his discretion.

A dramatic scene took place in the Alamo, tradition tells us, when news of this proposal came to the ill-starred place. Colonel Travis drew a line upon the ground. “All those who prefer to fight will cross this line,” he is reported to have said. Every man crossed the line and Bowie, who had been stricken to his bed with pneumonia, roused enough to ask that his cot be carried with his men. It was well understood that the issue of the fray, if once Santa Ana succeeded in taking the post, would be the death of every man without mercy; and the chances of withstanding an attack were known to be weak.

When finally the Mexican host was assembled it numbered about twenty-five hundred men. The American garrison, which was swelled by a reinforcement of 32 men from Gonzales who managed to get through the lines of the besiegers into the fort, numbered altogether 188 men. The siege commenced on the 24th of February and continued without cessation until the morning of the 6th of March, when there was a grand assault.

The final assault occupied not more than half an hour. The blast of a bugle was followed by the shuffle of a rushing mass of men. The guns of the fort opened upon the charging columns which came from all directions. The outer walls were taken despite the efforts of the pitiful handful of their defenders, and the battle then became a series of desperate fights from room to room of the old structure. Travis fell with a single shot through his forehead and his gun was turned on the building. Bowie was found on his cot in his room at the point of death from the malady which had stricken him; with his last flicker of strength he shot down with his pistols more than one of his assailants before he was butchered where he lay, too weak to move his body.

The chapel was the last point taken and the inmates of this stronghold fought with unremitting fury, firing down from the upper part of the structure after the enemy had taken the floor. Toward the close of this episode Lieutenant Dickenson, with his child strapped to his back, leaped from the east embrasure. Both were shot in the act.

One of the garrison was Davy Crockett, a well-known and beloved backwoodsman, known for his quaint sayings and homely wisdom. Crockett was found beside a gun in the west battery with a pile of slain around him.

The number of Mexicans killed has never been correctly estimated though it has been placed as high as a thousand. The most accurate estimate lies probably between 500 and 600.

A few hours after the engagement the bodies of the slaughtered garrison were gathered by the victors, laid in three heaps and burned. On February 25, 1837, the bones and ashes were collected by order of General Sam Houston, as well as could be done, and buried with military honors in a peach orchard then outside Alamo village and a few hundred yards from the fort. The place of burial was not preserved and the ground which contains the remains of these heroic men has long since been built over.

During the Mexican War the walls of the Alamo buildings were repaired and the buildings newly roofed for the use of the quartermaster’s department.

Fort Sam Houston, the modern successor of the ancient Alamo, was first located on Houston Street where one of San Antonio’s great new hotels now stands. Its present ideal situation on a high plateau 762 feet above the level of the Gulf of Mexico was chosen in 1872 and the grounds first comprised 162 acres of land. The fort was built around a quadrangle 624 feet square, in the centre of which was erected a gray stone tower 88 feet in height. Of recent years large accessions of land have made the post over one thousand acres in extent and the buildings have been largely added to, over two and a half millions of dollars being expended upon the fort by the national government. It is now one of the most important of the United States’ military possessions. During the Spanish-American war the place acquired celebrity as being the scene of organization and training of the Rough Riders.

Immediately before the outbreak of the Civil War the Alamo was commanded by that soldier who was to lead the armies of the Lost Cause and whose name is a household heritage in the south to-day, Robert E. Lee. Associated with him here was Albert Sydney Johnston. The house occupied by General Lee was situated on South Alamo street and here he wrote his resignation to the United States authorities before assuming command of the enthusiastic and untrained masses of Southerners.

During the Civil War San Antonio was the headquarters of the Confederacy in the southwest and the Alamo was used for storage.

OTHER WESTERN FORTS

FORT PHIL KEARNEY, NEBRASKA; FORT LEAVENWORTH, KANSAS; FORT FETTERMAN, WYOMING; FORT BRIDGER, WYOMING; FORT KEOGH, MONTANA; FORT DOUGLAS, UTAH

One of the most dreadful Indian fights in the history of the Middle West is associated with Fort Phil Kearney, on the Platte River, Nebraska, which was in 1848, at the time of its establishment, the only United States post between Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 350 miles distant, and Fort Laramie, 420 miles to the west. It stood midway between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains on the California Overland route and was established for the protection of west-bound emigrant trains from hostile Indians.

Fort Phil Kearney was a storm centre during the Sioux War, which began in 1863 and continued intermittently for nearly ten years, and the “Kearney Massacre” occurred during this time. On the morning of December 21, 1866, the fort received word that the wood train was being attacked by Indians and was in need of assistance. Immediately Brevet Lieutenant Colonel W. I. Fetterman with seventy-six men was ordered to protect the train.

Colonel Fetterman moved rapidly upon his errand, and the sound of heavy firing soon showed that he was in contact with the enemy. The firing continued so long that the commandant, Colonel Carrington, became alarmed for the safety of the detachment and sent out as many men as he could spare for reinforcement. These men were under Captain Ten Eyck. The rest of the story may be taken up in the words of Senate Document 13, 1867:

Colonel Ten Eyck reported as soon as he reached the summit commanding a view of the battle-field that the valley was full of Indians; that he could see nothing of Colonel Fetterman’s party, and requested that a howitzer should be sent him. The howitzer was not sent.

The Indians who at first beckoned him to come down now commenced retreating and Captain Ten Eyck, advancing to a point where the Indians had been standing in a circle, found the dead, naked bodies of Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Fetterman, Captain Brown and about sixty-five of the soldiers of their command.... At about half the distance from where these bodies lay to the point where the road commences to descend to Peno Creek was the dead body of Lieutenant Grummond, and still farther on, at the point where the road commences to descend to Peno Creek, were the dead bodies of three citizens and four or five of the old, long-tried and experienced soldiers.

Our conclusion, therefore, is that the Indians were massed on both sides of the road; that the Indians attacked vigorously in force from fifteen hundred to eighteen hundred warriors and were successfully resisted for half an hour or more; that the command then being short of ammunition and seized with panic at this event, and the great numerical superiority of the Indians, attempted to retreat toward the fort; that the mountaineers and old soldiers who had learned that movement from the Indians in an engagement was equivalent to death remained in their first position and were killed there; that, immediately upon the commencement of the retreat, the Indians charged upon and surrounded the party who could not now be formed by their officers and the party was immediately killed.

Only six of the whole command were killed by balls and two of these, Lieutenant Colonel Fetterman and Captain Brown, no doubt inflicted this death upon themselves, or each other, by their own hands for both were shot through the left temple and powder was burnt into the skin and flesh about the wound. These officers had also oftentimes asserted that they would not be taken alive by the Indians.

In its appearance Fort Kearney was typical of the Indian forts of the period, being little more than a stockade on the level prairie with the necessary houses inside. The parade ground occupied four acres and was flanked by a few straggly cottonwood trees. The post was deserted not long after the building of the Union Pacific railroad six miles away, which destroyed the reason of its being; after its desertion fell victim to its ancient enemy, for it was burned by the Indians.

Fort Leavenworth, Leavenworth, near Kansas City, Kansas, whose name occurs so often in the records of Indian warfare of the West, was established May, 1827, by Colonel Henry Leavenworth, commanding a detachment of the Third United States Infantry. At first the post was extremely unhealthy, a large part of the command being prostrated by malarial fever. It was evacuated in 1820 and reoccupied in 1830, then, and for several years, being known as Cantonment Leavenworth. Since the latter date the place has never been without United States troops and it is to-day the largest fixed post in the United States military service.

The first mission of Fort Leavenworth was to protect the emigrant trains which set out from St. Louis, several hundred miles to the east, and passed this point on the way to California, or Oregon, by the famous old Santa Fé Trail, the California Overland Trail or the Oregon Trail, each of which went by this place. As the years went on the fort became more and more a base of supply for the army posts established further west. Its central location, which made it ideal as a distributing point to any part of the West, is the factor which is at the base of its importance in the present day.

Fort Fetterman, Wyoming, was established in July, 1867, and named in honor of the officer who lost his life commanding the detachment destroyed by the Indians at Fort Kearney. In the following month the Indians of the vicinity were actively hostile. The old post was a most picturesque point in its day, being situated on a high bluff which shows its pointed palisade in fine relief against the sky. It is now deserted.

Fort Bridger, Wyoming, another of the Indian posts of the past, was one of the most important points on the Great Salt Lake Trail. It was located on the Black Fork of the Green River and was established in June, 1858. The immediate locality had long been known as Bridger’s Fort because of the situation here of a trading post of James Bridger, one of the most noted trappers and guides of this section. In its establishment it was intended to be a base of supplies for the army of General Albert Sydney Johnston moving against the Mormons in Salt Lake Valley in 1857 to 1858. That winter the entire command encamped in the valley just above the site of Fort Bridger and upon its removal the permanent post was located.

Fort Keogh, Montana, one of the still existing Indian posts, was established, in 1876, on the right bank of the Yellowstone River, two miles above the mouth of the Tongue River, Custer County, on a high elevation above the river bottom, by General Terry during a campaign against the Sioux. It was named in honor of Captain Miles Keogh, killed in the battle of the Little Big Horn, popularly known as Custer’s Massacre, June 25, 1876. The area of the post reservation is 90 square miles. In appearance Fort Keogh is typical of the other forts of its class.

Fort Douglas, Utah, is at the base of the plateau of the Wahsatch Mountains and is part of the suburbs of Salt Lake City. The reservation contains two square miles of territory, and the scenery from any part thereof is extremely fine. The post was established October, 1862, by Colonel P. E. Connor, of the Third Regiment of California Infantry.

FORT VANCOUVER

COLUMBIA RIVER--WASHINGTON

To delve into the history of Fort Vancouver, or Vancouver Barracks as it is known to-day, is to recall that time when the far northwest of the United States was in the making, when there was no definite boundary between England, Spain, Russia and the American nation in this part of the American continent and when all of these great nations, with the addition of France and little Portugal, to boot, were claimants to the Columbia River and the wildernesses which it held tributary.

The first white men to descry the mouth of the Columbia from the sea were, no doubt, the Spaniards, for Heceta, in 1775, and Bodega and Arteaga in the same year and, again, in 1779, made brief excursions into the river. In 1792 Captain Robert Gray, of Boston, with the good ship “Columbia,” ascended the stream for twenty-five miles and claimed possession of it for the United States. He named the river for his vessel. Several months after Gray had been on the stream the English nation, as represented by Captain Cook’s lieutenant, ascended the stream for over a hundred miles, making careful record of his trip. The three great nations Spain, England, and the United States had each valid claims. Portugal, Russia and France were early eliminated from the struggle for possession which was thereupon fought determinedly by the first three countries.

In 1819 by the Florida treaty with Spain that country ceded to the United States all of her claims north of the 42nd degree of latitude and so, here, Spain gracefully stepped out of the ring.

The close of the War of 1812 with Great Britain saw that power in possession of the disputed country, but the Treaty of Ghent, 1815, provided that each nation should restore what it had taken from the other by force. Thereupon the United States resumed possession of the fort at the mouth of the Columbia which it had formerly maintained. In 1818 was signed the Joint Occupation Treaty between the two countries, by which it was provided that the northwest coast of America should be open to citizens of both powers for the period of ten years. Finally, in 1846, was signed the agreement between Great Britain and the United States by which the northern boundary of the Northwest was fixed at the line of 49 degrees, where it rests to-day. The United States received about 750 miles of the river and England about 650 miles. While there was much diplomatic jockeying and juggling and while the two nations came perilously close to a resort to arms, the question, on the whole, was settled with great amicableness and the decision once arrived at was accepted with entire good nature by each party to the contract.

Now let us ask why was it that the Northwest of those days was considered so great a prize that six of the World Powers should contend for its possession? The domain, though a princely one, was not a necessity to a young nation--our own--which had illimitable leagues of arable soil still unfilled. It was remote from all of the powers of Europe. The answer to our question is to be found in the one word, furs. The Northwest was a treasure house through virtue of the fur-bearing animals which it contained.

As early as 1806 a trading station was established in the valley of the Columbia River by The Northwest Fur Company, an English corporation. In 1810 the Pacific Fur Company, which was to found the fortunes of John Jacob Astor, was organized by that gentleman in New York and, in 1811, the first of Astor’s ships arrived at the mouth of the Columbia River to erect the trading post of Astoria, whose fortunes have been so entertainingly told by Washington Irving in the book of that name. The Hudson Bay Company had also made entrance to this rich field.