PBA Galleries

Includes:

• Two monthly statements of Quartermaster's stores on hand, including paper, boxes, saddles, wagons, tools of all sorts, clothing, camp equipment, etc.
• Two statements of subsistence stores including bacon, ham, beef, beans, coffee, tea, onions, pepper, etc.
• Two statements of ordnance, listing guns present, their classes, shot and ammunition, etc.
• Two rosters of commissioned officers, including the commander, Captain H.C. KInney, J.B. Barrows, M.A. Sterns and others. Includes the nature of their duty, which in one instance is "Not known."
• Two Post Returns, naming the officers, giving the number of enlisted men, and giving a record of events.
• Eight Tri-Monthly Reports, listing the number of men, their ailments and infirmities, availability for duty, etc.

Together, 18 reports, some on printed forms filled out in ink, others wholly manuscript. Most signed by N.C. Kinney, commanding officer. Approx. 43x69 cm (17x27") or smaller, folding.

Fascinating and informative records from the formative months of Fort C.F. Smith in Montana Territory, a military post established in the Powder River country by the United States Army on August 12, 1866, during Red Cloud's War. Established by order of Col. Henry B. Carrington, it was one of five forts proposed to protect the Bozeman Trail against the Oglala Lakota (Sioux), who saw the trail as a violation of the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie. The fort was abandoned in 1868 and burned by the Sioux under Red Cloud.

The founding of the fort is related in the Post Return for August, 1866, "Left Ft. Philip Kearny D.T. to garrison Ft. C.F. Smith M.T. on the 4th Aug. 1866..." The route to the Big Horn River over the next seven days is traced, and the narrative continues, "The site selected for the Fort is on an elevated plateau 300 yds from the river bank and 8 miles above the mouth of Rotten Grass Creek and 200 miles below the debouchmet of the River from the mountains. The  Ferry, by which all trains cross the fiver is within 800 yds of the Fort."