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EDITED BY John C. Parish
Associate Editor of the State Historical Society of Iowa
| Volume II |
November 1921 |
No. 11 |
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Copyright 1921 by the State Historical Society of Iowa
(Transcribed by Gayle Harper)
OLD FORT ATKINSON
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On a high bluff overlooking the
beautiful valley of the Turkey River in northeastern Iowa, the
remains of historic old Fort Atkinson stand as a monument to
the days when the Winnebago Indians lived on the Neutral
Ground. Below, as far as the eye can see, stretch the fields
and meadows of modern farms, near by winds the lazily flowing
water of the Turkey River, while to the south the little town
of Fort Atkinson perpetuates the name of the frontier post.
For almost a
decade, from 1840-1848, Fort Atkinson protected the Winnebago
from the incursions of their hostile neighbors—the Sioux on
the north, the Sac and Fox on the south. At the same time the
soldiers prevented the Winnebago from trespassing and from
wandering beyond the limits of their reservation, while they
also stopped the whites, eager for land, from settling upon
the Indian domain. With the removal of the Winnebago to
Minnesota in 1848, the need of Fort Atkinson as a military
post ceased and, abandoned by the government, it passed into
the limbo of obsolete frontier institutions. Eighty years
after its erection, the friends of the old fort succeeded in
bringing it out of its period of obscurity by purchasing the
site and the dilapidated buildings from private owners and
turning the property over to the State for a park.
Fort
Atkinson was built to meet an emergency. As early as 1832 the
Winnebago Indians had surrendered their rights to their land
south and east of the Wisconsin River and had agreed to take
in exchange certain annuities plus the Neutral Ground in the
Iowa country. However, they showed little inclination to move
west of the Mississippi and with the exception of a few who
had crossed the river, they continued to reside in Wisconsin,
causing the white settlers considerable annoyance and
dissatisfaction. In 1837 a delegation of Winnebago chiefs in a
conference at Washington agreed to remove to a site on Turkey
River within two years, but a combination of causes led them
to neglect their promises. Their love for their home in
Wisconsin, a passionate attraction for the shores of the
Father of Waters, and a reluctance to leave the whiskey
venders of their old haunts retarded their migration.
Moreover, a genuine fear of attacks from the Sac and Fox and
the Sioux held them back. By the autumn of 1839 part of the
Winnebago had crossed to the Iowa side but the majority still
clung to their homes east of the Mississippi.
Finally, in
March, 1840, the Senate of the United States, impatient at the
delay, passed resolutions asking the Secretary of War to
explain why the Winnebago had not been removed to the home in
Iowa Territory. He replied that the delay had been caused in
part by an unsuccessful attempt to induce the Indians to move
to the country southwest of the Missouri River, but added that
Brigadier General Henry Atkinson had already received orders
to remove the Winnebago to the Neutral Ground and was engaged
in that task. General Atkinson, in spite of the opposition of
the Indians, succeeded in accomplishing the removal peaceably
during the spring of the year 1840.
To reassure
the Winnebago who were apprehensive and restless in the new
land between their ancient enemies, and to prevent their
straggling back to their old haunts, Captain Isaac Lynde with
Company F of the Fifth Infantry, a detachment of eighty-two
officers and enlisted men, was sent from Fort Crawford into
the Neutral Ground. They marched to a point on the Turkey
River in what is now Winneshiek County, Iowa, a few miles
north of the site selected for the agency house and mission
school Here they went into camp May 31, 1840, naming the place
"Camp Atkinson" in honor of the department commander.
Two days
later, mechanics about fifty in number, who had come from
Prairie du Chien under the escort of Company F, began the
erection of barracks and quarters under the direction of James
Tapper, foreman. Government teamsters hauled part of the
material used in the construction of the buildings from the
vicinity of Fort Crawford over the route later known as the
old military trail. Throughout the summer and autumn of 1840,
horses, oxen, and mules stamped their way over the fifty miles
of prairie drawing heavy loads of pine lumber, nails and other
supplies. A sawmill near the site selected for the mission
turned out walnut lumber for interior use while blocks of
limestone were quarried in the immediate vicinity of the fort.
Carpenters
and masons completed quarters for the accommodation of Captain
Lynde's company during the summer. At the same time other
workmen erected a storehouse near the landing on the west bank
of the Mississippi opposite Fort Crawford for the storage of
supplies destined for the post on Turkey River.
Autumn
arrived with its wondrous foliage and work on the buildings
continued. Late that season a teamster, Howard by name, set
out with a load of supplies from the Mississippi landing and
stopped for the night at Joel Post's tavern, now the site of
Postville, half-way on his journey. A heavy snowfall the next
day delayed the trip. When Howard departed on the last lap of
the journey on the following morning the temperature had
dropped and the air became bitterly cold. A party, following
the trail a day later, came upon the loaded wagon in the road,
but the team and driver were gone. Following the tracks in the
snow they came upon the body of the unfortunate teamster
frozen stiff.
Month by
month the stone walls took shape, and skilled workmen fitted
joists and rafters and laid the floors. During the next spring
when the buildings began to assume the appearance of a
fortification the post received the more dignified name of
Fort Atkinson.
In the
meantime, rumors of a warlike attitude on the part of the Sac
and Fox Indians led Governor Henry Dodge of Wisconsin
Territory to urge the sending of a mounted force to the
Neutral Ground to protect the Winnebago and to prevent their
return to Wisconsin. To meet the situation General Atkinson
ordered troops to march from Fort Crawford into the region of
the Red Cedar and Turkey rivers until it was expedient to send
mounted troops. He felt that it would be unwise to send the
dragoons before the middle of May as there would be no
barracks nor stables for their accommodation nor forage for
their horses.
At once the
mechanics at Fort Atkinson began to erect additional barracks
and to build stables. On June 24, 1841, Captain Edwin V.
Sumner arrived with Company B of the First United States
Dragoons and joined the garrison, making the force about one
hundred and sixty strong, and for six years Fort Atkinson
continued to be a two company post. In the fall Company K of
the First Infantry with Captain J. J. Abercrombie in command
replaced Captain Lynde's company. When work on the fort was
completed during the next year, 1842, four long rectangular
barracks, two of stone and two of logs hewn flat, enclosed a
square parade and drill ground of more than an acre. These
buildings were two stories high and twenty feet from the
ground to the eaves, each having an upper porch along its
entire length, with the one of the officers' quarters screened
in with movable wooden blinds. Commissioned officers and their
families occupied one of the stone barracks; non-coms and
their families lived in one of hewn logs; while the private
soldiers used the other two. In one of the latter, the stone
building, the lower part was used as a hospital while in the
other, the upstairs section was fitted up with bunks, the
lower portion divided into several living rooms and one large
room which was equipped with benches, a platform, and pulpit
to be used as a chapel and school.
At one end
of the parade ground a tall flag-staff towered above the
works. A gun house with thick stone walls and peaked roof
occupied the southwest corner of the works, which with its
counterpart in the northeast corner guarded the approaches to
the four sides of the stockade. In the southeast corner stood
the stone magazine or powder-house while in the opposite
corner was located the quartermaster's store-house adjoined by
the sutler's store, with the guardhouse nearby. A picket fence
of squared logs twelve feet high with loop holes at intervals
of four feet enclosed the buildings and with the two
blockhouses made a rectangular fort of formidable appearance.
North of the
fort and across a street were located the bakery, the
blacksmith shop, and carpenter shops. The stables were some 40
feet wide and 300 feet long running in a north and south
direction. Beginning near the powder-house and extending
nearly the entire length of one side of the stockade was the
sentinel's beat with its platform about three feet below the
sharpened tips of the logs. At one end of the beat a small
shelter protected the guard during inclement weather.
To complete
the buildings and to build the road from the Mississippi
required a total appropriation of about $90,000, a sum much
greater than the circumstances warranted in the opinion of the
Quarter Master General of the Army who felt that the pressure
of the white population would soon drive the Indians north or
south, thus making the fort useless.
While the
clink of carpenters' hammers rang out and masons plied their
trowels in erecting the buildings, military duty was not
neglected. Regularly in the morning the flag was drawn to the
top of the tall flag-staff there to flutter until sunset when
with solemn ceremony it was lowered and furled for the night.
In the gray light of early dawn the trumpeters took their
stations and the sharp tones of reveille called the sleepy
garrison to the duties of the day. Roll was called in front of
the barracks, quarters were put in order, and the horses fed
and watered. Sick call furnished patients for the hospital and
gave the post surgeon a chance to prove his skill. Breakfasts
of fried salt pork, bread, and hot black coffee being
finished, there followed the tasks of the day. Squads of
dragoons in brilliant uniforms sent out to patrol the
reservation blocked the way of wily Winnebago braves who
stealthily sought to return to the old hunting grounds;
details of infantrymen despatched to the agency cooperated
with the agent sometimes doing the work on the farm which the
Indians neglected at every opportunity. Others assigned to
garrison duty walked their beats as sentinels, cleaned and
polished arms and accouterments or performed the detested
tasks of indoor work. Frequent drills, maneuvers and
inspections at which the young lieutenants fresh from West
Point perfected their commands in marchings, manual of arms,
and target practice, made up a part of the daily program. In
the early evening, arms were stacked in the arm-racks, horses
were fed and bedded for the night, and sentinels posted. Then
the garrisons settled down to rest, to smoke, to play cards,
to sing, to swap yarns or argue till tattoo sounded, when with
the candles' feeble glow snuffed out, the quiet darkness of
the prairie night enveloped the sleeping soldiers and their
families.
Patrol duty
often took the mounted company on long tours. Twice during
1842 requisitions from Governor Chambers of Iowa Territory
caused Captain Sumner and his dragoons to spend several weeks
in the saddle driving out squatters and other intruders from
the lands of the Sac and Fox to the south. Although heavy
rains often pelted the marching column, streams had to be
forded, and sodden blankets and equipment produced many a
cheerless night, nevertheless the troopers welcomed the chance
to get away from garrison life. The luckless adventurer, too,
who had settled unlawfully upon the Indian domain could
testify to the energy of the dragoons as he looked back upon
his blazing cabin, his fences destroyed, and his crops
trampled under hoof.
Their return
to Fort Atkinson after such a trip afforded a chance for them
to enliven the monotony of garrison life by recounting to an
interested circle of infantrymen lurid tales of their trips by
day and their camps at night. Great was the excitement, too,
at the fort when in August, 1842, Captain James Allen with
forty-four dragoons arrived after a long trip overland from
Fort Leavenworth. During their short visit at the post
friendships were formed which lasted for years for the paths
of the two companies later crossed and recrossed. Soon Captain
Allen and his men were on their way to the Sac and Fox Agency
on the Fort Des Moines where they established the temporary
post called Fort Sanford.
Again in the
fall of 1844 considerable interest was aroused at the fort
over the arrival of Reverend J. L. Elliot who came to fill the
double role of chaplain and schoolmaster. In the same room he
exhorted the men on Sundays to resist the temptations of their
isolated position, and during the week instructed the sons and
daughters of officers and men— twenty to twenty-five pupils—in
reading, writing, and arithmetic. Occasionally he exchanged
pulpits with Reverend David Lowry who supervised the Winnebago
mission and school to the south.
Although
Captain Sumner with his dragoons prevented effectually the
smuggling of liquor into the reservation he was unable to stop
the Indians from visiting the whiskey shops set up just
outside the boundary. Two of these known as "Sodom" and
"Gomorrah" did a thriving business. In spite of the fact that
hundreds of Indians joined the subagent's temperance society,
they soon forgot their pledge and were drinking as heavily as
before. After the Indians received their annuities at the
agency, drunken frolics which sometimes resulted in bloodshed
and murders doubled the work of the soldiers until the period
of dissipation ended. Officers, too, found it difficult after
a pay day at the post to prevent the soldiers from yielding to
the allurements of "Whiskey Grove", a popular resort a few
miles away. To the dragoons, perhaps, the summer trip in 1845
to the northern part of the Territory of Iowa into what is now
Minnesota was the outstanding event of their stay at Fort
Atkinson. Filing out from the gate of the fort on June 3, they
headed northwest and ten days later came in contact with
Captain Allen's company which had traveled from Fort Des
Moines to take part in the trip. June rains and Hoods delayed
the march so that the cavalcade did not reach Traverse des
Sioux, the objective of the trip, till June 22. About the
glowing embers of the campfire in the evenings troopers
recounted their adventures and exchanged experiences of the
three years that had elapsed since the companies had met at
Fort Atkinson.
At the
camp—a double row of tents for the men with the horses
picketed in the space between, the tents of the officers
forming a cross street at one end —Sumner and Allen held
conferences with the Indians. They arrested certain offenders
and warned a band of half-breeds from Canada that they were
trespassing on the territory of the United States. Separating
at Traverse des Sioux, on August 11, the two companies set out
on the return march. By steady riding Captain Sumner's company
accomplished the journey in eight days, but the dragoons rode
back into Fort Atkinson with uniforms badly worn, horses
jaded, and the men weary from the long hard trip.
When war
with Mexico became inevitable, it was apparent to government
authorities that the regiments of the regular army should be
assembled and the posts occupied by their separate companies
should either be abandoned or reoccupied by volunteer
organizations. Accordingly the regulars were retained at Fort
Snelling and at Fort Leavenworth, Fort Des Moines was promptly
abandoned, and the troops were withdrawn from Fort Crawford
and Fort Atkinson for service in Mexico. Both the governor of
Wisconsin and the governor of Iowa were called upon to raise
volunteers to man these forts.
To James M.
Morgan with a commission as captain, from Governor Clarke,
fell the task of enlisting a company for service at Fort
Atkinson. He had been editor and part owner of the Burlington
Gazette and he experienced little difficulty in securing
recruits. On July 8, 1846, fifty-four men had enrolled at
Burlington, twenty-two of whom had come from down the river
and from the country thereabouts. Six volunteers arrived from
Iowa City on July 9, and two days later eight came from
Dubuque and Galena. Morgan, a man of slight stature, with hair
and beard of so bright an auburn hue that he acquired the
sobriquet "Little Red", soon won the respect and affection of
his men. He and his command left Burlington on the steamboat
"Belmont", which conveyed them to McGregor's Landing, thence
they marched over the military trail to Fort Atkinson. One
unfortunate member of the company, William Topp, had fallen
overboard on the up-trip and was drowned. At the fort three
more men enrolled and on July 15,1846, the entire company was
mustered into the service of the United States for twelve
months. In Indian Agent Jonathan R. Fletcher of Muscatine,
Morgan found a former associate of his in the old Territorial
militia.
For the
assistance of Captain Morgan's Independent Company of Iowa
Volunteers it was decided to enlist a mounted company, and to
John Parker of Dubuque who was commissioned captain was
assigned the duty of enrolling the cavalrymen. His task proved
easy in spite of the fact that the members had to furnish
their own horses, saddles, and equipment.
The company
was mustered into service at Fort Atkinson on September 9,
1846, by Brevet Major Alexander S. Hooe to serve for twelve
months unless sooner discharged; At once it became a part of
the garrison, furnishing troops for scouting purposes,
watching the wanderings of the Winnebago, keeping them within
the limits of the reservation, and trying to prevent the
smuggling of liquor. Handicapped by want of arms—a few spare
muskets from Captain Morgan's company being all the guns they
had— they performed their duties with credit. By placing
troops on the trail to Sodom, Morgan and Parker captured many
a barrel of whiskey.
However,
much to the indignation of the officers and men of Parker's
Iowa Dragoon Volunteers and against the vigorous protests of
Governor Clarke and Augustus C. Dodge, the War Department
decided that the service of the troopers could be dispensed
with, and accordingly the company was mustered out by Major
Hooe on November 15, 1846, after only sixty-nine days of
service. Thus the mounted volunteers, their military zeal
dampened by resentment, turned the heads of their war horses
homeward, and guided them sullenly back to log cabins or towns
there to resume the labors of farm and shop.
The
discharge of the company was due, doubtless, largely to the
report to the War Department made by Brigadier General George
M. Brooke, commander of the Western Division who inspected
Fort Atkinson in September, 1846. The nondescript appearance
of the raw troops apparently offended his military taste, and
seeing no necessity for the maintenance of two companies, he
recommended the discharge of the mounted unit since it was the
most expensive to maintain. The story is told, however, that a
squad of Parker's company was stationed on the military road
at a point near the present station of Ridley with orders to
prevent the smuggling of liquor. When General Brooke reached
this point on his way to Fort Atkinson, the sergeant in charge
of the squad insisted on searching his baggage, and
confiscated the brandy which he found therein. This so
incensed the general that he recommended the dismissal of the
company. However, verification of this story is lacking and
therefore it must be taken with a grain of salt.
When
Morgan's company had served twelve months it was mustered out
at Fort Atkinson, and on the same date, July 15, 1847, a new
company formed which came to be known as "Morgan's Company of
Iowa Mounted Volunteers. Of the former company all the
commissioned and non-commissioned officers and twenty- eight-
of the privates re-enlisted. As an inducement to join, each
private was offered twenty dollars per month, forty-two
dollars in advance for clothing, and the promise of 160 acres
of land at the end of the year. It was felt that the
difficulty of keeping order among the Indians was too great a
task for infantry alone, hence the new company was mounted.
Furthermore, the plan to remove the Winnebago to a new home in
Minnesota was already under way and a cavalry force to act as
escort was needed.
When the
time came for the removal of the Winnebago, adjustments of the
military forces were made to meet the situation. Captain
Morgan's mounted company became the escort while a detachment
of twenty-five men of Captain Wiram Knowlton's Wisconsin
company moved over from Fort Crawford to garrison Fort
Atkinson during Morgan's absence.
In June,
1848, the cavalcade set out headed straight north to reach the
Mississippi River at Wabasha's Prairie. Between two and three
thousand Indians with sixteen hundred ponies, one hundred and
sixty-six army wagons loaded down with supplies and belongings
of the Red Men, squalling papooses hung in sacks over the
backs of ponies, the lumbering cannon and caissons, the Indian
Agent and his helpers, the cavalrymen heavily armed with
carbine, sword, and revolver made up a slow moving and
picturesque caravan. When Wabasha's Prairie was reached a
conspiracy on the part of the Indians to resist further
progress was frustrated by an overwhelming display of force,
for here Morgan who had learned of the plot received
reinforcements by the arrival of Captain Seth Eastman with a
company of regulars from Fort Snelling and of Captain Knowlton
with his company from Fort Crawford.
From this
point the Indians were loaded on barges and towed by steamboat
to the Falls of St. Anthony where the land journey was
resumed. On July 30, 1848, the caravan reached its destination
at the mouth of the Watab River, after a journey of 310 miles.
Morgan's company stayed to maintain order during the erection
of the agency buildings on Long Prairie, then set out on the
return trip to Fort Atkinson in September. They rode back to
Fort Snelling, took steamboat to McGregor's Landing and thence
followed the old trail to Fort Atkinson where they were
mustered out of service September 11, 1848.
From
September 25, 1848, to February 24, 1849, the fort was
garrisoned by Company a, Sixth Infantry, with Captain F. L.
Alexander in command. The need for Fort Atkinson having ended
with the removal of the Winnebago, the War Department ordered
its abandonment on the latter date. The teamsters harnessed
the mules for the last time while privates of Company a loaded
their supplies on the army wagons; and, lowering the flag, the
company marched out the heavy gate of Fort Atkinson leaving it
in charge of a single caretaker, Alexander Faulkner. In the
sleeping quarters of the soldiers, tacked to one of the
massive black walnut bunks, one of the departing warriors had
left a card with the inscription "Farewell to bedbugs".
The property
was never again occupied as a fort although for a time it was
looked after by Josiah Goddard and then by George Cooney, who
were appointed to act as caretakers by the government. When
the General Assembly of Iowa learned that Fort Atkinson was to
be abandoned, a memorial was presented to Congress asking that
the buildings and two sections of land be donated as a site
for an agricultural school which would be a branch of the
State University. This appeal went unanswered. A similar
request in 1851 met the same fate, and again in 1853, when the
General Assembly asked Congress to donate the grounds and
buildings of the fort for a "normal manual labor and military
institute" to be maintained at the expense of the State, the
appeal fell on deaf ears. In July, 1853, the government sold
the buildings of the fort at public auction for $3,521.
To convert
this historic spot into a State park and to preserve the
remains of the post as a reminder of frontier days in the
Hawkeye State was urged for twenty years before definite steps
were taken to accomplish this worthy project. Finally the
proposal to create the park and to preserve and improve the
Old Military Trail from McGregor to Fort Atkinson came to a
head during the past two years and both projects are under
way.
To a visitor with imagination who
makes a trip at this time of the year to the site of Fort
Atkinson, and who knows the early history of the spot a vision
of the past takes form and substance. The shocks of corn in
the fields below the bluff become the teepees of the proud
Winnebago while the haze of late Indian summer suggests the
smoke of many council fires.
Down the
last stretch of the old military trail rumbles an army
transport heavily laden with barrels of dour and pork, boxes
of soap and candles and bags of beans. The teamster guides his
four mule team through the gate of the fort and replies to the
rude quips of the soldiers with a rare assortment of racy
oaths. The thin clear notes of a distant bugle announce the
approach of a dragoon patrol, returning from a successful raid
upon "Sodom". The belching flame and re echoing boom of the
sunset gun remind the Indian wards of the power of the great
White Father at Washington.
The picture fades out as the
realities of the present intrude and the dilapidated buildings
reproach the visitor with the neglect of years. At last the
people of Iowa have awakened to the justice of making this
place an historic shrine and a mecca for those who feel that
Iowa's landmarks should be preserved.
BRUCE E.
MAHAN
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