Nancy McClure: A New Fort

Chapter 4

I followed my husband to this new place and marveled at its vastness, a place I realized pleased all my senses.  Not only did I feel as if could I see into the boundless distance, when I heard a meadowlark singing in the morning, its melody played in my mind all day.  The yip and howl of a far-off coyote, the brush of warm breezes on my face, the aroma of sage, the taste of nearby spring water, all making this a land where I imagined nature had gathered in one place.

Immigrant wagon trains moving westward in ever larger numbers and construction gangs building the Northern Pacific Railroad made easy targets for warlike Indians.  General Alfred H. Terry, commander of the war department in Washington, learned of the potential for trouble and made the decision to construct some forts placing soldiers closer to the danger.  He had ordered a battalion of soldiers from Fort Wadsworth under the command of Major George Crossman to travel to the place identified as Bears Den Hill and construct a fort.  

We learned it would be named Fort Ransom to honor a young Civil War general who had served the Union in a distinctive manner.   Wounded in four different battles, he finally died from the last one he received.  General Grant’s reputation was such that he did not easily show emotion, but we were told he wept upon hearing of Ransom’s death.  As for General Sherman, he honored him by hanging a picture of Ransom on his office wall years after his death.

The battalion arrived  on June 17, 1867 and began the big job of constructing the fort.  The site was bare of anything except prairie grass and soon a collection of buildings and a defensive perimeter moat needed to be dug.  All day long we heard axes chopping and sawing the solid oak trees gathered along the Sheyenne River.   The builders did not erect a stockade like the one at Fort Abercrombie, but instead earthworks dug into the virgin soil would serve as the perimeter defense.  

Structures started to rise while other men with picks and shovels worked on the long ditch moat. The sun was climbing high in the sky these days of early summer, and the hot, sweaty work made them always thirsty.  A good spring of drinking water was found at the bottom of a hill, but it needed to be hauled up in barrels by mule team many times a day for about 600 yards so the men could quench their ever-present thirst. 

I haven’t mentioned mosquitoes yet.  One day as he stood there swatting them, I heard Captain Crossman say, “In all my experience in Texas, Louisiana and other places, I never saw anything to compare to the mosquitoes in Dakota; they actually made life a burden.”  I don’t think he had experienced a northern winter yet either.

Lest you think the buildings were built with comfort in mind, let me explain what they were like.  The buildings were arranged in a square layout with little windows facing to the outside from which soldiers could shoot their rifles if they ever came under attack.  Dirt covered the roof of each building and the chinking between the logs let daylight creep through.  Having left the fort and moved to the Pigeon Point area I can only repeat the following from hearing it later.  In 1869, two years after its construction, an inspection of the fort stated conditions there

 were very primitive with most of the buildings still unfinished, a situation blamed on the fact of civilian carpenters being sent home too early.  The hospital met with disapproval in the report, “It is totally unfit for the accommodation of the sick in the colder season, at which time the thermometer frequently indicates the freezing point…”

While the fort waited for a herd of cattle to arrive for slaughter, we ate buffalo meat.  Herds of them still could be found and Gabriel Renville, who had the reputation of being a good hunter, one day took out his new repeating rifle to test his luck.  He did, with only eight shots he killed six.  For a little variety we shot an occasional duck in the nearby slough, or found a few elk roaming in the countryside.

While we were at the fort for only a brief spell, I witnessed some life-threatening incidents, and in fact there was loss of life.  I will collect my thoughts and tell a couple of those stories in the next chapter.