History
June 1, 1880, Company B, Seventeenth Infantry, left Fort Yates and formed part of a command, under Major Lewis Merrill, guarding construction parties along the N. P. R. R. between the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers. It remained on this duty until October 21, when it proceeded to the Yellowstone River and established, with one company 11th Infantry, Camp Porter near the mouth of Glendive Creek. Doors, sashes and nails were furnished, the other building material was obtained by the troops, and they made themselves as comfortable as possible during the winter of 1880-81, without stoves, flooring or plastering. [3]
Lewis Merrill (1834–1896) was a career officer in the United States Army noted for his work in resisting the early Ku Klux Klan organization in several Southern states. During the American Civil War, he combated guerrillas in Missouri.
July 12, 1881, Major Merrill, Seventh Cavalry, assigned to command of "escort to working parties on extension Northern Pacific Railroad, between Little Missouri and Tongue Rivers." Command consists of Troops E, Second Cavalry, and E, F, G, Seventh Cavalry, and Companies I, Fifth Infantry; D, Seventh Infantry; A, Eleventh Infantry; B, Seventeenth Infantry; and A, Twenty-fifth Infantry. Headquarters at Camp Porter, Mont. Troops from Fort Keogh changed monthly. [2]
Fort Keogh is a former United States Army post located at the western edge of modern Miles City, in the U.S. state of Montana. It is situated on the south bank of the Yellowstone River, at the mouth of the Tongue River.
October 17, 1881, Company A, Eleventh Infantry, left Camp Porter, Mont., en route to Fort Sully, arriving there October 25, 1881. [4]
Abandoned
November 29, 1881, Camp Porter, Mont., was broken up as a military post, the object for which it was established having been accomplished, and the company stationed there (B, Seventeenth Infantry) left for Fort Abraham Lincoln, arriving there the same day. [4]
Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park is a North Dakota state park located 7 miles (11 km) south of Mandan, North Dakota, United States. The park is home to the On-A-Slant Indian Village and reconstructed military buildings including the Custer House.
December 7, 1881, Major Lewis Merrill, Seventh Cavalry (with a detachment of Company B, Seventeenth Infantry, under Lieutenant Brennan, for Fort Lincoln), left Glendive and Camp Porter, Mont., en route to his station, the work of the escort to working parties on the extension of the N. P. E. E., between Little Missouri and Tongue Rivers, having terminated and the command having been broken up. Camp Porter was finally abandoned this date, the buildings, &c., having been sold on the 6th of December. [4]
The Battle of Hartville was fought January 9–11, 1863, in Wright County, Missouri, as part of John S. Marmaduke's first expedition into Missouri, during the American Civil War.
The 1st Cavalry Regiment is a United States Army that has its antecedents in the early 19th century in the formation of the United States Regiment of Dragoons. To this day, the unit's special designation is "First Regiment of Dragoons". While they were the First Regiment of Dragoons another unit designated the 1st Cavalry Regiment was formed in 1855 and in 1861 was re-designated as the 4th Cavalry Regiment. The First Dragoons became the 1st Cavalry Regiment since they were the oldest mounted regiment.
Theodore Schwan was a Union Army officer during the American Civil War who received the Medal of Honor for his actions at the Battle of Peebles' Farm. He also served with distinction during the Spanish–American and Philippine–American Wars.
The Battle of Cedar Creek occurred on October 21, 1876, in the Montana Territory between the United States Army and a force of Lakota Sioux Native Americans during the Great Sioux War of 1876. The battle broke out after talks between Colonel Nelson A. Miles and Chief Sitting Bull broke down, and ended with surrender of 400 Lakota lodges to Miles six days later.
Fort Buford was a United States Army Post at the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers in Dakota Territory, present day North Dakota, and the site of Sitting Bull's surrender in 1881.
The 30th Regiment Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry was an infantry regiment that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
Galvanized Yankees was a term from the American Civil War denoting former Confederate prisoners of war who swore allegiance to the United States and joined the Union Army. Approximately 5,600 former Confederate soldiers enlisted in the "United States Volunteers", organized into six regiments of infantry between January 1864 and November 1866. Of those, more than 250 had begun their service as Union soldiers, were captured in battle, then enlisted in prison to join a regiment of the Confederate States Army. They surrendered to Union forces in December 1864 and were held by the United States as deserters, but were saved from prosecution by being enlisted in the 5th and 6th U.S. Volunteers. An additional 800 former Confederates served in volunteer regiments raised by the states, forming ten companies. Four of those companies saw combat in the Western Theater against the Confederate Army, two served on the western frontier, and one became an independent company of U.S. Volunteers, serving in Minnesota.
Fort Ellis was a United States Army fort established August 27, 1867, east of present-day Bozeman, Montana. Troops from the fort participated in many major campaigns of the Indian Wars. The fort was closed in 1886.
Powderville, also Elkhorn Crossing is an unincorporated community in northeastern Powder River County, Montana, United States, along the Powder River. It is a small cluster of buildings that lies along local roads northeast of the town of Broadus, the county seat of Powder River County. Its elevation is 2,828 feet (862 m).
The area that eventually became the U.S. state of Montana played little direct role in the American Civil War. The closest the Confederate States Army ever came to the area was New Mexico and eastern Kansas, each over a thousand miles away. There was not even an organized territory using "Montana" until the Montana Territory was created on May 26, 1864, three years after the Battle of Fort Sumter. In 1861, the area was divided between the Dakota Territory and the Washington Territory, and in 1863, it was part of the Idaho Territory.
Fort Custer was established during the Indian wars in the Department of Dakota by the U.S. Army to subjugate the Sioux, Cheyenne and Crow Indians near present-day Hardin, Montana. The post was named for General George Armstrong Custer who died at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
Clarence Edmund Bennett (1833–1902), usually referred to as Clarence E. Bennett, a graduate of West Point, a career American Army officer who saw duty almost exclusively in Western frontier assignments, served in the American Civil War in California, New Mexico and Arizona Territories and later in Reconstruction occupation forces and frontier duty during the later Indian Wars.
Fort Meade was established in 1878 as a cavalry fort to protect the new settlements in the northern Black Hills, especially the nearby gold mining area around Deadwood. Several stage and freighting routes passed through Fort Meade en route to Deadwood.
Camp Poplar River was established during the Indian wars in the Department of Dakota by U.S. Army to maintain order, keep non-agency Indians away, and help capture the Indians who disturbed the peace and would not conform to reservation boundaries of the Fort Peck Agency, which in 1878, was relocated to its present-day location in Poplar because the original agency was located on a flood plain, suffering floods each spring. The post was located one-half mile north of the then called, Poplar River Agency, or 2 miles north of the Missouri River on the south bank of the Poplar River and normally consisted of only two companies of infantry. This tiny post has disappeared except for the fact that the town of Poplar, Montana, on the site, bears the same name.
The Battle of the Badlands was fought in Dakota Territory, in what is now western North Dakota, between the United States army led by General Alfred Sully and the Lakota, Yanktonai, and the Dakota Indian tribes. The battle was fought August 7–9, 1864 between what are now Medora and Sentinel Butte, North Dakota. It was an extension of the conflict begun in the Dakota War of 1862. Sully successfully marched through the badlands encountering only moderate resistance from the Sioux.
The Department of the Northwest was an Army Department created September 6, 1862 by the Union Army to put down the Sioux uprising in Minnesota. It was composed of the forces within the territory of the states of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa, and the Nebraska and Dakota Territories .
Nebraska Territory was detached to the Department of the Missouri on Oct. 11 1862.
The Yellowstone Expedition of 1873 was an expedition of the United States Army in the summer of 1873 in Dakota Territory and Montana Territory, to survey a route for the Northern Pacific Railroad along the Yellowstone River. The expedition was under the overall command of Colonel David S. Stanley, with Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer second in command.
