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Show The Cannon Now Roar Where Once Carbine Barked Defiance at Lance Event , h. D,ys Wk. Hls Troopers Tried to CoqUer the Kio.a. Corjch,. Cheyenne. Chey-enne. Arap.ho. and Otker Wild Riders of the Southwestern Plains. Western Newspaper Union. Ey ELMO SCOTT WATSON ON THE morning of January Jan-uary 8, 1869, an army ambulance came splashing across a muddy fiat in the present state of Oklahoma and drew up before be-fore a soldier bivouac on the banks of Medicine Bluff creek. Beside the driver sat a short-legged, squatty little man. It was Gen. Phil Sheridan Sheri-dan "Little Phil" of Civil war fame now commander-in-chief of the forces campaigning cam-paigning against the hostile Indi ans of the Southwest and he had come here to establish estab-lish a new army post in the heart of their country. "It was planned by the staff to have a short ceremony and some speechmaking when the first stake was driven. But Sheridan Sheri-dan was no orator. He climbed out of the ambulance with a merry mer-ry grin and a joke for the officers gathered there. Then he knelt to hold the stake. Several officers started forward to drive it in. "Hold on," the general protested. protest-ed. "I want Johnny Murphy to drive it." "Whether this was an example of racial solidarity, or whether Sheridan thought that the frontier "4 r j - SATANK youth was less likely to mash his fingers than one of the uniformed uni-formed gentlemen is not known." At any rate, "the young Irish ambulance driver wielded the axe and had the honor of driving the first stake to mark the site of Fort Sill." So writes Capt. W. S. Nye in his book "Carbine and Lance The Story of Old Fort Sill," one of the recent publications of the University of Oklahoma Press and another of its invaluable contributions con-tributions to the history of the American frontier. Few army posts in the United States have had a more colorful history than this one. From that winter day nearly 70 years ago it saw a constant procession of frontier notables come and go for the next 40 years and during that time it was the focal point of one of the most interesting, dramatic and sustained series of conflicts in the records of western west-ern warfare. Fort Sill was established as a result of the failure of the famous Medicine Lodge treaty of 1867 to bring peace to the Southern plains. The military authorities, recalling that several army officers of-ficers had recommended that a post be built in the Wichita mountains, moun-tains, the heart of the Indian range, ordered another reconnaissance recon-naissance of that region be made. Accordingly Gen. B. H. Grierson, then colonel of the Tenth cavalry, set out from Fort Arbuckle in May, 1868 and after slogging through the rain and mud for two weeks, finally reached Medicine Bluff. He "noted from the marks on the trees that the place was above high water in flood season. There were ample supplies of wood, water and pasturage. Why look farther? The colonel removed the saddle from his horse, threw it on the ground and said, 'We will build the post here.' " Soon afterwards Sheridan arrived ar-rived to direct a winter campaign in which the principal event was the destruction of the camp of Chief Black Kettle's Cheyennes on the Washita by Gen. G. A. Custer Cus-ter and his Seventh cavalry. Later while Sheridan and Custer were at Fort Cobb the winter rains began. Soon the camp of the Seventh was a quagmire. "This is a hell of a place!" Sheridan snorted. "Grierson, how about that camp of yours at Medicine Medi-cine Bluff?" When Grierson replied that it was "ideal," he was sent on a final reconnaissance. The report which he brought back resulted m a visit by Sheridan who "approved the approximate site chosen but decided to build the fort about 3Ai yards southeast of where . s j I i ' S GEN. PHIL SHERIDAN Colonel Grierson had staked it out. Instead of the stockade fort polled by that officer, Sheridan proposed to erect a permanent post." Then followed the historic occasion when the .young Irish ambulance driver wielded the axe and Fort Sill came into being. As a matter of fact it was first called Camp Wichita and it was little more than a collection of shacks, made from condemned tentage and wooden frames. These were occupied for a time by Custer Cus-ter and the Seventh and near here camped Samuel J. Crawford, the "fighting governor" of Kansas, and his Nineteenth Kansas cavalry. cav-alry. After the carnpaign against the hostiles had ended, Colonel Grierson set about building the permanent post. There was some discussion as to the name to be given to it. The Seventh cavalry wanted it called Fort Elliott for the brave young officer who lost his life at the Washita. But General Gen-eral Sheridan decided upon Fort Sill in honor of Brig. Gen. Joshua W. Sill, one of his West Point classmates class-mates who was killed while leading lead-ing a charge of his brigade in Sheridan's division at the Battle of Stone River in 1862. So it was thus designated in orders issued from department headquarters on July 2, 1869. As Fort Sill, its importance in . frontier history increased and it continued to be a rendezvous of frontier notables. One of the traders who set up a post near by was William Mathewson, the original "Buffalo Bill," who had been known by that sobriquet several years before young Will Cody appeared on the scene. Among the interpreters who "V't it f I 4V .r N GEN. B. H. GRIERSON served there were such men as Horace Jones and Phil McCusk-er, McCusk-er, who had been the principal "talking man" at the Medicine Lodge treaty conference. And to the agency built near Fort Sill came Lawrit Tatum, the first agent for the Kiowas and Co-manches Co-manches under the new "Quaker Peace Policy of President Grant's administration. The harassed Tatum soon discovered dis-covered that the "peace policy" might be popular among the Eastern East-ern sentimentalists, who grieved over the injustices done to "Poor Lo " but it certainly wasn't popular popu-lar with the settlers in the surrounding sur-rounding country, who continued to lose their scalps, nor the army officers and men who had the job of trying to keep the Kiowas and Comanches from "jumping the reservation" whenever they happened hap-pened to feel like making a raid. That was frequent enough and. due to the activities of such chiefs as Lone Wolf, Big Tree, Satanta, Satank, and White Horse of the Kiowas and a number of Comanche Co-manche chiefs of lesser renown, the next five years were anything but peaceful. To Fort Sill also came Gen. Y. T Sherman, commander-in-chief of the army, (who, incidentally, almost lost his scalp en route) and one of the high spots in F ort Sill history is his conference with some of the Kiowa chiefs which ended in the arrest of Satanta, Satank and Big Tree. As they were being sent away to prison m Texas, Satank suddenly drew a concealed knife and unmindful of the odds against him attacked his guard. Of course, he was soon disposed of but not until he had written his name in western history his-tory as one of the bravest men, white or red, it had ever known. Satanta and Big Tree were later released but couldn't keep out of mischief. Once more imprisoned, impris-oned, Satanta, the renowned "Orator "Or-ator of the Plains," like Satank, "chose death to dishonor" and committed suicide. The next chapter in Fort Sill's history was the outbreak of the Southwestern tribes which resulted result-ed in the campaign of 1874-75. It opened when a Comanche medicine medi-cine man, Isa-tai, promised his tribesmen an easy victory over the white hunters who had been wastefully slaughtering the buffalo. buf-falo. But Isa-tai's "strong medicine" medi-cine" failed before the heavy buffalo buf-falo guns of the hunters at Adobe Walls and the active campaigning campaign-ing of Gen. Nelson A. Miles and Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie broke the power of the Kiowas, Comanches, Co-manches, Arapahos and Cheyennes. Chey-ennes. From 1875 they were never nev-er again a serious threat to white settlement of that region. There was a brief flare-up during dur-ing the Ghost Dance excitement of 1890-91 but, due to the skillful and understanding treatment of the Indians by a young lieutenant named Hugh L. Scott, the crisis was passed without an outbreak. Scott was assisted in his work by a Kiowa scout named I-see-o. Under Un-der his young warrior name of Tahbone-mah, this Indian had followed Chief Lone Wolf on a spectacular raid during the war of 1874-75. When that conflict was over he became a member of the force of Indian scouts which was organized at Fort Sill and in 1892, when Scott recruited Troop L of the Seventh cavalry (an all-Indian troop) I-see-o was made first sergeant. The friendship of the young army officer and his Indian sergeant serg-eant had an interesting aftermath. after-math. Many years later, after Troop L had been disbanded and Scott had become a general, he learned that I-see-o was destitute and used his influence with the secretary of war to have the old man enlisted as a sergeant in the army for the remainder of his life. So until death came for the faithful old Kiowa in January, 1927, he held the rating of senior duty sergeant with nothing to do but show up at the pay table once a month. Moreover, he was an honored personage around the post and, whenever such distinguished distin-guished officers as General Pershing visited the fort, he was always invited to help receive them. In 1894 Geronimo, famous leader lead-er of the Apaches who had been imprisoned in Florida, was transferred trans-ferred with his followers to Fort Sill. There he was technically a prisoner of war, although never incarcerated, except for brief periods pe-riods in the guardhouse after one of his bouts with the white man's "firewater." When he died in 1909 it marked the end of the frontier period in the history of Fort Sill. Four years later the majority of the Apaches were sent back to their old homes in Arizona, although al-though a few chose to remain in Oklahoma. "The training they had received at Fort Sill gave them a good start on the road to success as citizens," says Cap-tainNye. Cap-tainNye. "Typifying this isArthur Guydelkon, nephew of Geronimo, who, as this is written, is operating operat-ing a steam roller in the new driveway being constructed in front of Fort Sill's new school and administration building." The construction is a part of the pr ! f ' - 1 ; v.- :-:... .a I I ' i I I-SEE-O gram which was started in 1S.".3-34 1S.".3-34 after Fort Sill had boon designated desig-nated as the permanent location of the army's field artillery schooi where Uncle Sam trains his cannoneers can-noneers for the important ro'e they will play should he eve-again eve-again er.cage in warfare. - GEN. G. A. CUSTER The site of Fort Sill was first visited by Americans in 1834 when Col. Henry Dodge led his "Dragoon "Drag-oon Expedition" into the Southwest South-west to persuade the wild Indians of that region to send representatives representa-tives to Fort Gibson for a conference confer-ence and treaty. As a result of the peace thus established a band of Wichita Indians built their village vil-lage of grass houses on the exact spot where the future Fort Sill was to be established and they occupied this site until 1850. Meanwhile the government had established a number of military posts in the Southwest Fort Washita and Fort Arbuckle in Oklahoma and Fort Belknap in Texas to protect the Civilized Tribes from the wild tribes to the West and white meddlers from the South. In 1852 Capt R. B. Marcy of the Fifth infantry, was sent from Fort Belknap to explore ex-plore the country north of the Red river. He was accompanied by a young captain of the topographical topo-graphical engineers named Geo. B. McClennan the "Little Mac" of future Civil war fame. During Dur-ing this expedition Marcy visited vis-ited the Wichita village on Medicine Medi-cine Bluff and was so impressed by the site that he recommended it be occupied as a military post. However, the government took no action on the matter at this time. During the next two decades this region was the scene of several sev-eral more exploring expeditions and military reconnaisances and alternate peace efforts and armed encounters with the hostile Indians. In-dians. The latter, even though they did not solve the problem of bringing peace to this border, did serve the useful purpose of providing excellent training for t (Li 1 iV k kv wA.. Atev S a GERONIMO a future greater conflict for such young officers as Earl Van Dorn, E. Kirby Smith, Fitzhugh Lee, W. H. Emory and George B. Thomas. One of these, Major Emory, recommended, as had Captain Marcy, that a post be erected on Medicine Bluff to protect pro-tect the agency on the reservation which had been established for a branch of the Comanche tribe. Instead a site on the Washita river was chosen and there Fort Cobb was erected. At the outbreak of the Civil war tne garrisons at Forts Washita, Arbuckle and Cobb were withdrawn. with-drawn. During the next two years the federal government was too busy with its war against the Confederacy to pay any attention to the Indians in the West, who immediately began a series of attacks on wagon trains and stage coaches along the Oregon and Santa Fe trails. By 1864 the military mili-tary had decided upon a war c. reprisal and this resulted in two campaigns, whioh accomplished little more than to inflame the Indians to further hostility. Then Fort Arbuckle was regar-risoned regar-risoned and a brief period of peace followed, culminating in the treaty of the Arkansas in 1865. But the Indian raids soon began again. The principal leader lead-er of the hostiles was Chief Satanta Sa-tanta whose Kiowas had declared "war to the knife" and the other tribes were not slow in joining them. General Hancock's expedition expedi-tion in Kansas, as well as the campaigning cam-paigning of Col. George A. Cus-ler Cus-ler and his Seventh cavalry having hav-ing proved futile, the federal government gov-ernment decided again to try negotiation ne-gotiation with the recalcitrant red men. The next act in the drama was the Medicine Lo:';e treaty, which, as previousiy stcteJ, wis kept ty neitr.er red men r.-r v.'.i'e. So the government dumped the prob-icni prob-icni :n:o the lap of :r-e army arjuin, and bh.Tidan's campa-gn and the cstaDhsr.rr.tnt of fort S.J foi-I foi-I lowed. |