Fort Phil Kearny

Fort Phil Kearny. Registered National Historic Landmark. , The Land, The land under view where the Great Plains meets the Rocky Mountains was once the Red Man's land of milk and honey, then as now teaming with wildlife. It was a most productive--thus favorite--hunting ground. But it was also a natural route used from time immemorial by nomadic men and migratory beasts. Lying hundreds of miles beyond the 1860 frontier, it was treaty-confirmed Indian country., Here came a frontiersman, John Bozeman, pioneering a wagon road which followed buffalo, Indian and trapper trails. His time and energy-saving short cut led to the booming mining fields of western Montana. This interloper was followed by miners whose habitual frontier callousness easily stifled any scruple over trespass of an Indian passageway. Faint wheel marks soon became a beaten road known as the Bozeman Trail., High plains and mountain Indians, notably Sioux and Cheyenne, watching this transgression, resented both the physical act and the implied contempt of the solemn treaty. They made war. The White transgressor called upon their army for protection. In the end the Indians won a brief respite--partly because a developing railroad far to the south canceled the Bozeman Trail's short cut advantage., The Fort, On July 13, 1866, Colonel Henry R. Carrington, leading four companies of the 18th Infantry, arrived at this site. Carrington, a competent engineer, immediately put his men to work. Through diligent labor they built, by October of that year, the basic units of what became an outstanding example of the complete, stockaded "Indian Wars" military establishment., From here, as you face across the tablet, extends the ground where Fort Phil Kearny once stood. Replacement posts mark the original corners of the 800' x 600' stockade. Beyond, contiguous cavalry and quartermaster corrals are marked. At the south west end an animal watering watering gap jutted into Little Piney Creek. The Bozeman Trail passed roughly parallel to the north east side., Fort Phil Kearny was usually garrisoned by four to six infantry companies, plus one or two companies of cavalry. However, so closely did the Sioux and Cheyenne warriors under the tactician Red Cloud invest the post that these troops were frequently unable to perform Bozeman Trail convoy duty. Incidents of hostility were the daily rule and several of the most famous engagements of the "Indian Wars" relate to this fort., The military abandoned the fort in August 1868, and it was burned by a band of Cheyenne.