The Magazine:

The Magazine:. Storing Munitions and More. , All military posts had a magazine for storing munitions. At Fort Phil Kearny the Magazine was 16 by 16 feet, with a 11 foot dirt covered ceiling and it was buried eight feet in the southwest quadrant of the parade ground. It is referred to in numerous historical records. Carrington shows its location on his as-built map, and he did a design for its construction. Samuel Gibson indicates its location on his map of the fort. Margaret Carrington described the location as “being in the center of one of the squares.”, There are many colorful accounts centered around the magazine. Colonel Carrington was constantly frustrated with his lack of munitions and the shortage of ammunition at the post. This became very apparent following the Fetterman Fight when men were sent to guard the stockade with only five rounds of ammunition each. When Carrington left the fort on December 22, 1866 to retrieve the bodies of Fetterman’s command he left secret instructions which Francis Grummond recounted. “If, in my absence, Indians in overwhelming-numbers attack, put the women and children in the magazine . . . . a last desperate struggle, destroy all together, rather than have any captured alive., Results of the 1999 archaeological study provide no evidence of the magazine being in the southwest quadrant as historical records indicated. At present the magazine’s exact location is unknown, still one of the many unanswered questions about Fort Phil Kearny.