North Dakota: A Guide to the Northern Prairie State

by Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration for the State of North Dakota

FORT ABRAHAM LINCOLN STATE PARK

Entrance: 4.5 m. S. of Mandan on graveled road (see Tour 8).

Points of interest in park: Fort McKeen, Slant Indian Village, site of old Fort Abraham Lincoln.

Regulations: Park open during daylight hours only; parking cars on highway prohibited.

The 750 acres of Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park lie on the west bluffs of the Missouri River, encompassing three sites of historical and archeological interest—a Mandan Indian village and two old military posts. The park is being developed by the State Historical Society of North Dakota in cooperation with the National Park Service.

As the roadway enters the park, the bluffs rise steeply to the right, while below on the left is spread a beautiful view of the Missouri winding away to the distant hills, tracing the outlines of Sibley Island, the Heart River below, flowing into the Missouri, and Bismarck and the capitol set against the background of the valley rising on the other side of the river.

Fort McKeen is on the river bluffs, and the Indian village is below on the river bank, slightly higher than Fort Abraham Lincoln, the cavalry post, on the broad ancient plain near the mouth of the Heart.

Left as the highway enters the park is a crude log palisade that guards the old SLANT VILLAGE. Before these prairies saw the invasion of the white men, perhaps two centuries ago, a group of Mandan Indians, seeking a new location in their advance up the Missouri Valley, selected this narrow point of land which had such excellent natural protection. On the east was the Heart River and on the south a deep coulee. Along the exposed sides the Indians built a palisade and dug a moat to secure their little town.

Depressions in the earth show that the settlement contained 68 lodges. Five have been restored by the park administration, four of them homes and the other the large ceremonial lodge. All have been placed as nearly as possible on their original sites, and in some cases the locations made by park workers were so accurate that remains of the old lodges were found in excavating for the restoration work. The five lodges have been carefully reproduced in every detail. (A general description of the construction and equipment of the typical Indian earth lodge will be found under Indians and Their Predecessors.)

Crude tools such as the inhabitants of this town used in domestic and agricultural work are on display in one lodge. Hoes and shovels were flat bones fastened to wooden handles, and brooms were bunches of brush bound together. A short post with a hollowed center served as a mortar, a club about the size of a baseball bat as a pestle, and with this apparatus corn was ground for meal.

Furnishings in the lodge include the horse corrals, beds, and altars which were part of the domestic scene. There are specimens of dog and horse travois, and an Indian bullboat, made by stretching a green buffalo hide over a wooden frame and drying it. The result resembled nothing so much as an ungainly washtub, but the awkward-looking craft would carry two or three persons quite safely across the treacherous currents of the Missouri.

The ceremonial lodge, with a diameter of 84 feet, has been restored in its original position in the center of the village court, and the interior of this surprisingly large building furnishes an index of the architectural advancement of these supposedly savage people. In this lodge tribal ceremonies were held, and the site doubtless witnessed many enactments of the most holy Mandan religious service, in which the young men of the tribe were inducted into manhood with bloody and gruesome torture rites.

Right of the highway, almost opposite the entrance to the village, the restored and graveled military road branches steeply upward to where FORT McKEEN commands a far view of the plains and the twisting Missouri. Although Bismarck, the two bridges across the river, and many other marks of settlement are now part of the scene, the entire view from this point was one wild, untouched, verdant picture when Army engineers came from Fort Rice in 1872 in search of a location for an infantry post to protect the surveyors, engineers, and workmen who prepared the way for the gleaming intrusion of the Northern Pacific rails. This site was selected, as the Mandan 200 years before had selected the one below, for its natural protection. The fort was built in 1872, and was named for Col. Henry Boyd McKeen of the Eighty-first Pennsylvania Volunteers, but on November 19, 1872, the name was officially changed to Fort Abraham Lincoln in honor of the martyred President. A triangular area was fortified, with a blockhouse at each corner and palisade walls connecting them on two sides. The steep face of the bluff protected the remaining side. Within the stockade were officers' quarters, barracks, kitchens, hospital, and laundry. The scouts' headquarters and the laundry were built of cottonwood logs cut along the river, while most of the other buildings were of lumber.

The soldiers stationed at the fort led a varied life, the monotony of frontier existence being tempered by fighting the Sioux, maintaining order among the lawless element which followed the progress of the railroad, and even building smudges to protect the workers from the tormenting swarms of bloodthirsty mosquitoes.

The three blockhouses and the palisade have been restored, so that the fort looks much as it must have looked more than 50 years ago when it crowned this bluff, guarding its prominent position on the river. None of the buildings within the enclosure is left, but the sites of all are marked.

To avoid confusion, the restored fort is commonly referred to as Fort McKeen, distinguishing it from the later Fort Abraham Lincoln, although the latter included both posts. The FORT ABRAHAM LINCOLN SITE is right of the park road just south of the Indian village. Markers indicate the sites of the various structures, and holes partly filled with debris also show where the buildings of the Northwest's strongest fortress once stood. A row of cottonwoods, which grew along Officers' Row, stands in lonesome splendor.

When Gen. George A. Custer and his spirited Seventh Cavalry came to Fort Abraham Lincoln in 1873 it became a nine-company cavalry and infantry post, with the cavalry established on the level plain below, where a good drill and parade ground was available. Custer, with his long sandy-colored hair and restless vivacity, was one of the most personable and interesting military men of his time. He and his wife, a young and talented woman, soon drew about themselves a social circle that was widely known and aspired to. Balls, musicales, and other entertainments drew people from the surrounding territory, including the new town of Bismarck across the river. The social life at Fort Abraham Lincoln would have been a credit to any city, as, beneath crystal chandeliers, to the music of the Seventh's band, stately couples moved in the graceful figures of the dance.

For the soldiers, life consisted chiefly of maintaining order among the Indians and the incoming white population. At one time the guardhouse at the fort had a distinguished occupant, Rain-in-the-Face, the Sioux warrior. He had been heard boasting of "counting coup" on the bodies of two white men killed on the Stanley expedition in 1873, and Tom Custer, brother of General Custer, was sent to take him into custody at Standing Rock Agency (see Side Tour 8C). Rain-in-the-Face was arrested and imprisoned at Fort Abraham Lincoln, but escaped in a jailbreak engineered by friends of some of the other prisoners, and joined Sitting Bull.

Life at the post often grew monotonous for the troopers, who in winter found their activities hampered by the severe cold, and in the summer suffered from the torments of the heat and the mosquitoes.

When the routine of military life palled too greatly on the soldiers, they took refuge in the activities of the Point, a little settlement of dance halls, saloons, and similar places of entertainment, that flourished on the opposite bank of the river directly across from the fort. Since there was no bridge across the Missouri the Point could be reached only by ferry or on the ice. At the time of the spring break-up, however, even the ferry could not be used, and many of the soldiers missed the customary recreational and liquid facilities afforded by the Point. One spring, as the ice was going out, a young man, whose fine physique was equalled only by his foolhardy daring, offered to cross the river for some liquor. Crossing a river on breaking ice has been known as a daring feat since even before the days of Eliza and the bloodhounds, but crossing the Missouri is a particularly hazardous exploit, for this river, always maliciously menacing, is even more so in the spring, with great ice blocks eddying and whirling, crunching violently together, then flung apart by the swift current. The slightest misstep or miscalculation meant death to the young, thirsty soldier, but with the greatest nonchalance he made the crossing and the return, bringing his precious burden back with him, and great and twofold was the rejoicing when he safely reached the home shore.

Three years of existence left Fort Abraham Lincoln in comparative quiet, with only an occasional Indian skirmish. Then events on the frontier conspired to bring the Indian troubles to an end. The campaign of the Little Big Horn was planned (see History). One day in 1876 the Seventh, with bands playing and colors flying, marched away along the Heart in pursuit of the Sioux. On a stifling night early in July the residents of Bismarck were awakened from their sleep by loud sounds of shouting, of wagons and horses moving, at the river. Capt. Grant Marsh had arrived from the Little Big Horn with his steamer, the Far West, loaded with the wounded of Major Reno's command, survivors of the Battle of the Little Big Horn. But more than the wounded, he bore news—news of the death of 267 men, of the annihilation of Custer and his immediate command. Twenty-six of the waiting wives at Fort Abraham Lincoln were widows.

The only living thing left of Custer's command was Comanche, Capt. Myles Keogh's horse. Through the rough country filled with hostile, victorious Sioux, Reno's wounded men had been carried to the Far West, and Captain Marsh had made his epic 54-hour run to Bismarck and the fort 700 miles away.

A RED RIVER VALLEY WHEATFIELD

OATS

Captain Marsh's story of how he learned of the Custer tragedy is strange, and almost unreal. He related later that, as he waited on the river for word from the military commanders, a Crow Indian peered from the brush along the shore and signed that he wished to board the boat. On deck the Indian, unable to speak a word of English, squatted and began to make signs. He drew a group of dots, designated them with the Crow word for "white men." Then he showed a circle of dots around the white men, and for them spoke the word for "Sioux." And then, with a sweep of his hand, he wiped out the inner group of dots. In this simple, abrupt manner, Marsh related, the tragedy was first told to the world.

The story of Custer's annihilation was put on the telegraph wires by Col. C. A. Lounsberry. James W. Foley, North Dakota poet laureate, has commented: "It was, for stark tragedy, horror and surprise, perhaps the greatest news story ever flashed over a telegraph wire to a stunned and stricken country, in the history of the United States."

The Little Big Horn disaster was the beginning of the end of the era of Indian fighting in this region, and troops were withdrawn from Fort Abraham Lincoln in 1891, after which the buildings were carried off piecemeal by the settlers in the vicinity. A new infantry post, known as Fort Lincoln, was later established across the river (see Tour 8).

Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park is being developed for recreational and historical purposes by the Federal Government in cooperation with the State historical society. The grounds are being landscaped, foot trails laid out, and picnic shelters built. Under construction between the Indian village and the Fort Lincoln site is a museum which will house some archeological material being unearthed on the sites of the old earth lodges and historical material dealing with Fort McKeen and Fort Abraham Lincoln.