Ten years in the ranks, U.S. Army

by Augustus Meyers

Early in November ice began to form on the edge of the river in places where the current was not strong. The nights were cold, and we found our blankets insufficient for comfort. Buffalo robes and other furs were still fairly plentiful, and could be had from traders or Indians at a very moderate price. Many of the soldiers bought them to keep warm. I got a fine large one in trade for about three dollars, also a deer skin for two dollars. Old and worn robes could be had much cheaper.

The Indians who lived near the fort permanently soon learned the value of money and how to spend it at the sutler's store. They liked the bright silver dollars, for one of which the squaws would sell us a pair of nice moccasins ornamented with beads. A plainer pair could be had for half a dollar.

The army at the present time is very wisely supplied with clothing suitable to the climate the soldiers are serving in. In my time, however, the kind and quantity of clothing was the same, whether you were stationed in Florida or Nebraska. Any additional clothing we needed in that cold climate we were obliged to provide and pay for ourselves.

By the latter part of November, the Missouri river was entirely frozen over with ice thick enough for wagons to cross. We had snow, but no great quantity as yet. The thin walls of our pasteboard houses were covered on the inside with a hoar-frost, which stayed there and grew thicker. We dug deep trenches around the houses and banked up the earth against them to make the floors warmer. One day we had a furious wind storm, accompanied by drifting snow. The roofs of some of the more exposed houses were carried off and the sides blown in, fortunately without serious damage to the inmates. Other houses were only saved by the passing of ropes over the roofs and putting braces against the sides. This was the beginning of a period of suffering, which lasted until the following spring and was the worst we had in the Dakota country. After the storm it was realized that the frail houses, the scarcity of fire wood and the bleak location, made Fort Pierre an unsuitable place to winter troops. Therefore, one company was ordered to a well wooded island below the fort, while three companies, of which mine was one, were sent to build log huts in the woods on the opposite side of the river, about five miles above and within a mile of where the companies of the Sixth Infantry and the two cavalry companies were located. Two other companies, the headquarters and the band, remained at Fort Pierre. They improved the houses they occupied with the debris from the houses that the storm had destroyed. We put up tents near the river bank. A place about a half mile back on higher ground was selected for the cantonment, where it was not likely to be overflowed by the rise of the river in the spring. We cleared it of underbrush and cut down the trees, mostly cottonwoods. There we commenced to erect log huts.

We had been furnished with a lot of axes, large saws, crow bars, picks and shovels by the quartermaster's department. Every man not required for any other duty was put to work on the huts. We worked with a will, for we suffered severely from the constantly increasing cold in our tents, which we could not heat. They were not "Sibley" tents, and we had no iron stoves. The ground was frozen hard and the snow was deep. Evenings, when our work was done and if the wind was not too strong, we built large fires in the company streets in front of the tents. Before these we warmed ourselves before turning in for the night. Soon nearly every man's blue trousers were scorched brown on the backs from standing too close to the fires. Our clothing was insufficient. We had to wear two shirts at one time and two pairs of trousers and stockings.

Although I was not required to work on the log huts, I did so voluntarily to keep from freezing. I could not stay in the tent without being covered up with my bedding, and I did not wish to stand or sit around a fire all day, to be scorched on one side and frozen on the other, while my eyes smarted with the smoke.

We built two log cabins for each company in the roughest way, leaving the bark on the logs, notching them at the angles, and roughly cutting off the projections at the corners. We sawed out an opening for one door and one window, and built a wide fire place at one end opposite the end that was pierced by the single window. We had great difficulty finding stone enough to build the fire places, which were about six feet high and had wooden chimneys plastered with mud. These chimneys gave us much trouble by constantly getting on fire.

The roofs we formed of split logs, laid with the split side down on a pitch, and reaching from one wall to the other in a single span. On this we put a thick layer of brush and shrub, covered with about twelve inches of earth pounded down hard. The cracks between the logs were chinked with wood and daubed with mud. We had to build fires to take the frost out of the ground before we could dig for our mud. When we mixed it with warm water to the proper consistency for daubing, it froze so quickly that we could not make the walls and roof tight enough to keep the cold wind out.

The huts had a dirt floor. We constructed rude two-story bunks of split logs along both sides, with a passage only six feet between them. There was a little more space around the fire place. There was no lumber of any kind for doors and no sashes for windows, so we hung a piece of an old canvas wagon cover over the door-holes, both inside and out. The window opening we covered with a piece of white muslin bought at the sutler's store. We built smaller single-room huts for the officers and the married soldiers whose wives had been left at Fort Pierre until the huts were ready for them. We also built a kitchen for each company, with a bread oven in it, some store houses, a small hospital and a guard-house. We did not build any mess-rooms. Each soldier had to go to the kitchen for his rations and eat them in his quarters.

I think it was about the middle of December, when we broke up our camp at the river and moved into the log huts at "Cantonment Miller," as it was officially named. The change was for the better, but the huts proved to be very uncomfortable. The stationary bunks took up so much of the room that we were uncomfortably crowded and the place was dark. When we started a fire the ground began to thaw out for some distance in front of the fireplace and turn to soft mud, but the earth remained frozen hard at the other end of the room. The fire had little effect on the cold air of the room in severe weather, except in its immediate vicinity. We burned green cottonwood, a very poor material for heating. While the logs burned on one end the sap ran out at the other. We got some ash and a little cedar wood, which was better, although we had to go long distances for it. Details of men went out and dragged in on home-made sleds the better kind of wood needed for cooking and baking. Cottonwood was plentiful all around us.