By Timothy A. Zwink
[Transcribed & Submitted by Sandi Carter & Marlene Clark]
In January, 1869, Colonel Benjamin H. Grierson, commander of the 10th United States Cavalry, rode to the proposed site of a few fort which was to be nestled at the foothills of the Wichita Mountains. Arriving at the location near Cashe Creek in southwestern Indian Territory, he studied the site, dismounted and took the saddle from his horse. Then he threw the harness to the ground saying, "We will build the post here." Later that month General Philip Sheridan, commanding the Department of the Missouri, visited the camp to approve Grierson’s selection. There the general gave his personal assistance in officially creating the post by holding the first stake driven to make the parade ground. (1)
This began the long and eventful history of Fort Sill. For more than a century the role of Fort Sill changed with the times: during its early years troopers patrolled the prairies for hostile Indians, but more recently artilleryman have directed cannon and missile fire at distant targets. A cursory view of the fort’s history shows its changing personality, its adaptation from frontier to modern times while remaining a protective fortress that continually has served American interests at home and abroad.
First to recognize the need for a post at this site was Captain Randolph B. Marcy, 5th United States Infantry, the Brevet Captain George B. McClellan, Corps of Engineers. In 1852 they were ordered by the War Department to explore the Red River and its surrounding regions. (2) After completing the assignment, Marcy reported to the Secretary of War:
"A garrison established near the western extremity of the Wichita range of mountains would be in the heart of the Comanche country, and near the point where they cross Red river upon their marauding expeditions into Texas and Mexico." (3)
However, this recommendation went unheeded until after the Civil War. (4)
With the outbreak of the Civil War, all building of western forts ceased. Fort Cobb had been established in 1859 on the Washita River to protect and
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(1) Captain Richard T. Jacobs, "Military Reminiscences
of Captain Richard T. Jacobs," The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. II,
No.I (March 1924), p. 13; John Murphy, "Reminiscences of the Washita
Campaign," The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. I, No. 2 (June 1923),
pp. 266-267.
(2) Randolph B. Marcy, "Expedition of the Red River of Louisiana in the
Year 1852." Senate Executive Document No. 54, 32nd Congress, 2
Session, p. I.
(3) Ibid., p. 88.
(4) William B. Morrison, Military Posts and Camps in Oklahoma (Oklahoma
City: Harlow Publishing Corporation, 1936), p. 159.
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police the villages of the Wichita and Caddo Indians, but its location was too far north to protect the Texas border. Soon after the war ended, military authorities decided that a post was needed farther south. As a result of Sheridan’s winter campaign in 1868-1869 against the Cheyenne, Kiowa and other Indians of the southern plains, Fort Cobb was abandoned because of its poor location. The focus of military operations then was moved to the junction of Cache and Medicine Bluff creeks (near the eastern base of the Wichita Mountains) as Marcy had suggested years before. (5)
Colonel Grierson explored the site in May, 1868, and reported to Sheridan that it was an excellent location for a new post. A final survey of the site was made in December, 1868, by Grierson, Colonel William B. Hazen, 38th United States Infantry and Major George A. Forsythe, 9th United States Cavalry. These officers recommended immediate occupation of the location. (6)
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(5) Ibid., p. 160; P. H. Sheridan, Personal Memoirs
of P. H. Sheridan (2 vols.; New York: Charles L. Webster & Company,
1888), Vol II, p. 338.
(6) Marvin Kroeker, Great Plains Command: William B. Hazen in the Frontier
West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1976), p. 86; William H. Leckie,
The Buffalo Soldiers: A Narrative of the Negro Cavalry in the West
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1967), p. 45; Carolyn Thomas Foreman,
"General William Babcock Hazen," The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol.
XX, No. 3 (September 1942), p. 332.
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During the first week in January, 1869, Sheridan ordered the troops and Indians to move from Fort Cobb to the new camp, approximately thirty-six miles south of the Washita River. Troops of the 7th United States Cavalry, 10th United States Cavalry, 19th Kansas Volunteers and 6th United States Infantry began the move. By January 10 all the troops were at the new site, which had an abundance of water, grass and building materials. The black troops of the 10th United States Cavalry and the white troops of the 6th United States Infantry were directed to construct and garrison the new post. (7)
The camp was established on January 7, 1869, by Sheridan, and construction began the next day. During the first year troops were quartered in shabby tents, while Grierson had his headquarters in a picket house near Medicine Bluff Creek. Other officers were housed in crude huts of the same picket type. Soldiers built the first building at the Camp Wichita by using rough logs cut along Medicine Bluff Creek. The materials for more permanent structures could not be obtained during those early years of the camp
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(7) William H. Leckie, Military Conquest of the Southern Plains (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963), p. 112; Lieutenant Colonel Melbourne C. Chandler, Of Garryowen in Glory: The History of the Seventh Cavalry Regiment (Annandale, Virginia: The Turnpike Press, Inc., 1960), p. 28; "Brief History of Fort Sill," Fort Sill Museum Library, Fort Sill, Oklahoma, p. I.
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because the nearest railroad station was some 300 miles to the north at Fort Harker in Kansas. (8)
Initially the new garrison was called Camp Washita (or Camp Medicine Bluff). However, on July 2, 1869, the camp was renamed Fort Sill in honor of Brigadier General Joshua W. Sill. Sheridan recommended this change to honor his classmate at West Point who had been killed on December 31, 1862, in the Battle of Stone River near Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Fort Sill was to serve as the base of operations against such hostile south plains Indians as the Cheyenne, Comanche and Kiowa. It also replaced Fort Cobb as the Indian agency headquarters for the tribes in the immediate area. (9)
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(8) G. A.Custer, My Life on the Plains, ed. by Milo
Milon Quaife (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1971), p. 467n; Robert W.
Frazer, Forts of the West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1972),
p. 124; W. H. Ouinette, "Early Days at Fort Sill." Prairie Lore, Vol.
IV (October, 1967), p. 171; Morris Swett, Fort Sill, Archives, Oklahoma
Historical Society, p. 17.
(9) Sheridan, Personal Memoirs, Vol. II, pp. 338-339; General Orders, No. 25,
1869, Headquarters, Department of the Missouri, Fort Sill Museum Library, Fort
Sill, Oklahoma; Robert M. Utley, Frontier Regulars: The United States Army
and the Indian, 1866-1891 (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, Inc.,
1973), pp. 154-155; Wilbur S. Nye, Plains Indian Raiders (Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1968), p. 144; Wilbur S. Nye, Carbine and
Lance: The Story of Old Fort Sill (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,
1969), p. 100.
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Construction of the permanent stone buildings began at Fort Sill in the spring, 1870. A few skilled civilian artisans and foremen were recruited in Kansas to direct the building. Stone masons, brick layers, sawyers, carpenters and plasterers were hired by the quartermaster. However, soldiers of the 10th United States Cavalry did most of the actual labor. Troops from the 6th United States Infantry helped the "buffalo soldiers" quarry stone at Quarry Hill east of the post. These men also erected warehouses and quarters. Along Cache Creek they burned lime in homemade kilns for plaster, and lumber came from timber cut near neighboring Mount Scott and Mount Sheridan. In 1871 nearly all the building was completed at a negligible cost to the government. The parsimonious Congress had appropriated only $10,000 for the hospital. Originally, the fort was designed as a six-company post, but soon that capacity was passed. Other construction continued slowly, and was interrupted intermittently by patrols and campaigns against hostile Indians. (10)
Although General Sheridan drove the Kiowa and Comanche onto their reservation, they remained restive. In 1870 warriors made repeated raids on government stock at Fort Sill, resulting in a substantial loss of horses and mules. Consequently a stone corral and other defensive positions were built at the post. A large pentagonal redoubt and two smaller redoubts were built to guard the fort. The blockhouse on Signal Mountain six miles west of the post also was built in 1871 as an outpost to warn the fort’s soldiers of the arrival of friend and foe. (11)
Other buildings were constructed during the early years of Fort Sill. In the summer of 1873 the stone guardhouse was completed, and the chapel was erected during 1875 and 1876. This ended the building program during the post’s frontier period. (12)
The original military reservation was quadrangular-shaped and had an area of approximately thirty-six square miles. The main building formed a square enclosing the parade ground. With a garrison strength never more than 800 troops and frequently less than 300, the post’s solitary location on the oceanlike prairies provied an inviting target for hostile Indian raiders. Oxen and mule trains had to haul supplies there from distant Westport, Missouri.
The isolation of the post was evident. Fort Richardson, the principal post in Texas, was 123 miles to the south, while the Wichita Indian Agency was 35 miles north. The Cheyenne Indian Agency was 75 miles north. Camp Supply was 190 miles to the northwest. Nevertheless, visitors reveled in the beauty of Fort Sill's location. On his first inspection tour of the region, General William T. Sherman commented, "This is a magnificent military site." Arriving from Fort Richardson in 1872 Lieutenant R. G. Carter wrote, "A more beautiful locality could hardly be imagined, wild, romantic and full of nature ...."
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(10) Vinson Lackey, "Fort Sill," Archives, Oklahoma
Historical Society, pp. 3-4; Gillett Griswold, "Old Fort Sill: The First
Seven Years," The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. XXXVI, No. I (Spring,
1958), p. 4; The Lawton Constitution and Morning Press, March 11. 1973;
Nye, Carbine and Lance, p. 122; Major E. L. N. Glass (comp. and ed.), The
History of the Tenth Cavalry, 1866-1921 (Fort Collins, Colorado: The Old
Army Press, 1972), p. 18; "Brief History of Fort Sill," pp.1-2.
(11) Ibid., Griswold, "Old Fort Sill," p. 4.
(12) Ibid., p.5.
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Submitted by Sandi Carter & Marlene Clark
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