Fort Gibson, Oklahoma - Transcribed & submitted by Nalora Burns! - Genealogy - http://maxpages.com/mygenroots/Fort_Gibson_pg

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FORT GIBSON - A Brief History, continued

In 1836 the remainder of the Creek Indians were forcibly removed from their homes in Alabama. After appalling suffering and many deaths on the way, their conductor brought them to Fort Gibson. Ten thousand of them, cold, destitute, and broken spirited, were encamped through the winter around the fort where they were given food enough to sustatin live until spring, when they could be removed to the land intended for them. Later, when the Seminole Indians were brought as prisoners from their old home in Florida, they were landed from the boats at Fort Gibson. Several thousand of them were established in camps in this locality where rations were issued to them; some of them remained several years before they could be induced to remove to the lands intended for them. At one time a few hundred Seminole Negroes were located at the same place. They had surrendered to General Jesup in Florida, and claimed that they had been promised emancipation in return for their surrender. Some of the wealthier Seminoles claimed them as slaves, and they were retained in the custody of the garrison while their status was being investigated and determined by the authorities in Washington. They were employed in 1845 and 1846 in the construction of the stone buildings at the fort.

Some of the Creek immigrants who had ventured to locate on their lands in the more remote part of their country near the present site of Holdenville, in 1843 became involved with a band of Wichita Indians, four of whom were killed by the Creeks. A call for help was sent in to the settlements and a general alarm spread over the Creek country. The Creeks became panic stricken, and women and children came flocking into Fort Gibson. The Creek agent and some of the traders on the Verdigris also rushed to the post for protection. Captain Boone was sent with his company to the mouth of Little River and returned a week later with the report that the alarm was unfounded.

Fort Gibson was employed also as a base for the establishment of other garrisons; thus in 1833 Fort Smith was temporarily re-established by a detachment of the Seventh Infantry from Fort Gibson commanded by Captain John Stuart. Two years later this detachment was again removed up the river thirteen miles to make Fort Coffee, to which point a road was constructed from Fort Gibson. In 1838 they were removed from Fort Coffee to create, near the Arkansas line, an establishment called Fort Wayne, another subsidiary to Fort Gibson. In the summer of 1834, under the direction of General Leavenworth, Camp Arbuckle at the mouth of the Cimarron River and Fort Holmes at the mouth of Little River were established, and the necessary buildings erected by detachments of the Seventh Infantry sent out from Fort Gibson.

In the spring of 1841 a detachment from Fort Gibson commanded by Captain B. D. Moore was dispatched to select a location for a fort on the Washita River; it was visited the next year by General Zachary Taylor who approved the site for the fort, which he named Fort Washita.

Details from Fort Gibson were engaged also in the construction of a number of important roads; thus in 1826 Captain Pierce M. Butler and Lieutenant James L. Dawson surveyed a military road from Fort Gibson to Fort Smith, the first planned road construction within the limits of the present Oklahoma. Other details built the road from the post to the site of Camp Arbuckle at the mouth of the Cimarron, and another to the mouth of the Washita River.

The unhealthful location of Fort Gibson and the appalling death rate there resulted in ceaseless agitation for the abandonment of the old log fort and the removal of the garrison to a more healthful situation. The people of Arkansas had never given up hope that the garrison might be returned to them. When they were admitted into the Union in 1836 they had sufficient influence to secure the passage of a bill by Congress providing for the removal of the post to that new state. A commission of army officers was appointed to select a new site but they definitely reported against the wisdom of changing the location of the fort which, they said, was greatly needed where it was; but they said that if it were to be removed, the site selected should be at Fort Coffee, still within the limits of the Indian Territory, about thirteen miles up the Arkansas River from Fort Smith. As this did not meet the wishes of the people of Arkansas the matter was dropped.

It was necessary to make constant repairs on the decaying buildings; in 1843 a sawmill was set up at the post for cutting lumber with which to do this work, and a contract was let to Thomas Rogers for the delivery there of 2,000 pine logs which he was to cut on the Spavinaw and float down the Grand River.

An order was made the next summer requiring all troops to appear on all parades and drills in white trousers, and in white jackets on all drills. First fatigue call was to be at 5:30 in the morning and guard mount an hour and a half later.

Continued agitation for the construction of more substantial quarters for the garrison resulted in an appropriation by Congress, and on July 17, 1845, General Thomas S. Jesup, quartermaster of the army, arrived at Fort Gibson to direct the construction of new buildings of stone on the hill above, and on the slope between it and the old log fort. Work on the new structures was soon started and by March 1846, a barracks for two companies had progressed above the second floor and timbers for both floors and piazzas were laid.

When the work had reached this stage it was stopped by the burning of the saw mill at the fort with the loss of mill, lumber, and tools. By 1855, the only building completed was the commissary, which is to be seen across the present street from the barracks. The walls of the partially constructed barracks stood for more than ten years, and still marked the unfinished plans of the army when the post was abandoned. The other structures of the fort at that time were principally log barracks, although a substantial number of those originally standing had been destroyed by a disastrous fire in December 1854.

The Cherokee people had been agitating for several years for the removal of Fort Gibson from their country in order that they might enjoy the use of the boat landing which was claimed to be the only good landing place giving access to the interior of the Cherokee Nation. Their argument was strengthened by the fact that, as the frontier had advanced, newer forts had supplanted Fort Gibson in usefulness and strategic location.

The Cherokees were finally successful; the order to abandon the fort was issued June 8, 1857, and within the month was substantially executed. The fort and reservation were turned over to the Cherokee Nation, & the Cherokee Council, on November 6, 1857, passed an act creating the town of Kee-too-wah upon what had been the military reservation, and provided for the sale to Cherokee citizens of lots therein.

The Civil War brought further changes to the old fort. For a time in possession of the Confederate Army, it was afterwards regained by the Union side and on April 5, 1863, the whole hill was reoccupied by three Cherokee regiments, four companies of Kansas cavalry, and Hopkins' Battery of Volunteers, an aggregate of 3,150 men, with four field pieces and two mountain howitzers.

A main works embraced fifteen to twenty acres with angles and facings; from this extended a line of earthworks about a quarter of a mile in length, the whole defense being considered strong enough to resist a force of 20,000 men. To this work was, for a time, given the name of Fort Blunt, in compliment to Major General James G. Blunt, then commanding the district of the frontier.

General Blunt had made a forced march from Kansas to Fort Gibson and on the night of July 16, 1863, crossed the Arkansas River, proceeded down the Texas Road, and the next morning attacked the Confederate command under General Douglas H. Cooper at Honey Springs, near the site of the present Oktaha, south of Muskogee. By this engagement, the most important battle in the Indian Territory during the war, the Union forces succeeded in preventing a union of Cooper's forces with those of General William L. Cabell, coming from Fort Smith, and the probable recapture of Fort Gibson by the Confederates.

After this battle the strength of Fort Gibson was increased until on July 31 it aggregated 5,204, and on August 31 there were 6,014 troops at the garrison, with eighteen field pieces. Being the most important fortified point in the Territory, it served as headquarters for the military operations in this region during the remainder of the Civil War and played a conspicuous part in strengthening the hands of the loyal elements among the tribes. The name of Blunt was officially attached to the post until December 31, 1863, when it was dropped in favor of the old name, Fort Gibson.

After the Union forces took possession of the fort it was surrounded by several thousand destitute Indian and Negro refugees who remained there for protection and for the food that was issued to them in small quantities. The multitude of people thus congregated presented a problem to the commandant. Some of them put in small crops under the protection of the guns of the fort; they would have gone farther away to their homes but for the fear that they would be raided by predatory bands from both sides, ranging over the country.

A detachment of regular troops from the first battalion of the Tenth United States Infantry in command of Major James M. Mulligan, on February 17, 1866, relieved the Sixty-second Illinois Volunteers then constituting the garrison. The post remained garrisoned under the name of Fort Gibson by four companies of the Sixth Infantry until September 30, 1871; it was then vacated by the command under General W. B. Hazen and broken up as a military post; there was left only a guard composed of a small detachment of the Sixth Infantry for the quartermaster's department, which temporarily occupied the post as a depot for such transportation and other facilities as were necessary to enable paymasters and other officers to communicate with Fort Sill.

Beginning with that of 1811, nearly all the classes of the United States Military Academy at West Point were represented among the more than one hundred graduates who were stationed at Fort Gibson from time to time prior to the Civil War. Every class after 1819 had from three to ten graduates who served in later years at that famous post. Many graduates were sent from West Point direct to Fort Gibson to get their first taste of army life and frontier experience. Eight of the class of 1842 came for their frontier service to this fort from whence they were engaged in protecting the Santa Fe traders.

Except for short intervals, General Arbuckle commanded at Fort Gibson for 17 years until 1841 when, because of the dilapidated condition of the buildings there, he removed his department headquarters (but not the garrison), to Fort Smith. Soon afterward the command was given to General Zachary Taylor. When Taylor departed for service in Mexico, Arbuckle was returned to the command of Fort Gibson and remained there through the years of trouble and turmoil of his Indian neighbors of the Cherokee Nation, with whom he was more or less involved.

Fort Gibson was garrisoned by detachments of the Seventh Infantry from its inception in 1824 to February 7, 1839, when the troops left for service in Florida and were replaced by the Fourth Infantry that had arrived the day before, after a long, weary march from that remote Seminole battleground. For a time three companies of the Third Infantry served at the fort until the spring of 1840. The next year General Arbuckle was relieved of his command and it was transferred for a time to Colonel Alexander Cummings of the Fourth Infantry.

In 1843 the post was garrisoned by three troops of Dragoons and four companies of the Sixth Infantry under the command of Colonel William Davenport. Another well known officer who was in command of the post in 1850 was General W. G. Belknap of the Fifth Infantry. Belknap and Arbuckle died in 1851.

The conclusion of the Civil War returned Fort Gibson to the unimportant status to which it was reduced by its abandonment in 1857. For years, however, the large number of substantial buildings of the post were found useful from time to time. It was reoccupied in July, 1872, by two companies of the Tenth Cavalry under Colonel Benjamin H. Grierson who was sent there to cope with the lawless element attracted by the movement of the railroad camps engaged in building the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railroad from the Kansas line to the Red River.

After the brief stay of the Tenth Cavalry a company of the Sixth Cavalry and a detachment of the Fifth Infantry were assigned to the post to help police the country, With Lieutenant Thomas M. Woodruft of the Fifth Infantry in command. They were mainly occupied in aiding the Cherokee agent in resisting the encroachment of intruding white men unlawfully seeking to settle in the Cherokee Nation. In order to maintain communication with the outside world a telegraph line was constructed to the fort from the ailroad at Gibson Station. Men engaged in cutting poles for the line were crossing the Grand River on a ferry flatboat on April 20, 1874, when in the middle of the river, by awkward handling of the front guy rope, the boat was allowed to swing broadside to the current; this caused it to fill with water and sink. As a result six soldiers of the Fifth Infantry and the Sixth Cavalry and one civilian drowned.

Later, in 1879, a detachment of the Twenty-second Infantry under the command of Major A. S. Hough was stationed at the post endeavoring to aid the civilian authorities in suppressing a gang of forty or fifty thieves & desperadoes that had been plundering and terrorizing the country, particularly in the Chickasaw Nation and on the Potawatomi reservation. To this duty Hough had been ordered by General Sheridan.

During the Creek trouble of 1883, called the Green Peach War, part of the Twentieth Infantry was stationed at Fort Gibson and detachments were sent out to Muskogee, Eufaula, and Okmulgee to police the country. One detachment went to the Sac and Fox agency and captured several hundred Creeks who were brought to Fort Gibson where they were detained for a time and given protection from the hostile faction. The Adjutant General on August 22, 1890, issued a final rder for the abandonment of the fort, directing the withdrawal of the troops and disposition of the public property there. In 1899, when the little disturbance greatly exaggerated by the name of the "Snake Uprising" caused some discussion, a company of the Ninth Infantry was for a short time stationed at the old post.

For a number of years the Cherokee agency was conducted at Fort Gibson, first by Montford Stokes, former governor of North Carolina, and by his successor, Pierce M. Butler, former governor of South Carolina, who left Fort Gibson to return to his home and organize the Palmetto Regiment which he was commanding in the Mexican War when he was killed August 20, 1847, at Churubusco.

Even after the removal of the agency the old fort was the scene of amazing activities during some of the payments to the Cherokees, notably the payment of 1852 and that of 1894. These were festive occasions when there were nearly as many white men as Indians, come to take what advantage they might from the large amount of currencv in circulation. Many of them were creditors of the Indians who had come to collect their dues; others were vendors of every conceivable sort of merchandise calculated to tempt the Indians to part with their suddenly acquired wealth. The payment of over a million dollars in 1894 was made in the old barracks building. The money was piled on a table in front of the clerks, while a dozen armed Indians stood guard on either side, and the Indians came up as their names were called and received their shares.

Among the many interesting visitors to Fort Gibson was picturesque Sam Houston, who came in 1829 and established himself about three miles northwest of the post at a place which he called Wigwam Neosho. Here he was in close touch with the fort, the Creek agency, and the trading post on the Verdigris River an equal distance to the northwest, where he carried on his intrigues with the Indians, and drank and played poker with the army officers and traders. There he lived and enjoyed the solace of his pretty Cherokee componion, Diana Rogers, until 1832 when he left for his adventures in Texas. It may have been in a measure the recollection of Houston and his companionship that later influenced the movement of troops from Fort Gibson for the relief of beleaguered Texans.

One officer of outstanding interest who served at Fort Gibson was the Frenchman, B. L. E. Bonneville of the Seventh Infantry. In 1824, while he was a lieutenant, he secured a leave of absence and as secretary accompanied General Lafayette to France after his triumphal tour of the United States. Eight years later he secured another leave and made a protracted expedition in the Rocky Mountains. He kept voluminous notes of his experiences, which were purchased by Washington Irving who made them into the fascinating book, The Adventures of Captain Bonneville.

In 1888 Colonel J. J. Coppinger of the Eighteenth Infantry was in command at Fort Gibson, and in March made an inventory of the buildings at the post together with a general description of them. He reported seven stone buildings and ten frame, nearly all large, substantial buildings which ranged in condition from fair to good.

These buildings fell into private ownership and most of them were razed for the material that was in them. Four of the stone buildings are standing. The barracks was originally 23 by 154 feet in size, containing ten rooms for the accomodation of two companies of Infantry. The north half of this building was torn down and the material used in the construction of a house.

The Oklahoma Historical Society purchased the remaining south half of the barracks building, the stone ammunition building, and the great brick oven, together with the land on which they stand. Considerable money was expended in the restoration of these buildings, and the barracks building is now occupied by a custodian and his family who will show the place to visitors. The most picturesque exhibit at Fort Gibson is the reconstructed log stockade built on the site of the first log fort. This work was directed by a commission created by the State of Oklahoma.

The best-preserved relic of the old fort is the commanding officer's residence, facing what was the parade ground of the fort. Colonel William Babcock Hazen came to command the fort in January 1871. He brought there his bride who, as his widow, was later to become the wife of the Spanish-American hero, Admiral George Dewey. Lieutenant Colonel John Joseph Coppinger, commandant of the fort, occupied the building in 1886 with his family. James G. Blaine, father of Mrs. Coppinger, visited his daughter in this residence and was confined there at one time by illness. The cornerstone of the building bears the inscription: "Erected A. D. 1867, A. S. Kimball, Capt. A. Q. M. U. S."

Jacque Hopkins Wolski
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