1st U

Between September 1864 and November 1866 individuals soldiered across the West. Many of them died there – killed by Indians, scurvy, epidemic disease, and winter blizzards. Officially they were known as the United States Volunteers, six regiments recruited from prisons at Point Lookout, Rock Island, Alton, Camps Douglas, Chase, and Morton.

While these “galvanized soldiers’ stirring combat and sacrificial service deserve serious study, historians have demonstrated little interest in them. After a century they have been almost forgotten. At the end of their service they were discharged at Forts Leavenworth and Kearney. They then scattered with the winds, some choosing new names, new identities. No Southern state would claim them. The Grand Army of the Republic forgot them; They are a lost legion, unhonored, unsung.

Yet the record of their achievements is one in which any American could take pride. During 1864 through 1866 they restored stage and mail service between the Missouri River and California; escorted supply trains along the Oregon and Santa Fe Trails; rebuilt hundreds of miles of telegraph lines destroyed by the Indians; kept hostile Indians from attacking settlements; guarded surveying parties for the Union Pacific Railroad; searched for white women captured by the Indians; and manned remote forts on the frontier allowing other troops to be used in the Civil War.

Although nearly all Galvanized Yankees or White-washed Rebs were recruited from Union prisons after hope of a Confederate victory was lost, the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Regiments were recruited in the fall of 1864 and early spring of 1865 specifically to garrison isolated forts in the West with no likelihood of confronting their friends and Relatives. In direct contrast, the First U.S. Volunteers freely enlisted between January and June 1864 to serve on the front lines in the East, when their alternatives were release to go north, release to work on government projects, or exchange to return south. With this thought in mind lets look at the history of the 1^st U.S. Volunteers.

As Americans anxiously awaited news of the Second Battle of Bull Run raging in the East, horrifying reports came from Minnesota of Dakota (Sioux) war parties burning and pillaging homes and settlements, as well as, indiscriminately killing men, women and children. Terrified settlers fled the Minnesota-Dakota-Iowa frontier and demanded action. Back East, President Lincoln was involved in a re-election campaign and the civil war was not going well for the Union. Now, on top of all of these events, there was pressure to divide limited Union manpower between the bloodbath in the East and South and the Western front. President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton frantically searched for more troops. With enlistments running out, few volunteers, and a flawed recruitment and training system that only put approximately 7 percent of its draftees into the field, the Union was unable to keep its battle lines filled. Federal troops were deserting at the rate of fifty-five hundred men per month and the number of new recruits barely kept pace with the thousands of veterans killed, wounded, or captured. The War Department now recognized just how bad of shape the Union Army was in and realized that it definitely needed a new source for manpower. Yielding to the clamor of field commanders, state politicians, and prisoners of war, the president and Secretary of War Stanton quietly consented in December 1863 to the voluntary enlistment of Confederate deserters and prisoners of war into United States military service.

What possessed these men to renounce their loyalty to the Confederacy and declare another. According to many historians, Southerners could and did when their alternative was shame and humiliation or it required disloyalty to family. Perhaps it was away to alleviate prison conditions. Many of these prisoners of war had been there on that flat stretch of sand, which was bare of trees, shrubs, or vegetation of any kind, for two or more years. They had endured being stripped searched, having their personal possessions taken away, being allowed one meal a day, one blanket, one set of clothes, one pair of shoes, and no underwear or stockings. They also endured scorching summers “whose severity during the day is as great on the barren sand, as anywhere in the Union north of the Gulf,” and hard winters “more severe at that point than anywhere in the country south of Boston.” Surrounded by a 15-foot board stockade, they were “confined in open tents, on the naked ground, without a plant or handful of straw between them and the heat or frost of the earth.”

In 1864, it seemed to many Confederate soldiers that their loyalty to the Confederacy was forcing them to fail in their primary responsibility to protect and provide for their families, enlistment in the Union army promised an avenue of escape from prison walls, Union greenbacks, and protection for their loved ones within the Union Lines.

How was it that the sobriquet “Galvanized Yankees” came into being? Who first used the words “Galvanized Yankees?” And when? No one can say for certain. All sorts of appellations bearing the word “Yankee” where in vernacular use during most of the civil war. In border states where allegiances were divided, local Confederates referred to neighbors on the Federal side as “Home-made Yankees.”

General Benjamin Butler who was instrumental in recruiting the 1^st Regiment under President Lincoln’s direction, referred to these recruits as “repentant rebels,” who a friend of mine calls “transfugees.” In most of the early official communications they were described simply as “rebel prisoners” or Deserters,” terms which became inapplicable and were resented by the men themselves. When the U.S. Volunteers first arrived on the frontier, the phrase “white-washed Rebels” was sometimes used by their fellow soldiers from the Western state regiments.

It was Samuel Bowles who defined with exactness the present meaning of Galvanized Yankees and made it stick by dispatching a story to his widely quoted newspaper, the Springfield (Mass.) Republican. On May 24, 1865, Bowles wrote: “Among the present limited number of troops on the Plains are two regiments of infantry, all from the rebel army. They have cheerfully re-enlisted into the federal service . . . . They are known in the army as “white-washed rebs,” or as they call themselves ‘galvanized Yankees.’ “.

American nomenclature, however, has a shifting quality, and during the remaining year and a half they served in the West, the Galvanized Yankees were referred to in common speech not only by that name but as galvanized infantry, enlisted prisoners, Rebels, former Rebels, and of course, U.S. Volunteers. In all official communications they were U.S. Volunteers, and the longer the regiment served, the fewer the references to its origin.

Near the end of 1863, one of the most controversial figures in the Union Army, General Benjamin Butler, developed an interest in converting Rebels into Yankees. Butler was a shrewd politician, questionable military leader, hater with a genius for creating enemies as well as whipping subordinates into line, ruthless and possessed of such abounding energy that few people could ignore him. As Commander of the Department of Virginia and North Carolina, he was responsible for the operation of one of the largest of all prison camps, Point Lookout, a peninsula of sand thrusting out into Chesapeake Bay.

Late in December 1863, Butler began an earnest correspondence with Secretary of War Stanton, in which he expressed the opinion that many more prisoners could be enlisted into the army than into the navy. As Butler was a political power in Massachusetts, the Secretary of War decided to bring the matter to President Lincoln’s attention. On January 2, 1864, Lincoln addressed himself directly to the persistent lobbyist, Major General Benjamin F. Butler, informing him to enlist a regiment of Confederate prisoners of war at Point Lookout, which was within his department of Virginia and North Carolina.

On or near January 10, 1864, the guards at Point Lookout, began taking prisoners into a house one at a time for questioning. Following the president’s explicit directions to Butler, each man at Point Lookout privately was answering one of four questions, after he had heard them all.

First. Do you desire to be sent South as a prisoner of war for exchange?

Second. Do you desire to take the oath of allegiance and parole, and enlist in the Army or Navy of the United States, and if so in which?

Third. Do you desire to take the oath and parole and be sent North to work on public works, under the penalty of death if found in the South before the end of the war?

Fourth. Do you desire to take the oath of allegiance and go to your home within the lines if the U.S. Army, under like penalty if found South beyond those lines during the war?

The prisoner’s name, answer, city, county, state, and Confederate company and regiment were recorded and a witness attested to the prisoner’s signature under the option he chose.

The interrogation of some 8,000 prisoners individually was a slow process, and it was late march before General Butler informed Secretary Stanton that he had “more than a minimum regiment of repentant rebels recruited at Point Lookout. In actuality, one in eight of the prisoners at Point Lookout took the oath and became Galvanized Yankees.

Whether ardent Unionist, repentant Rebel, or prudent opportunist, the average recruit was like most other Civil War soldiers. He was single, white, dark-haired Protestant male in his mid-twenties who was born in the United States, and farmed to provide for himself. He resided in low- to moderate-slaveholding rural county in the central portion of his state. Upon his enlistment, the soldier earned his manhood by serving faithfully throughout his tour of duty, which carried him first to Virginia and North Carolina, then to the northwestern frontier, and finally to the central plains. Surviving the dangers and hardships of frontier service, he would be honorably mustered out in 1865 or 1866.

General Butler ordered Major Charles Dimon to proceed to Camp Hoffman at Point Lookout Maryland, to take command of a regiment of enlisted Confederate prisoners of war currently being recruited there, on March 8, 1864.

On his second day in command Dimon established the daily routine for the enlisted prisoners of war. Reveille woke them at daybreak, 4:30 - 5:00 A.M. in the late spring and summer and 6:00 A.M. the rest of the year. After reveille and roll call, the men rolled their blankets and policed their quarters until breakfast, which was served an hour after reveille. Following breakfast, details policed company grounds, straightened up the quarters, dug drainage ditches, cut wood, and performed other fatigue duties. Sick call was at eight o’clock each morning. Companies drilled twice each morning Monday through Saturday, and for one and a half to two hours each afternoon Monday through Friday. On late weekday afternoons, the men readied their uniforms, boots, and brass for dress parade and roll coll, which took place at 4:30 or 5:30 P.M. in the spring and summer. On Saturday afternoons the men washed their clothes and prepared for Sunday inspections, which were held at 5:30 A.M. Retreat was sounded immediately after the dress parade at sundown, followed by tattoo at 8:00 or 8:30 P.M. and the playing of taps thirty minutes later.

On March 28, 1864, the regiment was officially designated as the 1^st U.S. Volunteer Infantry. ¹¹ This was the culmination of the War Department’s two years of circling the sensitive question of allegiances – a complete acceptance of all erring brothers who were willing to repent.

After weeks of drill and fatigue duty, the “Galvanized Yankees” received their first military assignment. Carrying three days’ rations of beef and hard bread, on April 23, 1864 the First U.S. Volunteers embarked on the transport George Henry for Norfolk, where they would relieve the fourth Rhode Island Volunteers guarding the defenses of Norfolk and Portsmouth.

As Dimon set up his headquarters in Norfolk, he and his officers worked from 5:00 A.M. to 3:00 A.M. for days preparing enlistment papers and muster rolls; distributing clothing, arms, tents, and equipment; and doing all the guard duty of the city. The regiment was formally entered into U.S. service on the first of May 1864, with the enlisted men’s muster dates varying with their day of enlistment.

Ending the regiment’s isolation from the battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House, Confederates from Suffolk attacked the picket lines outside of Norfolk, the night of May 19, 1864. Consequently, the First U.S. Volunteers received their marching orders and forty rounds of cartridges apiece. The action that the regiment desired, had found them.

In June, with the Confederate Army on the move and facing General Grant at Cold Harbor, General Butler ordered the First U.S. Volunteers to get ready to go up river if they were needed. Upon the order of Brigadier General Israel Vogdes, district commander, the 1^st US Volunteers organized an expedition to examine Knott’s Island and the peninsula between North River and Currituck Sound. June 14, 1864 found Companies A, C, D, E, F, G, and H, with three days’ cooked rations and forty rounds of ammunition per man, boarding the steamer Currituck and barges for the battalion’s first taste of action. In all the expedition netted eleven prisoners who were brought back to Norfolk; one for enticing Union soldiers to desert, two for disloyalty, and four for blockade running.

Back at Norfolk, the First U.S. Volunteers resumed their daily routine. However, as soon as the Fourth of July holiday had passed, orders came sending the First U.S. Volunteers back into the field. The regiment moved out on July 9, carrying sixty rounds of ammunition and two days’ rations each on their way to Suffolk. This raid proved to be more dangerous than the one to Knott’s Island, because the regiment met the enemy for the first time. One man was killed, and two others were captured, one of whom was killed as soon as he fell into Confederate hands.

Less than two weeks after their return to Norfolk, the First U.S. Volunteers moved out on July 27 on what was to be their last mission in the East, a ninety-eight mile march into North Carolina. In this forty-eight hour raid, the First U.S. Volunteers captured about 120 horses, many bales of cotton, and over one thousand pounds of tobacco. To their great surprise, they also seized a schooner loaded with watermelons, which were “Devoured by the boys.” From the city bank the men confiscated a large number of unsigned bills, some of unusual denominations of three, four, and seven dollars. While keeping some as souvenirs, the regiment passed as genuine some of the bills to the people along the route back to Norfolk.

Thus far in the War Department’s game of oaths and allegiances, nothing had been said about sending the First U.S. Volunteers to the frontier to fight Indians. However, when General Grant heard of the skirmishes that the First U.S. Volunteers had been used in, he was very disturbed. He had no enthusiasm for trifling with loyalties. Very likely he viewed the experiment as an extremely unmilitary business conceived by three civilians – Lincoln, Stanton, and Butler – who were too much inclined to meddle in military matters which none of them understood.

Consequently, Grant as general in chief of the army, informed the War Department on August 9, 1864 that he was ordering the First Regiment U.S. Volunteers to report to General John Pope, commanding the Department of the Northwest, in Milwaukee Wisconsin. In this way, the shrewd Union commander, who opposed enlisting prisoners of war in U.S. service, engineered an effective trade. In return for these new galvanized garrisons, Pope was ordered to send Sherman an equal number of troops, if not more.

Most officers and men received the news with enthusiasm, and on Monday afternoon, August 15, 1864, the regiment, 1000 strong, boarded the transport ship, Continental. This vessel was destined to play a romantic role in the history of the west; less than two later the Continental would carry more than 100 unmarried women, known as Asa Mercer’s belles, around Cape Horn to Seattle as perspective brides for lonely miners.

The Continental docked at New York Wednesday morning August 17, and for the next 24 hours regimental and company officers had their usual difficulties with the usual military confusion which prevails in larger cities during wartime. Because of a misunderstanding by the local quartermaster, they marched to the depot of the Erie Railroad. Then after another march through the August heat across the city to the depot of the Hudson River Railroad, they learned that no train would be ready for them until the next day.

While the regiment was in New York City, Colonel Dimon checked in at the Department of the East headquarters and received new orders from Washington. At General Pope’s request, companies A, F, G, and I under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel William Tamblyn, had been detached on the eighteenth and were to proceed to Milwaukee, headquarters of the Department of the Northwest. Colonel Dimon and the remaining six companies of the First U.S. Volunteers were to proceed to St. Louis. During their brief stay in New York City, about 20 men vanished from the ranks of the First U.S. Volunteers.

About noon on August 18, the regiment boarded a 29-car New York Central train bound for Chicago. Upon reaching Chicago on Sunday Afternoon August 21, the First U.S. Volunteer Regiment divided. Although Colonel Dimon and regimental headquarters occasionally communicated with the Minnesota-Dakota battalion, they never saw their comrades in Companies A, F, G, and I again.

Colonel Dimon and his reduced regiment of six companies rode on the St. Louis and Chicago Railroad to St. Louis, arriving at two o’clock on the morning of August 22, 1864.

At St. Louis, Colonel Dimon was informed that further orders from General Pope awaited him. “Immediately take boat up Missouri River, destination Fort Rice, Dakota Territory. On arrival at Fort Rice, Colonel C.A.R. Dimon will report himself and command to Brigadier General Sully commanding Northwestern Indian Expedition.” Pope meanwhile had notified Sully that the 1^st U.S. Volunteers were not to be considered additional troops but replacements for the 30^th Wisconsin, which was badly needed in the South.

Resting two days at Benton Barracks from their week long day-and-night journey from Norfolk to St. Louis, the Galvanized Yankees awaited transportation up the Missouri. Major General William S. Rosecrans, commander of the Department of the Missouri, “highly praised” the First U.S. Volunteers for their drill and perfect discipline.

Upon the arrival of their transport, the steamer Effie Deans, the First U.S. Volunteers received ordnance and ordnance stores for the regiment from the St. Louis Arsenal. The six companies of the First U.S. Volunteers, boarded the Effie Deans on August 27, 1864 and headed up the Missouri River. Thus in a little more than a fortnight after General Grant decided to send them West, they were well on their way into the heart of the hostile Indian country of Dakota.

Outfitted for the Indian trade, the steamer’s moccasined crew, French Creole captain and pilot, and Native steward were quite a sight for the First U.S. Volunteers. The Southerners and their New England overseers must have gaped at their first glimpse of the world they were entering. At about every good landing, the boat stopped, the First U.S. Volunteers threw out a picket, and the soldiers cut wood for steam. Between Jefferson City and Sioux City, Colonel Dimon’s men and crew were on the lookout constantly for guerillas. They had two field pieces with trained crews with which to defend the ship if necessary.

Whatever the men’s reasons for entering Confederate Service, the 1^st U.S. Volunteers were quite adept at getting out. After dark when “Old Muddy” took on its distinctive whitish tinge, “ as if faint light had been struck up along its surface,” enlisted men were disappearing over the rail. Since the regiment left Norfolk, seventy-three men had deserted by August 31, 1864. Forty-four of them were members of the six companies aboard the Effie Dean, directly under the control of Colonel Dimon. Company H, among the last recruited, was the hardest hit with sixteen desertions to their discredit, but their were groups of men disappearing from each company in the regiment. General Henry H. Sibley disparaged the entire Minnesota Battalion for large numbers slipping away from their posts on the Minnesota-Dakota frontier.

As the Effie Dean plodded along making forty miles a day against the swift current, the First U.S. Volunteers were kept busy drilling, firing their twelve-pound field piece, and competing in marksmanship. The winners were excused from one tour of guard duty. The regiment as a whole was not aware of the ordeal waiting for them. Due to the lateness of the season and the unusually low level of the Missouri River, a steamer drawing twenty-two inches of water like the Effie Dean would be unable to reach Fort Rice. When they reached Sioux City, they found their next, shallower draft vessel disabled. The Effie Dean would have to carry them as far as Fort Sully, where the quartermaster would supply land transportation to Fort Rice.

On Saturday September 17, 1864, the Effie Dean reached Fort Randall, D.T. , where the mail finally caught up with the First U.S. Volunteers. Fort Randall was a collection of barracks on one side, officer’s log cabins on the other, with a parade ground in the center. In the middle of the parade ground was an octagonal log blockhouse with loopholes for muskets in case of attack. Only the sutler’s store and the hospital were frame structures. As pets, the quartermaster’s wife kept a live antelope and another kept a young buffalo.

After leaving Fort Randall, the Effie Dean headed upriver again, but was forced by low water to stop at the mouth of the White Earth River. After scouting upstream, the boat’s captain announced that farther progress was impossible for an indefinite period. Fort Rice was 272 miles to the north, but Crow Creek Agency was only 40 miles upriver, Colonel Dimon then ordered his officers to load their men with all the ammunition and rations they could carry, the First U.S. Volunteers then disembarked, and “in heavy marching order” started for the Agency. Dimon and those of his junior officers who had brought their own horses with them on the boat, rode in advance.

At noon of the third day, September 30, they reached Crow Creek Agency. After a three-day delay to rest and gather suitable transportation, on October 3, 1864 the First U.S. Volunteers started north for Fort Sully, a sixty-mile land journey.

On October 7, 1864, they arrived at Fort Sully, a crude post consisting of a pair of earth-roofed barracks running parallel, the ends connected by picket stockades. To their surprise they found General Sully and his returning expedition camped nearby. “There we first saw the old warrior, General Sully. No pomp or parade – but practical, energetic, and simply great he appeared. His face betokened a man of action, and theories – the right man for the right place.”

Sully expressed sympathy with Dimon for his lack of supplies, and transferred a few of his wagons and shelter tents tot he regiment for the 170-mile march they had to make to reach Fort Rice. “I was much pleased with the appearance of the officers and men,” he reported later to General Pope.

On October 13, 1864, the first death on the march occurred. Private John Blackburn, 21 years old, of Pike County, Kentucky, died of chronic diarrhea. His company commander wrote in the record book: “A good and faithful soldier.” Three others would die of the same ailment before the column reached Fort Rice.

Early on the morning of October 17, 1864, the First U.S. Volunteers sighted Fort Rice, on the West Bank of the river, and they began crossing on the post’s ferry. Fort Rice which would be the regiments headquarters for the next year, was then only about four months old, having been established by General Sully in July and named for the late General James. C. Rice. The 30^th Wisconsin, which had been building the fort during the summer, had departed for the South a few days before the arrival of the Volunteers, and only a small detachment of the 6^th Iowa Cavalry was present to receive the new arrivals. The Iowan’s left the next day, using the ox-wagons, Dimon’s soldiers had brought up from Fort Sully.

As many of the post buildings were incomplete – there were roofed quarters for only four companies – Colonel Dimon’s first orders assigned details to cutting timber, operating the two small saw mills, and constructing buildings. Reveille was posted for 6:00 A.M.; Surgeon’s Call 6:15 ; breakfast 6:45; guard mountings 7:30; dinner 12 noon; recall from fatigue 4:30 P.M.; retreat at sundown; tatto 7:45; taps 8:00 P.M. He also announced that there would be no drill until the necessary buildings were completed and ordered the officers in charge of fatigue parties to report in person each evening at retreat the results of that day’s work and set 10:30 A.M. Sundays for weekly inspection.

Construction work continued through November, the increasingly colder weather spurring the men to extra efforts. Colonel Dimon kept a close watch on all the building details, insisting that elaborate shelving and gun racks be added tot he bare interiors. He mad a point of living in a tent himself until all of his men were in barracks, and to relieve them of time-consuming cooking duties he ordered the standard army mess system abandoned. Instead of four men rotating duties of preparing food for each other, regular cooks were assigned to company cookhouses.

Dimon occasionally released a few men from work details to go out as hunting parties, never less than six privates with a noncommissioned officer in charge. These hunting details supplied beaver, sirloin of elk, venison, prairie chickens, and buffalo steaks for the company and officer’s mess tables. At times officers received three days’ personal leave to go hunting for recreation. These hunting parties were instructed “to be always on the alert for Indians but never to molest them unless attacked by them.”

Fishing was another means of relaxation while supplementing the garrison’s bland diet. Undeterred by the prospect of losing their scalps, some avid fishermen hit the Missouri upon first opportunity. One lucky soul caught a fifty-pound sturgeon, measuring four and a half feet long. The men thought that it tasted like codfish.

Early in December a few horses were brought up from Fort Sully, and Dimon organized a mounted infantry force for use in patrolling the area and for carrying mail to Forts Berthold and Sully. Severe winter storms came now with increasing frequency.

To keep the officers and noncommissioned officers busy during days of inclement weather, Dimon organized regular classes in tactics and army regulations. He also issued a series of orders to enforce cleanliness.

In mid-December 1864, Dimon put himself in the role of a chivalric knight by taking his mounted patrol on a 40-mile circuit in search of Fanny Kelly, a captive of hostile Sioux reported to be in the vicinity. He did not find Mrs. Kelly, but some Indians presented him with three fine horses. The temperature dropped to 34E below zero, and several of his men suffered frozen feet, faces, and fingers. On Christmas Day the regiment assembled, and the first United States flag was raised over Fort Rice.

The regiment closed out the year of 1864, by mustering for pay. It was an empty ceremony, for there was no paymaster, and probably none would appear until the boats arrived in the spring.

The potatoes that Surgeon Herrick mentioned in his report came from St Louis, which were ferried up the river on the “River boat Yellowstone”, which had tied up at Fort Rice’s landing for two days (May 9-10). The officers and men of Two Companies, “B”, and “K” were packing their equipment and boarding the river boat in obedience to orders from General Sully, they were bound for Fort Union and Fort Berthold to relieve the companies from Wisconsin and the troops from Iowa.

An additional detachment under Lieutenant Cyrus Hutchins, of Company “H”, embarked on the River boat Deer Lodge for Fort Benton on May the 12th. Now this group of 10 men had the honor of serving at the farthest point north from all of the posts and stations occupied by the Galvanized Yankees.

The departure of these units, left Fort Rice rather thin with a garrison of just under 300 men, and at a time when the hostile Indian attacks were becoming much more frequent, the fort could ill afford a loss of any more companies. Because on May 19th, a fatigue party was attacked near the blockhouse, and Private John Cumbey from Campbell, Virginia, was wounded. Just one week later, 25 Sioux ambushed Lieutenant Benjamin Wilson as he was leaving the post with a logging detail, Wilson was riding ahead of his men and was cut off from his men when the Indians rushed upon him from a nearby ravine. The three arrows knocked him off his horse; he had taken an arrow in the shoulder, one in the thigh, and another in the back.

Towards the end of May or in the first part of June 1865,Quartermaster S. B. Noyes of the 1st U.S. Volunteers, was going through various supplies left behind by the 30th Wisconsin, among the supplies Noyes had found a small printing press along with a few reams of paper. This press was used to publish a newspaper at Fort Union in the summer of 1864. So the Quartermaster and some other officers proposed to publish a newspaper at Fort Rice.

After securing approval from Colonel Dimon, Captain Enoch Adams and Lieutenant Charles Champney started to set up the press in a workshop at the northeast end of the fort. With Captain Adams volunteering to be the editor that left Lieutenant Champney as the publisher.

The two then set out to look for a typesetter among the ranks of the regiment. As luck would have it they found a typesetter, a Corporal William Johnson. Among the regular contributors was Lance-Sergeant Pinkney A. Morgan, who was an amateur poet from Greenville, South Carolina, and Surgeon George Herrick, composed all the essays. And they ranged from the Empress Josephine to memories of Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

So on June 15th, the first volume, number one of the Frontier Scout Appeared. “The Frontier Scout,” editor Adams announced: Is published weekly by the 1st U.S. Volunteers for the edification of the people of Dakotah, both civilized and savage; and as “green” spots and “green” backs are so few, we will not mention terms, but bid it, like the grace of God, go free! You must support us with your contributions, material and mental. We can make a paper lively, social, agreeable, entertaining and refreshing, but all must contribute a mite. Put every smart thought into writing. Jot down every little adventure. Fashion into rhymes every practical idea. When this is done our paper is formed, a living, speaking embodiment of the society in which we dwell. Let it be a picture of the sunny side of Dakotah; something we shall keep or cherish like the lock of hair of a lost loved one, or a flower picked and pressed by a dead sister in far-away years.

The paper reported on reports of Indian activities, all military matters, and of course death’s, on the lighter side the paper carried sketches on subjects of the post’s pets. A tame Wolf Dickey had carried a ration of salt pork to a basin of water to freshen it. “He don’t calculate to die with scurvy-not he.” A bear named Grizzly was begging the post out of sugar. Two sheep arrived on the steamboat, Silver Lake, which astonished the Indians who had never seen such animals and believed them to be a strange species of deer. Jokes appeared on the same pages with the obituaries.

The Frontier Scout quickly became the unofficial news organ for the upper Missouri Valley. Captain Adams (editor) and his assistants had seen to it that copies of the newspaper were distributed aboard every passing steamboat, which in turned passed copies of the Frontier Scout to other boats along the river.

Captain Adams also urged there readers to “send our Scout down to our friends in the States, showing we are still living, moving, stirring, acting beings, that the great American heart still beats in our bosoms, that the genius, effort, and perseverance that settled the States, is taking deep root in Dakotah, on the banks of Missouri, the great highway of a broader, deeper civilization.”

Rumors of a captive white woman drifted into Fort Rice, in Mid-June causing a lot of excitement. With everyone remembering the story of Fanny Kelly, who had been rescued during the winter down at Fort Sully; who had already a national celebrity. Colonel Dimon’s Indian friends told him that a band of Cheyenne’s in the near vicinity were in the possession of another white woman; Dimon became obsessed with rescuing her. His first move was to send a mounted force out on a pretend buffalo hunt; but in actuality, the buffalo hunters were in search of the Cheyenne camp. Soon the hunting party returned to the fort empty-handed. A small band of Tetons arrived at the fort on June 17th. And with the help of the post interpreter, Frank La Framboise, learned that a Minneconjou named White White who was traveling with the Cheyenne, had purchased the white woman for two horses; and that he would be willing to sell her to the soldier chief for two good American horses.

Colonel Dimon agreed to the trade and sent Grass and one of his warriors, Red Horse, out to the Cheyenne camp, with two of the fort’s finest mounts. On June 21, they returned with Sarah Morris, who had been captured on January 10th during a raid along the Platte River in Colorado.

Sarah Morris was described as “an attractive, small-featured young woman, her skin deeply tanned after her six months of living in the open, her hair a lustrous black.” She and her husband, who of which was killed in the raid, had just moved to Colorado from Delaware County, Indiana.

During the second week of July, numerous bands of Indians started gathering on both sides of the river, awaiting the arrival of General Sully. Approximately three hundred lodges were encamped by July 13th. General Sully and his column arrived and encamped on the plain just east of the river. The men of the 1st U.S. Volunteers were happy to see that General Sully had brought up with him two extra companies of the 4th U.S. Volunteers. So word quickly spread throughout the fort that the 1st U.S. was soon to be mustered out before the end of the summer.

On July 16th, General Sully held his first all day council with the Indians; the general invited Colonel Dimon to attend also. The ceremonies began with the usual tradition of smoke to the Great Spirit, with General Sully taking three puffs from the peace pipe, and saying, “All my friends are my brothers”. General Sully then handed the peace pipe to Colonel Dimon, who also took three puffs. When General Sully looked around the council he was please to see sitting among the other tribes was the Hunkpapas (Sioux).

General Sully thought of the Hunkpapas to be the most suspicious and the most warlike of the Sioux Nation. General Sully took special care to win over the few representatives who had come to the Council at Fort Rice.

During the first day of council the Hunkpapas told General Sully that 130 more Hunkpapas lodges of their people were waiting west of the river to see if General Sully was setting a trap for them. As soon as General Sully heard this he immediately declared that he only wanted peace.

The council ended for the day late in the afternoon, so General Sully’s party crossed the river to return to the fort for dinner. Again with Col. Dimon’s inexperience showing, he displayed his talent for messing thing up: he had previously arranged for the forts howitzer to fire a salute as soon as the ferryboat reached the landing. The result was disastrous for Sully’s Council for Peace, because when the Hunkpapas herd the howitzer, the alarm was sounded and they scattered. The next day General Sully wrote to General Pope, telling him of the affair, “At the time 130 more lodges were on their way. When I landed the fort fired a salute. The Advance, seeing this, thought they were firing on them, gave the alarm, and the whole party scattered. The red man is a hard animal to deal with, and very uncertain.”

On July 22nd, General Sully relieved Colonel Dimon of his command because of the incident of firing the salute with the howitzer. Even though he admired Dimon for the excellent appearance of the Fort, so the general issued a general order praising the regiment for it’s splendid behavior during the hard winter. General Sully announced that Colonel Dimon was being transferred to the states, on an important mission and well-deserved furlough, and on that same day Lieutenant-Colonel John Patte of the 7th Iowa Cavalry replaced him as commander of Fort Rice. Colonel Dimon’s booming gun had a far reaching affect, which was to be learned two weeks later, that the frightened Hunkpapas had hurried back to their camp, and began spreading the story that General Sully had massacred all the Indians who had gathered for Council and smoke at Fort Rice. The story soon found its way to the ears of the tribal leader his name known then to few white men, Sitting Bull, who hated all whites. The news of what had happened at Fort Rice reinforced Sitting Bull’s hatred for the whites. Long before the incident at Fort Rice, Sitting Bull was advocating war to the death against all whites, which he thought of as invaders, of their Sioux country.

Sitting Bull organized a Great War party and started out for Fort Rice. Sitting Bull and The-Man-That-Has-His-Head-Shaved lead more than one thousand hostile Sioux in a mighty assault upon the hated whites at Fort Rice. Early on the morning of July 28th, the men of Fort Rice had their first look at the enemy. It all started about 7:00a.m. When a civilian who worked for the sutler had stepped outside the store which was at the northwest corner of the fort he saw several mounted warriors, painted for battle, and in pursuit of one of the post’s Yanktonai police. A moment later, near the sawmill just south of the fort, Private Andrew Burch was startled to see a red-painted Indian in hot pursuit of Private James Hufstudler. Private Burch and Hufstudler along with a third private named Brown were guarding the horse herd. Each of the men were mounted and separated by a considerable distance from one another.

Private Burch spun his horse forward, but the Sioux warrior had already shot private Hufstudler with an arrow and was beating him over his head with the bow, private Burch fired his revolver, and the warrior dashed off toward the post cemetery, joining three other hostiles.

“I ran them up a hill some 400 yards,” Private Burch said later, “and shot at him five times with my revolver, but did not hit him. I should if my horse had not been frightened by his war rigging. His pony was hung with red tassels: he himself had a red blanket around his waist, his shoulders were naked and painted red, his hair was hanging loose, two feathers fluttering in it. He had a rifle or shotgun in a fringed covering hanging on his back and in one hand his bow and arrow. His horse was streaked off with red paint over his haunches. When he ran behind the hill, I pursued him to the top and saw over the hill 25 or 30 Indians-they kept pretty well concealed, as I could see only their heads.”

Fort Rice was in full alarm, men of both companies, 1st U.S. Volunteers and 4th U.S. Volunteers poured out the north gate, and dashing out the south gate of the fort was Captain Moreland and a platoon of Iowa cavalrymen riding to aid the horse herders. Captain Moreland got there too late to save the horses: when Private Brown went to assist Burch, more Sioux sprang from concealment and swept the herd away.

Captain Moreland and his troopers galloped off in pursuit of the enemy, swinging around a hill where Private Burch and Private Brown were observing the 25 or so Indians. Just as soon as the Sioux saw the cavalry pursuing their friends, they leaped on their horses in pursuit of Captain Moreland’s troops, to aid their friends, “they went yelling like barking dogs,” Burch said. “As they whipped across the Creek they struck their ponies with their leather whips fastened around their wrist. Their horses went with the swiftest kind of a run into the fight. I saw three unhorsed, and I thought Captain Moreland shot them himself, as he was fifty feet in advance of his men and firing.”

Private Burch and Brown heard the crackle of musketry coming from the West Side of the fort. The action had flowed beyond them, having a moment to observe the horizon, which now was fully lit by the summer morning sunlight. In an arc sweeping from north to west to south, every hill was covered with mounted Sioux; every horse and warrior was painted for battle.

When Lieutenant Colonel Patte discovered that the Fort was surrounded. He rode out a few yards from the fort too the plains just west of the stockade, observing the situation; he calmly began deploying his troops. He then dispatched a messenger to Captain Moreland with the orders to pull back, to fight and stand closer to the Fort, he then sent Company “D” of the 4th Regiment to reinforce the cavalry and too form a left wing. He sent Company “A” of the 4th marching northward on the double-quick to form a right wing.

Then into the center he sent the four veteran companies of the 1st. The howitzers were manned and ready up in the bastions. Then Lieutenant Colonel Patte ordered the two 12-pounders from the parade ground and had them rolled outside and unlimbered in front of the fort gates.

Lieutenant Colonel Patte’s following orders were short and too the point, Hold your positions, doesn’t pursue. Because he knew that if his men held their positions and did not break formation and panic, the hostiles had no chance against his outnumbered men because of their superior firepower of rifles and howitzers.

And so the fight for Fort Rice raged on for another three hours, with the battle lines at times stretching for as much as two miles. With so many rounds being spent in the battle, Captain Adams ordered into action his reserve cavalry, as bearer’s of ammunition, the men had to used the nose feeding bags of their horses to transport the rounds to their comrades on the battle lines. The Indians too found themselves running out of arrows, and soon would have to brake off the fight.

The battle came down to the superb horsemanship of the Indians who was inspired by Sitting Bull, and the dismounted soldiers, who were following Lieutenant-Colonel Patte’s fine example of calm courage, refusing to yield even sew much as an inch of ground. One soldier later said after the fight, “When the Indian ponies ran, they went so fast, they seemed to lie out entirely straight.” In the early stages of the battle, the Sioux were rushing at full speed right up to the battle lines being held by the soldiers, some of the Indians even standing on the backs of the ponies while firing their arrows, some stabbing and slashing with their lances and tomahawks.

But as soon as the howitzers had begun firing, this brave act of daring by the Indians soon diminished and became less frequent, and with much gratefulness to the soldiers, the attackers soon would withdraw, seeking cover behind the nearby hills. It seemed that just as Lieutenant-Colonel Patte had predicted their firepower would soon make the difference. For not even the strong medicine of Sitting Bull could prevail against such devastating fire power, To the Indians it appeared that living demons shrieked from the big guns of the white soldier.

By late morning the Sioux withdrew from the soldier’s musket range and by noontime the Sioux had vanished completely from view of the fort. Lieutenant-Colonel Patte had ordered roll call, and the casualties were reported. Only one man was reported as dead, Private James Hoffman, died from arrow and gunshot wounds in one of the early stages of the battle. Private Hufstudler, was struck by an arrow in the first of the fighting, and was not expected to live. Also there were three other serious arrow casualties, and numerous cuts and bruises, so Surgeon Yeomans was kept busy until the late afternoon.

While the battle was still raging the Sioux had removed all their dead and casualties from the field of battle, so it’s uncertain how man Indians were killed or wounded. It was thought their casualties were quite high because of the numbers being carried off. No one could say for certain how many hostile Sioux there really was 1,000, 1,500, 2,000-and uncertain if indeed they would return. As soon as the fighting broke off Lieutenant-Colonel Patte inspected the condition of his howitzers himself, and ordered out a strong guard, and waited for a return attack.

About midnight some nervous sentinels reported strange sounds coming from outside the stockade, so the officer of the guard ordered a general alarm. Drums started their rattle, bugles started blaring, and officers were shouting their commands. Every company was formed with arms to the ready in ten minutes of the alarm being sounded. Lieutenant-Colonel Patte displaying his calmness walked up to one of the bastion howitzers and instructed the gunners to fire some fireballs high over the prairie. In a few moments the plains were illuminated for several hundred yards out away from the fort. There was no sign of movement, the only sounds they heard was the chug of the howitzers and the explosion of their shell. At around 2:00 a.m. Lieutenant Colonel Patte ordered his men back to their bunks.

Up until the last day of July small bands of Sioux still remained in the vicinity of the fort, only showing themselves on distant hills, occasionally making half-hearted forays, always well out of range of the howitzers. Sitting Bulls medicine it seems told him that the time was not right for riding the Dakotas of the white man, as quickly as they arrived they disappeared.

One can only conjure up what the effects of Sitting Bulls medicine would have been if Colonel Charles Dimon had been in command of Fort Rice. He would likely have pursued the Sioux as he would have pursued the confederates. If that were to have been the case, Sitting Bull would not have had to wait for George Armstrong Custer. He would have won his reputation a full decade earlier with the massacre of Fort Rice in 1865.

In August the wind was hot and blowing dust at Fort Rice. But still the men of the 1st U.S. Volunteers were talking more and more of their chances of being mustered out before autumn.

Hay was ripening in the fields down by the river bottoms, so extra details were sent out to mow and stack it; they harvested more than 300 tons. When the hay was brought in, hunting parties were organized to hunt antelope and buffalo; soon fresh meat became plentiful. They also enjoyed vegetables from the post gardens, such as green corn, turnips, and radishes. There were so many rats, games of wager were invented to kill them, and they were so bad they overflowed from the storerooms to the barracks. Then Private Hufstudler died from his lingering wounds to his lung from the Sioux arrow.

With the coming of each evening wolves would gather and howl until dawn, which to the Indians was the come of cold moons ahead. But still there was no sign or news of them being mustered out.

General Sully returned to Forth Rice on August 23rd, from the North with his expedition; they reported they encountered no hostels, didn’t seek out any either. General Sully had planned their summer’s march as a show of force to the Indians, which was meant to help maintain the uneasy peace all along the Missouri River. Surgeon Herrick was with the General, and was welcomed back by the men of the 1st U.S. Volunteers, he had many tales of the Canadian half-breeds he ran into along the way back while on the expedition from Fort Berthold.

“They are half civilized, a mixture of Scotch, English, French, Irish, and Indian blood. They carry their priest with them, families and fiddles, hunting and curing meats and hides by day, dancing and singing at night.” Surgeon Herrick was surprised to meet to find a French nobleman among the Canadians, he called himself Viscount M. Hyacinthe de Balazic, who had given his address as 10 Cit’e Antin, Paris. Surgeon Herrick found himself fascinated with these Red River carts that these hunters used to hunt with, the vehicles were made entirely of wood with wrappings of rawhide.

“The hub is cut from a small tree with an auger hole through it, in which the axle is thrust without grease or other lubricating material, and as they go screeching, squeaking, squalling, and making most unheard of noises over these broad, desolate prairies. It does not require very great stretch of imagination to believe that we are listening to the weepings and wailings of the sprits of the damned.”

The following day the mail arrived from Fort Sully, within a matter of minutes after the mail pouch was opened the 1st U.S. Volunteers were celebrating the good news that they had been hoping for all summer long. A Wisconsin regiment was already en Route from St. Louis to relieve them. As soon as the relief arrived, the 1st would start for Fort Leavenworth to be mustered out of service.

With the anticipation of the mustering out orders, companies “B” and “K” had been ordered down from Fort Union and Berthold to Fort Rice where they had been stationed since spring. On the last day of August Company “B” and “K” finally met up with the rest of the regiment on the Big Horn, there they held a celebration in honor of the regiment rejoining.

Each and everyday thereafter officers and men of the 1st Regiment awoke at Fort Rice with happy expectations. Because they had the word of General Sully that they would not have to endure another winter of death in the Dakota’s. “The men,” General Sully commented in a letter written on September 14th, “have such a perfect fear of staying up here another winter I verily believe many of them would die of fear alone should sickness break out among them as it did last winter.”

A few days later the officers of Fort Rice gave General Sully a farewell dinner, and then he departed with his expedition for their quarters in Iowa. On October 6, 1865 definite orders were received from department headquarters authorizing the 1st U.S. Volunteers to leave Fort Rice. The orders read that the 1st U.S. Volunteers were to board the river boat the same day that the 50th Wisconsin was to arrive; and that they would arrive in two or three days time.

The cheering soon was dampened by the only news that could discourage any soldier of the 1st U.S. Regiment, the news that Colonel Dimon was aboard the same boat. They wondered why was Dimon returning? Had their orders been changed? The men of the 1st U.S. Regiment found themselves growing apprehensive, and during the tedious days of waiting, 11 men had deserted, the first to do so in months. It was thought they preferred to take their chances in the gold fields of Montana; therefore little effort was made to apprehend them.

On October 9th, Colonel Dimon arrived unexpectedly from Fort Sully, and announced that the 50th Wisconsin should reach Fort Rice the very next day. He quickly dispelled any rumors that their orders had been changed. The reason he was there was because his furlough had ended, and instead of waiting at Fort Leavenworth, for the regiment, he wanted to be with his regiment on their happy voyage down river for mustering out.

During this short interval of time Captain Adams with his printers prepared a final issue of the Frontier Scout. It read with the usual post gossip, news of all the river traffic, Indian arrivals. One article read, “Just at retreat roll call the hills on the west of the fort were covered with Indians. They appeared against the amber of the sky like some caravan of Arabia, crossing the desert. They halted some time and Major Galpin went out to meet them. They came riding in chanting a wild melody, fifty abreast, and marched like well-disciplined cavalry. Their gay robes and fancy saddles gave them a very unique appearance, and one that we shall not soon forget.”

On one of the pages of the Frontier Scout, a unsigned author wrote, “The Southern Mother’s Pride, or the Loyalized rebel; a Tale of the 1st U.S. Volunteer Infantry.” The hero’s name was Reginald Ravensworth, and the story was concerned not only with his adventures in the regiment but also his return to the old plantation, a look into the future of any Galvanized Yankee who might have a plantation to which he could return. There was also a poem, “Song of the 1st U.S. Volunteer Infantry”:

Captain Adams wrote in a final editorial salute to his “boys, our sojourn in the wilderness is nearly over. We have a country redeemed from anarchy, redeemed from disunion, which we can call our own. We have served that country honorably; let us preserve our good name. We are the first fruits of a re-united people. We are a link between the North and the South-let us prove that it is a golden link, and of no baser metal.”

Captain Adams pre-dated this last final issue of the Frontier Scout ahead to October 12th, in anticipation of their departure from Fort Rice. One month later, the six companies of the 1st U.S. Volunteers arrived at Fort Leavenworth, there they expected to meet their old comrades of Companies “A”,”F”,”G”, and “I”. These four companies had served the last two years in Minnesota as garrison troops in the Forts there. Those companies however had already arrived some days earlier, so instead of being mustered out with the rest of the regiment they had been reassigned and was sent and en route to western Kansas to guard a new stage line to Denver.

For the days to follow the veterans of Fort Rice waited in the Leavenworth barracks, fully expecting a similar assignment, but it never came. They were mustered out November 27, 1865. Lt. Colonel Tamblyn’s battalions closed out their record of long service on May 22, 1866. So ended the longest period of Service of any of the Galvanized Yankee organizations — 22 months of soldiering from Virginia to Minnesota and the Great Plains of Kansas.

From the preceding paragraphs, it is very clear that the Galvanized Yankees played an integral part in U.S. History, even though they are unsung heroes. Their trials and tribulations demonstrate the unique duties and responsibilities that the First U.S. Volunteers had during the Civil War and the beginning of the Plains Indian Wars. It is the story of brave individuals who reassessed their loyalties and tried to make a better life for themselves and their relatives back home. They faced an unknown land, an unknown enemy, were forced to learn new tactics, and new ways of fighting.

If you wish to learn more about the First U.S. Volunteers or any of the other U.S. Volunteer Regiments of the Civil War, I suggest that you read “The Galvanized Yankees,” by Dee Brown and published by the University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln NE 68588-0484 or “Galvanized Yankees on the Upper Missouri: The Face of Loyalty,” by Michele Tucker Butts and published by the University Press of Colorado, Boulder Colorado 80303. Much of the information in this article came from these sources, along with the archives of Fort Abercrombie and the State Historical Society of North Dakota.

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