Fort Dodge, Kansas, letters sent

Abstract: This series contains transcriptions, 7 v., of outgoing letters and telegrams dispatched by the post's commanding officer, adjutant, staff officers, or other officers of the garrison to the United States adjutant general, the adjutant general of the District of Kansas, and others. The letters discuss military activities, muster rolls, reporting on inventories and inspections, supply requests, and American Indian activities. The transcribed letters contain the complete text of the letter as well as the date and name of the person to whom it was sent. The second volume includes some letters received. The last 4 v. also contain telegrams sent, 1871-1882.

Administrative History:

The establishment of Fort Dodge was a direct outgrowth of the Plains campaigns of 1865. By January 1865, the Plains Indians had been driven from the area between the Platte and the Arkansas Rivers, but the tribes that had fled north of the Platte and south of the Arkansas continued to threaten the settlements of western Kansas and the immigrant routes west. Therefore, Maj. Gen. Grenville M. Dodge, the commander of the Department of the Missouri, devised a two-pronged campaign to take place in the spring of 1865 against the northern and southern Plains Indians. The campaign against the Kiowas, Apaches, and Arrapahoes to the south of the Arkansas River was to be led by Bvt. Brig. Gen. James H. Ford, the commanding officer of the District of the Upper Arkansas.

On March 17, Ford received word that large bands of Comanches, Apaches, and Kiowas were encamped on the Cimarron and on Crooked Creek. When this report was relayed to General Dodge, he ordered Ford "to make arrangements to put a post at or near" the site of old Fort Atkinson, an abandoned army post near the Cimarron Crossing of the Arkansas River. On April 5, Capt. Henry Pearce left Fort Lamed, Kans., with a company of Kansas volunteers to establish the new post. He selected a site located 6 miles east of Fort Atkinson that both guarded the Santa Fe Trail and stood midway between the two major Indian crossings on the Arkansas River, the Cimarron and the Mulberry. Captain Pearce officially established the post on April 10, 1865, and named it in honor of the departmental commander, General Dodge.

Although the Plains Campaigns of 1865 ended with the signing of the Treaty of the Little Arkansas on October 17, 1865, Fort Dodge remained an important factor in the settlement of the West. Because of its location in western Kansas, the garrison of Fort Dodge was assigned the duty of guarding the Arkansas River from central Kansas into the Colorado Territory. From 1865 to 1878, troops stationed at Fort Dodge were almost continually involved in scouts and marches and played major roles in the campaigns of Gen. Winfield S. Hancock in 1867, Gen. Philip H. Sheridan in 1868 and 1869, and Gen. Nelson A. Miles in 1874 and 1875.

After the Miles campaign in 1875, the troops at Fort Dodge were mainly occupied with routine garrison duties and were only occasionally involved in skirmishes with Indians. As early as 1878, Maj. Gen. John Pope, commander of the Department of the Missouri, believing that Fort Dodge no longer had any military
value, petitioned the War Department to close the post and transfer its garrison to either Fort Riley or Fort Leavenworth. Pope's proposal received strong support from people throughout Kansas who wanted the fort's 43,000 acre reservation opened for settlement. On December 15, 1880, the Secretary of the Interior
was directed to open approximately two-thirds of the reservation to settlers. On April 5, 1882, the garrison at Fort Dodge received orders to prepare to abandon the post. Although the last company was transferred from Fort Dodge to Camp Supply, Indian Territory, on October 2, 1882, the post quartermaster
and several enlisted men remained until December 1 in order to complete the removal of equipment and supplies.

Following the closing of Fort Dodge, the War Department appointed a civilian to serve as caretaker of the buildings and equipment remaining there. In 1889 the part of the reservation containing the fort's buildings was transferred to the Department of the Interior, and the remaining reservation lands were opened to settlers. The Kansas Legislature then petitioned Congress to sell the post buildings and grounds to the State of Kansas. Congress agreed, and the post barracks, hospital, and storehouses
were converted into a State soldiers' home that opened in February 1890 and is still in operation.

After the abandonment of Fort Dodge, its records were sent to the Adjutant General's Office in Washington, D.C. Clerks in that office numbered the volumes and prepared lists of the numbered books. The number assigned to each volume by the Adjutant General's Office appears in parentheses in the table of contents to this microfilm publication. These numbers are useful only as a more precise method of identifying the volume. For several volumes whose numbers have been lost due to decaying bindings,
an "n.n." for "no number" is given.

Scope and content:

The seven volumes of letters sent, February 1866-October 1882, contain copies of the letters dispatched by the commanding officers and post adjutants of Fort Dodge; the last four volumes also contain copies of telegrams sent from October 1871 through October 1882. The letters and telegrams are arranged chronologically and generally numbered by year; however, those in volume 5 (July 1874-Apr. 1875) are numbered throughout the entire volume by the order in which they were sent.

Scattered among the letters sent in volume 2 are 12 letters dated from December 2, 1867, through June 22, 1868, that were received by officers at Fort Dodge. The first seven of these letters are numbered 1- 7; the remainder are unnumbered. Several of the letters include references to endorsements sent from Fort
Dodge.

There are name indexes in each of the first five volumes of letters sent; National Archives and Records Service (NARS) staff members have prepared name and title indexes to volumes 6 and 7. In general, the number that follows a name in an index refers to the page on which the letter was copied in the letter book. In volumes 3 and 4, however, there are occasional references to letter numbers as well as page numbers.

In the left margin of each page of volumes 6 and 7 is entered the name of the person or title of the officer to whom the letter was sent. Volumes 3, 5, 6, and 7 contain cross-references to the file numbers of related letters received. Occasionally, citations to related special orders, endorsements, or letters sent are given. Often these citations are expressed as fractions, in which the denominator represents a page number and the numerator refers to the number of the letter or endorsement that appears on that page.

Contents: Roll 1 (MS 147). 1866 Feb. 13-1869 Feb. 13 -- roll 2 (MS 148). 1869 Feb. 14-1882 Oct. 2

Indexes: Surname indexes in the first 5 v.

Related materials: In Records of the Adjutant General's Office, 1780's-1917, Record Group 94, are post returns for Fort Dodge, January 1866-October 1882. The returns are monthly reports that were submitted to the Adjutant General by the post commander. They show the names of organizations and officers stationed at Fort Dodge and statistical information, such as the number of enlisted men present, the total number of officers present, and the number of sick on post. These returns are reproduced on roll 319 of NARS Microfilm
Publication M617, Returns From U.S. Military Posts, 1800-1916 (Kansas Historical Society microfilm roll MS 249).

Finding Aid Bibliography: United States, National Archives and Records Service. Headquarters Records of Fort Dodge, Kansas, 1866-1882. Washington : National Archives Trust Fund Board, National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration, 1977.

Use and reproduction: Public record

Reproduction: Microfilm. Washington [D.C.] : The National Archives, National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration, 1960. Kansas Historical Society microfilm rolls MS 147-MS 148, available for research or inter-library loan.

Holder of originals: Originals at the National Archives at Washington, D.C.

General Note: Similar to National Archives (U.S.) microfilm publication M989, Headquarters records of Fort Dodge, Kansas, 1866-1882, rolls 1-2.

General Note: Similar to rolls 1-2 of the Headquarters records of Fort Dodge, Kansas, 1866-1882 (National Archives (U.S.) microfilm publication M989).