FORT UKIDGEK OFFICER's ROW, 1866 Co~~Rtrsyhl~Liioti~L Pork Strr.Icc CAMP WALBACH
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FORT UKIDGEK OFFICER'S ROW, 1866 Co~~rtrsyhl~liioti~l Pork Strr.icc CAMP WALBACH .................................................................................... 5 Garry David Ryan THE CONGRESSIONAL CAREER OF JOSEPH MAULL CAREY .... 21 George W . Paulson SOLDIERING ON THE FRONTIER ...................................................... 83 JACK ELLIS HAYNES-A TRIBUTE: ........................ ........................ 85 Horace M . Albright WYOMING'S FRONTIER NEWSPAPERS ........................................... 88 Elizabeth Keen WYOMING STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY President's Message by Charles Ritter ............................................ 102 Minutes of Ninth Annual Meeting. September 8. 1962 .................... 103 BOOK REVIEWS Athearn. Re bet of ihe Rockies ............................................................ TI2 Santa W Conference, Probing #he American West .......................... 113 Johnson, The Unregimented Geneml .............................................. 114 Brown, Fort Phil Kearny-An American Saga .................................. 115 Lass, A Risiory of Steamboating on ihe Upper Missouri ................ 116 Barsness, Cold Camp .......................................................................... 117 Howard, Tlnc Great Iron Trail ............................................................ 118 University Press Reprints .................................................................. 119 JLUSTRATJONS ACCOMPANYING ARTICLES Port Bridger. Officers Row. IS66 .................................................... Cover Camp Walbach ........................... .................................................. 4 Joseph Maul1 Carey ..................................... ... 22 Wheatland, 1897 .................................................................................. 24 Sketch of Fort Bridger, 1857 .............................................................. 82 flebrgska Territory, 7858-7859t Early on September 9, 1858, Companies t and M, 4th United States Artillery, escorted by a fifteen man detachment from Corn- pany D, 2d Dragoons, and encumbered by a long train of heavy wagons and a herd of forty cattle, marched out of Camp Payne, a temporary military installation located at Fort Laramie, Nebraska Territory, and headed towards Cheyenne Pass, eighty miles to the southwest.' Beyond the post, the column swung on to the route traversed by Captain Howard Stansbury of the Topographical Bureau on his return trip from Salt Lake City in 1850. Across Baptists Creek and the Chug, up the left bank of that stream to its source, past the dykes of sandstone to Horse Creek, and, finally, to L.odgepole Creek, the caravan slowly retraced Stansbury's path." Sometime during the tenth day, Brevet Major Thomas Williams, who commanded the column, halted the march at the intersection of Stansbury's route and Bryan's Road near the bead of Lodgepole Creek at the eastern entrance to Cheyenne Pass. After spending the next two days reconnoitering the area, Williams chose "a gentle slope descending from the North to Lodge Pole Creek, sheltered from the north and west, & partially so from the east & south" upon which to erect the camp at Cheyenne Pass." Williams then issued I. Post Return, Camp Walbach, Nebraska Territory, September 1858, records of The Adjutant General's Office (hereafter TAGO), National Ar- chives, Record Group 94. Hereafter recards in the National Archives are indicated by the symbol NA, followed by the record group (RG)number. 2. "Sketch of Bvt. Major Williams' route from Fort Laramie to Cheyenne Pass, under orders to establish a post. September, 1858." This sketch is filed under "Roads 165," cartographic records of the Office of the Chief of Engineers, NA, RG 77. 3. Williams to the Acting Assistant Adjutant ~eneial,Headquarters, Diqtrict of the Platte, Fort Laramie, Nebraska Territory, September 23, 1858. Letters Sent. Carnu WaIbach. records of the United States Armv Commands (hereafter &my Commands), NA, RG 98. 6 ANNALS OF WYOMING his Orders No. I naming the new camp for Brigadier General John De B. Walbach, who had commanded the 4th U.S. ArtilIery from 1842 until his death in 1857..' While Camp WaIbach's commander was penning his first order, his men were engaged in unloading wagons and erecting the tents which were to shelter them from the fierce winter which lay just ahead. Once emptied, many of the wagons were turned over to Lieutenant John K. Mizner and his dragoons who thereupon bade farewell to the small garrison and began the return journey to Fort Laramie. The short, unhappy history of Camp Walbach, Nebraska Territory, was about to begin. Major Williams and two companies of the 4th Artillery had been sent to Cheyenne Pass to construct and garrison a post which was to guard an important section of the proposed Fort Riley - Bridg- er's Pass Road now under construction, and, more important, to protect the War Department's long and vulnerable supply line to the Army of Utah. The Fort Riley - Bxidger's Pass Road was one of many road-building projects placed before Congress in the early 1850's. Its proponents argued that the road would provide a more direct route west from the Missouri River settlements and thus shorten the trip to Utah and California by nearEy a hundred miles. Instead of curving north from the Platte River to Fort Laramie and South Pass and then south ta Fort Bridger, the Fort Riley- Bridger's Pass Road was to run due west from the Platte to Fort Bridger by way of the South. Platte, Lodgepola Creek, Cheyenne Bass and Bridger's Pass. This argument, coupled with easy assurances that the new route would prove no more difficult to travel than the Oregon Trail, so impressed the lawmakers, that in 1855 Congress appropriated $50,000 towards the construction of the road. The following year Lieutenant Francis T. Bryan of the Topographical Bureau made a reconnaissance of the route, reporting an abundance of water but a shortage of fuel along the way. In 1857 Bryan initiated work on the route by Ieading a party of laborers over its course. This party removed obstacles and graded the banks of streams at the wagon crossings. By 1858 an increasing number of wagons were using the new cut-off." The same years that saw work begun on the Fort Riley-Bridger's Pass Road also witnessed the steady dekrioration of relations be- 4. Post Orders No. I, Camp Walbach, September 20, 1858, records of Army Commands, NA, RG 98. 'This was the second time that Williams had named an army post established under his command for General Wal- bath. In December 1856, he had named a camp near the present site of Fort Myers,-. Florida. Camp Walbach. It was abandoned the following month. 5. W. Turrentine Jackson, Wagon Roads West (Berkeley: University of California Press, 14521, pp. 122-124, 127-130. CAMP WALBACH 7 tween the Mormons and FderaE officials in the Territory of Utah. To uphold Federal authority in the Territory, President Buchanan sent 5,000 troops into Utah during 1857 and 1858. These troops were organized into the Department of Utah under Colonel Albert B. Johnston. To protect its communications with that department the War Department, in March 1858, created another geographical command, the District of the Platte. Brevet Colonel James Mun- roe, commander of the 4th U.S. Artillery, was placed in charge of this district which was to comprise "so much of the Iine of com- munication [with the department d Utah] as passes through the Territory of Nebraska." Munroe was made responsible for the safety of trains and cattle as far as South Pass where escorts were to be provided by the Department of Utah. For this purpose he was to "occupy, temporarily or permanently, such other points on the line [of communication], and make such disposition of the troops of his command, as the service shall from time to time, indicate to be neces~ary."~ Four months after Munroe had assumed command of the Dis- trict of the Platte, Secretary of War John B. Floyd decided that the safety of military and civilian trains using the short-cut through Cheyenne Pass required the establishment of a military post at this key point along the Army" line of communication to Utah. There- fore, on July 10, 1858, he had the Adjutant General write to the Commander of the Army, Major General Winfield Scott, directing him to issue the necessary ordem7 Scott, comfortably esconced at his summer headquarters at West Point, New York, did not irnmediateIy carry out his superior's command. Instead, in a long and well reasoned letter, he tried to dissuade the Secretary of War from his proposed course. Although the establishment of a military post at Cheyenne Pass was highly desirable, Scott wrote, there were two serious drawbacks in at- tempting to do so in 1858. First, and more important, there was no sizable force of infantry available to garrison the new post. Too sixable force of infantry available to garrison the new post. Too many infantry units were tied down in Utah and Oregon and none could be released from their current duties until the spring of t 859." Second, and more fundamentai, the season was too far advanced to permit a careful examination of the entire area in the vicinity 6. General Orders No. 6, Headquarters of the Army, New York City, March 27, 1858, records of TAGO, NA, RG 94. The 4th Artillery and two companies of the 2d Dragoons were the only unilts assigned to the District of the Platte. 7. Adjutant Genera1 Samuel Cooper to Scott, July 10, 1858, Letters Received, A 229 (T858), records of the Headquarters of the Army, Nk,