Spring 1969 Volume 6 Number 1 Ramsey County History Published by the RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Editor: Virginia Brainard Kunz Fort Snelling — ‘Hardship Post’ Page 3 Spring Colonel Snelling’s Journal Page 9 1969 Picturesque St. Paul Pages 12-13 Volume 6 The Old Lake Como Road Page 14 Number 1 Forgotten Pioneers . VII Page 17 A Farm Home Recalled Page 19 Indian Trail Map Page 22 RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY is published semi­ ON THE COVER: This sketch by Seth Eastman shows annually and copyrighted, 1969, by the Ramsey County a sentry box at Fort Snelling. Eastman is known today Historical Society, 2097 Larpenteur Avenue West, St. as one of the great painters of the old Northwest and Paul, Minnesota. Membership in the Society carries particularly the Mississippi river valley. What is not so with it a subscription to Ramsey County History. Single well known is that he was an army officer who served issues sell for $1.00. Correspondence concerning con­ four stints as commandant of Fort Snelling, then be­ tributions should be addressed to the editor. The Society came a brigidier general after the outbreak of the Civil War. assumes no responsibility for statements made by con­ tributors. Manuscripts and other editorial material are welcomed but, since the Society is an eleemosynary ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Unless otherwise indicated, institution, no payment can be made for contributions. pictures in this issue are from the Picture Department All articles and other editorial material submitted will of the Minnesota Historical Society. The editor is in­ be carefully read and published, if accepted , as space debted to Eugene Becker and Dorothy Gimmestad for permits. their help. 2 In the restoration of Fort Snelling, men work on a roof covered with the type of hand-hewn shingles the soldiers used in building the fort. In the background is the restored round tower. Fort Snelling - "Hardship” Duty At a Frontier Post And a Training Ground for Generals HE OFFICERS and men who were sonal problems, with poverty and loneliness, T stationed at Fort Snelling during the and who apparently felt deeply the hardship years the fort was the nation’s frontier out­ of service at a frontier post. post seem to have been as colorful as the wilderness in which they served. THE FEW LETTERS of his which have Yet, as with other army men down the survived create a feeling for Fort Snelling, long years, the isolation and loneliness of its physical surroundings as well as the mood what frequently was bitter duty at a hardship of the place. When he arrived at Fort Snelling, post weighed heavily upon them, and par­ after a few months at Fort Ripley, he wrote ticularly the enlisted men. to his wife: Historians tend to write of military life “I got dysentery, from which I thought in terms of the officers. The enlisted men I could not recover, but God helped me. often are forgotten, but it is their letters Last winter we marched back again 250 and journals that frequently describe most miles to the fortress Fort Snelling where clearly the day-to-day struggle of life in the we remained. There for the first time I wilderness. slept under a roof again, for until then we were treated like dogs and I often Gustavus Otto, an immigrant from Bavaria wished to be a slave. and a private, was one such man. He was stationed at Fort Snelling from about 1847 As the winter rolled on, the severity of to 1850; during this period, he also spent the weather obviously was hanging heavily some months at Fort Ripley. Otto seems to upon Private Otto. In another letter to his have been a man who was beset with per­ wife, who was in Detroit, he wrote: Martin Scott Frederick Marryat Bernard Bee “The winters are very cold here, partic­ really not worth much. Among the founding ularly this one. We are in thick stone fathers, it was Thomas Jefferson and Ben­ buildings and each two men have woolen jamin Franklin who possessed the vision of blankets . and yet we had to make a what the West could mean to the new nation. fire in the middle of the night in order not to freeze. We sometimes had to It was Jefferson who sent Lewis and Clark relieve one another to guard every quar­ up the Missouri on their long exploration of ter or one-half hour. I have then like the Louisiana Purchase, and it was Jeffer­ many others frozen my ears, nose and son’s influence which led General of the face, but God gave me his assistance.” Army James Wilkinson to send Lieutenant As summer came, Otto began to think Zebulon Pike up the Mississippi in 1805 about deserting. He has been writing to his and 1806. From this trip emerged a plan for wife and receiving no reply. In several let­ the defense of the Great Lakes region, and ters during these months, he tells her that he Fort Snelling occupied a permanent place is reaching a state of desperation and that in the projected cordon of forts along the he cannot take army life much longer. He frontier “for the protection of our trade also reveals some of the tensions and pre­ [the fur trade] and the preservation of the judices which afflicted pre-Civil War peace of the frontier,” as Secretary of War America: John C. Calhoun put it. We know now that “As if this were not enough, we have Calhoun not only meant to keep peace be­ the Irish to contend with. We have many tween the Indians and the whites but also Irish in our company, from which we among the fur traders, which may have been have to bear much. When they are in­ even more important. toxicated, they knock down everything and want to do nothing but fight. The Establishment of Fort Snelling was under guard house is always full. Thank God consideration for about a decade after Pike I have not come into the guard house, acquired the land from the Sioux. Several and as far as I know, our captain loves plans for the fort were advanced,' but it took me very much.” physical form when Lieutenant Colonel The fort which was the scene of Private Henry Leavenworth led about 200 troops up Otto’s travail was indirectly brought into the Mississippi River, then spent a disastrous being through the vision of Thomas Jeffer­ winter at Cantonment New Hope near what son, the first president of the United States now is known as Old Mendota. That sum­ to be interested in the West. To George mer, Leavenworth was succeeded by Colonel Washington, the West was up the Potomac, Josiah Snelling. perhaps to the Appalachian Mountains; for THE FORT thus was the result of a na­ John Adams, the West was far away and tional plan advanced by the country’s civilian 4 leaders, headed by the President and the shortly after Colonel Snelling left. Snelling Secretary of War. But its establishment was had commanded the fort from 1820 to 1827, carried out by military men who were vet­ the longest tour of duty for any of the fort’s erans of the War of 1812 — Leavenworth commandants. One of his immediate succes­ and Snelling, among others — and eventu­ sors was to become president of the United ally became the training ground for officers States. He was Zachary Taylor, the only who later were to serve in the Mexican War president who has lived in Minnesota for and in both armies during the tragic Civil any period at all. Taylor commanded the War. fort between 1828 and 1829. The building It was fortunate that Josiah Snelling came known today as the commandant’s house is upon the scene when he did because it was very much altered, but it was his home for he who selected the site for the fort. While about a year. the question of who designed the fort is still Taylor came out to the frontier from Mis­ unanswered, there is some evidence that sissippi. He was not a West Pointer; in fact, Snelling also played a significant role in its he distrusted West Pointers. In 1829, his shape and design. men at Fort Snelling described him as “ig­ The importance of an historic site and norant of fear,” but later changed their what it meant to the people of its era often minds and described him as “too ignorant can be judged by how much is written about to fear.” But it was at such lonely outposts it, or how often it has been painted by art­ as Fort Snelling that he earned his famous ists. Fort Snelling was one of the most fre­ nickname, “Old Rough and Ready.” quently painted forts on the frontier and, Like Ulysses S. Grant, Taylor seldom throughout the 150 years of its existence, a appeared in full military dress. Lew Wallace, mass of literature also has accumulated author of Ben Hur and himself a Civil War about the fort. Evan Jones, author of Citadel general, described Taylor during the Mexi­ in the Wilderness, has described how, as a can War: boy, he used to play at the fort, poking about the old buildings with his friends. What “There he was, leaning on a tent pole, his military blouse unbuttoned, a faded, drew him there was the fact that he knew collarless shirt and no tie, ancient shoes, something had happened there — he didn’t and a slouch hat pulled well over an un­ know what — which gave the fort a perman­ shaven face.