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PIECE OF PRIVATE PURCHASE SOLDIER’S SHIRT FORT PEMBINA, NORTH DAKOTA

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Army issue shirts had little going for them in comfort and less in style. This is a fragment of a privately purchased shirt from the excavations at Fort Pembina, ND, garrisoned from 1870 to 1895. This comes from excavations of the fort’s dump, or at least one of them, conducted on private property with the owner’s permission, which has yielded not only bottles and the like, but leather and even cloth like this in remarkable condition from the wet, anaerobic soil conditions of the dig.

This piece is more or less rectangular and was likely salvaged from a worn-out shirt for some purpose before being eventually discarded. It still preserves a printed pattern of flower petals or rosettes, separated by fainter, vase-shaped design, arranged in columns on white ground with small squarish dots. The cloth shows as an off-white and the designs as black, but colors on excavated fabrics can shift. This shows thin stains and soiling, but is solid and very displayable.

Soldiers were allotted a certain number of issue shirts, and had their pay docked for any drawn in excess, so there was some incentive to preserve them as long as possible, but comfort was likely a greater concern, and when off duty or on leave, one might want something a bit more fashionable. This likely dates to the fort’s active life of 1870-1895, though the earliest troops at the post were still carrying and being issued Civil War material.

Situated in the Red River Valley in North Dakota near the Canadian border, Fort Pembina was established in 1870 and in operation until 1895. Trading posts existed earlier in the area as part of the fur trade, and the first U.S. military post there was temporary- manned by a detachment of Minnesota troops in 1863-1864 following the 1862 Sioux uprising. In March 1870 a new fort was established south of the Pembina River and about 200 yards west of the Red River, completed by July and named in honor of Gen. George H. Thomas. The name was changed to Fort Pembina in September and the initial garrison consisted of two companies of the 20^th US Infantry. Their main duty was to provide security for settlers worried about Sioux returning south from Canada, but the troops were more occupied with escorting boundary surveys along the Canadian border and preventing Fenian raids heading north into Canada.

The fort included enlistedmen’s barracks, officers’ quarters, guard house, ordnance storehouse, company kitchen, root house, laundress’s quarters, quarters for civilian employees, hospital and hospital servant’s house, a barn for the “hospital cow,” quartermaster and commissary offices and storehouse, stables, wagon shed, etc. The garrison reached peak strength in 1878 af 200, but the average was about 125 enlisted men and 8 officers. An October 1885 return listed 97 men, 2 field pieces, 1 mountain howitzer, 100 rifles, 19 pistols, 23 mules, and 9 wagons. By 1890 the post had just 23 men, and after an 1895 fire destroyed some 19 buildings it was decided to abandon the fort rather than rebuild, the last detachment left in September. The property was turned over to the Interior Department and later sold in 1902.

This is in remarkably good condition for an excavated piece, is very displayable, and has a tight provenance to an Indian War post garrisoned by the U.S. army for a well-defined period that encompasses the 1870s and 1880s Indian Wars.  [sr] [ph:m]

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