If you’ve been scanning our offerings recently you’ll have noticed material coming from excavations at Fort Pembina, a small US army frontier fort in operation from 1870 to 1895. The anaerobic conditions of the dig have yielded lots of interesting material, including leather, cloth and wood that would not normally survive and provide a unique window on the material culture of the Indian War frontier U.S. army, since many of the items would also never have been saved as mementos by a veteran.

This wood crate is a case in point. It is very well preserved, looking like it just came out of an attic or barn, preserving most of its original army olive green paint on the outside. It measures about 13” by 17 ½” with one large open compartment and an internal divider across one end setting off four smaller compartments created by three short dividers, two of which are partially intact. The wood is solid and in good shape, with sides, divider, and (unpainted) bottom in place, with just some shrinkage gaps to the bottom, some rust to the nails, and stains to the paint. We don’t know what it held, but the paint color suggests it was something army issue. It could date anytime up to the fort’s closure in 1895, but could well date earlier: the army was using up its vast stocks of Civil War material for decades after 1865 and both Civil War and later patterns of uniforms and gear have come from these excavations.

Fort Pembina, situated in the Red River Valley in North Dakota near the Canadian border, 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 purpose was to provide security for settlers worried about Sioux returning south from Canada, but the troops spent much of their time 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.  [sr][ph:L]

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