FLY FROM INDIAN WAR SOLDIER’S TROUSERS, FORT PEMBINA, ND

$65.00 ON HOLD

Quantity Available: 1

Item Code: 1052-599

This comes from the excavations at Fort Pembina, occupied 1870-1895, where the wet, anaerobic soil conditions of the dig (conducted on private property with the owner’s permission,) have yielded leather gear and cloth in surprisingly good condition. This is a cloth strip retaining four, flat metallic buttons. From the type and spacing of the buttons, it pretty clearly comes from the fly of a pair of soldier’s trousers. As is common with other uniform material from the dig, the color of the cloth shifted from a blue to an olive green. Both the buttons and the cloth show gray and light brown stains and soiling.

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 20th 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.

As was clear from the dig, much of the garrison’s uniform and equipment issues was Civil War surplus, as was common in the army well into the 1870s, gradually being replaced by later experimental and issue material as it became available, along with a good amount of commercial, private purchases either to preserve issue gear and not incur charges for exceeding allowances or for better quality and comfort. This is fragmentary, but displayable, and has a tight provenance to an Indian War post garrisoned by the U.S. army during the 1870s and 1880s Indian Wars. [sr][ph:L]

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