Fort Phil Kearny was an outpost of the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, ...

that existed in the late 1860s in present-day northeastern

Wyoming Wyoming () is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to t ...

along the

Bozeman Trail The Bozeman Trail was an overland route in the western United States, connecting the gold rush territory of southern Montana to the Oregon Trail in eastern Wyoming. Its most important period was from 1863–68. Despite the fact that the maj ...

. Construction began in 1866 on Friday, July 13, by Companies A, C, E, and H of the 2nd Battalion,

18th Infantry The 18th Infantry were an infantry regiment of the British Indian Army. Their origins trace back to 1795, when they were known as the Calcutta Native Militia. Over the years they were known by a number of different names, such as the Alipore Regim ...

, under the direction of the regimental commander and Mountain District commander

Colonel Colonel (abbreviated as Col., Col or COL) is a senior military officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations. In the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, a colonel was typically in charge ...

Henry B. Carrington Henry Beebee Carrington (March 2, 1824 – October 26, 1912) was a lawyer, professor, prolific author, and an officer in the United States Army during the American Civil War and in the Old West during Red Cloud's War. A noted engineer, he ...

. The post was named for

Major General Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of ...

Philip Kearny (1815–1862), a popular figure in the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government polici ...

. The fort should be distinguished from the similarly named Fort Kearny in

Nebraska Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the sout ...

, which was named for his uncle,

Stephen Kearny Stephen Watts Kearny (sometimes spelled Kearney) ( ) (August 30, 1794October 31, 1848) was one of the foremost antebellum frontier officers of the United States Army. He is remembered for his significant contributions in the Mexican–American Wa ...

(1794–1848). Today, the fort and the nearby Fetterman and Wagon Box battle sites are maintained by the State of Wyoming as the Fort Phil Kearny State Historic Site. The fort was located along the east side of the Bighorn Mountains in present-day northern Johnson County, approximately north of Buffalo. Along with Fort Reno and Fort C. F. Smith, the fort was established along the Bozeman Trail in the

Powder River Country The Powder River Country is the Powder River Basin area of the Great Plains in northeastern Wyoming, United States. The area is loosely defined as that between the Bighorn Mountains and the Black Hills, in the upper drainage areas of the Powd ...

at the height of the

Indian Wars The American Indian Wars, also known as the American Frontier Wars, and the Indian Wars, were fought by European governments and colonists in North America, and later by the United States and Canadian governments and American and Canadian settle ...

to protect prospective miners traveling the trail north from the

Oregon Trail The Oregon Trail was a east–west, large-wheeled wagon route and emigrant trail in the United States that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail spanned part of what is now the state of Kans ...

to present-day

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...

. At an

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § ...

of above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardis ...

, Fort Phil Kearny was the largest of the three stockaded fortifications along the trail. Its log walls enclosed an area of . The longer walls on the northeast and southwest sides each measured in length; the width of the northwest side was and this tapered to at the southeast side. The perimeter of the stockade was approximately , and its construction took more than four thousand logs. Further building construction in 1867 required over 606,000

board feet The board foot or board-foot is a unit of measurement for the volume of lumber in the United States and Canada. It equals the volume of a length of a board, one foot wide and thick. Board foot can be abbreviated as FBM (for "foot, board measure" ...

of lumber and 130,000 adobe bricks. The fort was under continuous construction and was nearing completion in December 1866, when its garrison was due to be re-designated the 27th Infantry. At its peak strength, the garrison numbered 400 troops and 150 civilians: 9 officers, a surgeon, and 329 enlisted men of five infantry companies of the 18th/27th Infantry, including the newly recruited Company K, 27th; one officer and 60 men of Company C, 2nd Cavalry, and 150 civilian quartermaster and contractor employees. The fort, known to the Indians as the "hated post on the Little Piney", played an important role in

Red Cloud's War Red Cloud's War (also referred to as the Bozeman War or the Powder River War) was an armed conflict between an alliance of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Northern Arapaho peoples against the United States that took place in the Wyoming and M ...

. The area around the fort was the site of the Fetterman Fight in 1866 and the

Wagon Box Fight The Wagon Box Fight was an engagement which occurred on August 2, 1867, in the vicinity of Fort Phil Kearny during Red Cloud's War. A party of twenty-six U.S. Army soldiers and six civilians were attacked by several hundred Lakota Sioux warriors. ...

in 1867. By 1868, the

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...

had reached far enough west that emigrants could reach the Montana gold fields through present-day

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Monta ...

, rendering the dangerous Bozeman Trail obsolete. All three forts along the trail were abandoned as part of the

Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) The Treaty of Fort Laramie (also the Sioux Treaty of 1868) is an agreement between the United States and the Oglala, Miniconjou, and Brulé bands of Lakota people, Yanktonai Dakota and Arapaho Nation, following the failure of the first F ...

. Shortly thereafter, Fort Kearney was burned by

Cheyenne The Cheyenne ( ) are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. Their Cheyenne language belongs to the Algonquian language family. Today, the Cheyenne people are split into two federally recognized nations: the Southern Cheyenne, who are enr ...

Indians. Fort Phil Kearny, including the nearby sites of the Fetterman Fight and the Wagon Box Fight, was designated a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places liste ...

in 1960. and

Fort Phil Kearny State Historic Site

Fort Phil Kearny State Historic Site includes a visitor's center with exhibits, videos, a bookstore, and self-guided tours of the fort grounds and outlying sites. The tour marks the archaeological remains of the fort's buildings. A cabin built by the

Civilian Conservation Corps The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government unemployment, work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was a ...

(CCC) has been furnished to depict the period quarters of an officer's wife and a non-commissioned officer's quarters. Visitors can also tour the nearby battlefields which are located within a five-mile radius of the visitor center and include interpretive trails. In 1966, NBC televised "The Massacre at Fort Phil Kearny" on the

anthology series An anthology series is a radio, television, video game or film series that spans different genres and presents a different story and a different set of characters in each different episode, season, segment, or short. These usually have a dif ...

'' Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre''. Fort Phil Kearny was also the subject of the

1951 Events January * January 4 – Korean War: Third Battle of Seoul – Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul for the second time (having lost the Second Battle of Seoul in September 1950). * January 9 – The Government of the United ...

movie ''

Tomahawk A tomahawk is a type of single-handed axe used by the many Indigenous peoples and nations of North America. It traditionally resembles a hatchet with a straight shaft. In pre-colonial times the head was made of stone, bone, or antler, and Eur ...

'' starring

Van Heflin Emmett Evan "Van" Heflin Jr. (December 13, 1908 – July 23, 1971) was an American theatre, radio and film actor. He played mostly character parts over the course of his film career, but during the 1940s had a string of roles as a leading man. H ...

, by Universal International (UI) Pictures. The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) called the movie unusually accurate historically. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044135/

References

External links

Fort Phil Kearny State Historic Site
- official site

- Fort Phil Kearny/Bozeman Trail Association {{Authority control Phil Kearny Pre-statehood history of Wyoming National Historic Landmarks in Wyoming Red Cloud's War Wyoming state historic sites Military and war museums in Wyoming Museums in Johnson County, Wyoming Civilian Conservation Corps in Wyoming Phil Kearny Protected areas of Johnson County, Wyoming National Register of Historic Places in Johnson County, Wyoming IUCN Category III

Fort Phil Kearny State Historic Site

References

Further reading

External links