Custer, et al -Tuesday, August 24, 2010

We began the day with tours of some of the sites at Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park. This park contains a calvary fort, infantry fort, and Mandan village called On-a-Slant because the village is on a slope down to the river. (Map) (Google Images)

General George Custer and his wife, Libby, were posted at the cavalry fort. Custer and the 7th Calvary left on May 17th, and marched West to their deaths at the Battle of the Little Big Horn on June 25th, 1876.

We began the day with a tour of Custer's house. A gruff Sergeant Johnson (in 1876 character) took us through the house (Virtual tour). The time is 1875. The house was very comfortable. Custer and his wife had made a number of modifications to the usual officers' house plan. Libby had added a bay window on the south side of the parlor. That evening the Custer house was hosting a dinner party. The group of Custer's extended family and their spouses would gather at the house at 7 pm. for music, singing, and dancing. At 8 pm the dinner bell rang and everyone moved into a dinner of roast beef and vegetables. Vegetables always included Custer's favorite, onions. Custer loved onions and would even eat them raw.

Another building at the fort is one of the barracks. The design of the barracks is similar to the infantry barracks at Fort Larned, but the back kitchen and dining area are much larger. One side of the barracks was dedicated to the men of the 7th Cavalry at the time of the Little Big Horn. The cots, arranged perpendicular to the walls, are lined up and down the barracks with an aisle in the middle. At the foot of each cot was a light blue wooden box, i.e., soldiers' footlocker. The lids are up and in each lid was a short biography of a 7th cavalry soldier at the time of the battle. Many, of course, died at Little Big Horn, but not all. Several had been posted on other assignments. Kathy observed that many were immigrants.

The Mandan village, On-a-Slant, is near the fort. The Mandan lived here from mid-1600s to the mid- to late-1700s. In other words, they had abandoned this village before Lewis and Clark came through in 1805. This village is located on a peninsula cliff overlooking the river. The river and ravines on two sides protected the village on three sides. A wooden palisade protected the fourth side. At its peak the village had 75 circular earthlodges.

Today's On-a-Slant has five earthlodges constructed by the CCC during the 1930s under the direction of a Mandan spiritual leader called, if I remember correctly, a Corn Spirit. The earthlodges are 20 to 40 feet in diameter and 15 to 20 feet high. (See pictures at the bottom of the page) Extended matrilineal families, i.e,. the female head of household, her husband, her daughters and their husbandsand children, about 10 to 15 people, occupied each earthlodge. Inside, a large fire area is in the center of the lodge. A hole in the ceiling lets the smoke out. A large wooden wall in front of the door forces air to approach the fire from two directions. This encourages the smoke to go straight up through the hole rather than filling the lodge. Our guide said that in another earthlodge without the wall blocking the door, the air rushes in and pushes the smoke toward the walls, filling the lodge with smoke.

We also visited the infantry post on the hill near On-a-Slant. This is now basically the three reconstructed blockhouses. Chris climbed to the top (3 floors); Kathy quit after the second!

After leaving Fort Abraham Lincoln, we drove north to visit another Mandan village called Double Ditch and then north again to the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center with Fort Mandan. (Virtual tour of Fort Mandan.)Fort Mandan was built by Lewis and Clark's men to survive the winter of 1804-5. It is a triangular in shape and appears quite cozy, for a frontier fort.

We traveled north again to Rugby, geographical center of North America. Since we travel to Lebanon, Kansas (the geographical center of the 48 contiguous U.S. states), often, it seemed that we should also visit here.

Since the International Peace Garden did not have any campsites with electricity, we crossed in to Manitoba, Canada (yes, we remembered our passports!) to the Adam Lake campground at Turtle Mountain Provincial Park and Forest. It has very, very nice campsites. We were quite happy.