After General Harney and his men reached Fort Pierre in the late fall of 1855, he and his officers were all dissatisfied with the site.  After a thorough inspection of the location, they found the whole establishment in “bad order, bad condition and bad repair.”  The buildings were so dilapidated that they would have to be rebuilt — everything in fact was nearly worthless.

When he arrived at Fort Pierre on October 19, Harney, in no uncertain words expressed his dissatisfaction with the conditions there.

“I have never visited a post where so little had been done for the comfort, convenience, and necessities of the troops,” he reported to his superiors two months later.

He had expected that his troops would spend the winter in comfortable quarters.

The landing at the river was unacceptable, there was no building timber, fuel, or forage within close range, and most of the buildings were beyond repair.  The owners of the old trading post had made a good bargain with the federal government.  The fur trade had reached its decline, and $45,000 was far more than the post, which had outlasted its usefulness, was worth!

It was estimated that it would require $22,000 to put the establishment in anything like the condition called for under the agreement of purchase.  The agent representing the American Fur Company replied to the complaint:  “The Company was selling a trading post, not a military post–which was all it had been represented to be.” Eventually, the government paid the $45,000 agreed upon.

Just stop and think about this for a minute!  In 1855 the federal government agreed to pay $45,000 for Fort Pierre which would require the expenditure of another $22,000 to put it in the condition called for in the agreement of purchase.  Finally, the government ended up paying $45,000 for a piece of property which did not meet their needs and was never used by the War Department!  ($45,000 in 1855 is $1,578,150 today and $22,000 in 1855 is $771,540 today)

In his book A Brief History of South Dakota, Doane Robinson in 1931 devoted one chapter to try and explain this fiasco.  The title of the chapter was A Bad Bargain which many perhaps suggested was a gross understatement.  Their title would have been blunter and more direct.

Recognizing the impossibility of wintering his forces at Fort Pierre, Harney had his men establish winter camps along the Missouri River from eighteen miles above the fort to far below the fort at a location between the White and Niobrara rivers.  This southern location was called Camp Canfield.  It would later become the site where Fort Randall was established.

Harney was satisfied that even if Fort Pierre had been physically in good shape, it was too far up the river for the best location of a military post, and he set out to find a more fitting place.  He spent several months in examining the river and finally decided upon Handy’s Point, midway between Sioux City and Fort Pierre.  The site was selected because it would be most easily provisioned and because of the settlements which were steadily moving westward.

The first military presence at Fort Randall began on June 26, 1856, when the arrival of two companies of soldiers were landed by steamboat. They went to work immediately laying out the fort. It was located on the second terrace, about a quarter of mile from the river.

Early on, it was determined that it would be necessary to establish a Military Reservation around the fort. Particularly in view of the mounting presence of white squatters on Indian lands nearby, a buffer was needed.

At first, a weekly stage drawn by four mules was maintained over the Sioux City – Fort Randall military road. Its services were gradually increased to a tri-weekly run, and ultimately in 1868 a daily run was instituted. Goods were freighted from Sioux City over the same trail; however, these freighting facilities were not very practical above Yankton.

Road making during the early days was a simple process.  It consisted mostly of throwing up mounds of earth along a selected course.  The surface soon became packed and hardened, affording good travel under favorable conditions.  However; in rainy weather, the road was transformed into a sea of mud and became impassable.  This prompted the Yankton editor to remark in 1869, “If the road could be turnpiked, it would be worth thousands of dollars to the Territory, and have a tendency to lessen profane swearing at least 50 per cent.”

It is a mystery as to why a depot for the storing of supplies, along with a suitable garrison, was not established in this Upper Missouri River country long before the coming of General Harney.  It had been frequently recommended by military men as far back as the time of the Lewis and Clark exploration.

Fort Randall became the first military establishment on the Upper Missouri country, and was designed to furnish the link which completed the chain from Fort Ridgely in Minnesota around by way of Laramie to Riley and Leavenworth in Kansas.  It was the first of a line of forts to follow in a few years along the Missouri River reaching to Fort Benton in Montana.  It was designed to be the permanent military post and depot of supplies for all the Upper Missouri country.

 

Author Clarence Shoemaker, originally published in the Gregory Times-Advocate on August 16, 2023