at the post and they frequently married officers whom they met there, or had previously known. In the 1830’s and 1840’s, when Fort Gibson received many young officers recently out of West Point, such romances were common.

Propinquity and the charm of the Cherokee maidens accounted for many unions between them and the soldiers and officers at the post. Fort Gibson was the center of society and gaiety for a large section of the country that included the Cherokee Nation. The young women of that tribe were much sought by the officers and were welcome guests at the parties given at the post, where many romances budded and bloomed during the seventy years the old fort existed. The result was that in that part of Oklahoma which formerly constituted the Cherokee Nation, many families descended from unions between the soldiers and Indians. Frequently, when their terms of enlistment expired, soldiers remained in the neighborhood, married Indian girls, reared Indian families, and become prosperous from the land holdings these alliances brought them.

For want of diversions of greater interest, numbers of soldiers at Fort Gibson sought such excitement as they could find in the doggeries maintained by mixed-blood Cherokee Indians on tribal lands just off the reservation, where drinking and gambling were indulged in. Violations of the rule forbidding a soldier to remain outside the garrison after retreat had sounded were frequent, and iron bars were employed on the windows in the outer walls of the houses to enforce the regulations. These precautionary measures, said an observer, gave the barracks the appearance of a dilapidated Arkansas jail: the enclosure, he said, was made to hold five companies of troops—officers and men, laundresses and servants herded together in a climate where the temperature ranged in summer from eighty to one hundred degrees. These remarks truly painted a picture that explained much of the resistance to discipline and violation of regulations.

As an instance of punishment, an offender was sentenced to “stand on the head of a barrel with an empty bottle in each hand, in front of the dragoon guardhouse every alternate two hours from reveille until retreat for eight days with a board around his neck marked ‘Whiskey Seller,’ to carry a pack on his back weighing fifty pounds every alternate two hours for eight days, from reveille until retreat; to work at hard labor in charge of the guard for fourteen days, and to have seven days of his pay stopped.” Another culprit was sentenced “to be drummed around the garrison immediately in the rear of Corporal Charles Kelloun of H Company, First Dragoons, carrying a keg in his arms, to have a plank hanging on his back marked ‘Whiskey Runner,’ and to serve fifteen days at hard labor in charge of the guard, making good all time lost by sickness.”

Drunkenness and desertion were the most persistent and difficult violations with which officers had to deal. The courts martial varied the punishments inflicted upon offenders as far as their imagination would permit. One culprit was sentenced to the custody of the guard for thirty days “and during that period to walk in front of the guardhouse with a pack of stones weighing fifty pounds upon his back from eight o’clock A. M. to one P. M., and from two o’clock P. M. to retreat.” Another, in the winter was condemned “to be immersed for ten consecutive mornings in the river, fifteen minutes before breakfast roll call.” Another’s sentence was to have his “hands tied to a post above his head from reveille to guard mount, five days at hard labor, and to forfeit one dollar per day and his portion of sugar and coffee.” Forfeiture of sugar, coffee, and whiskey was a cruel measure often resorted to. Sentence to the stocks was employed, and frequently the garrison displayed the ghastly spectacle of a dozen men with hands and heads projected through these cruel devices which compelled them to stand and gave them no support. It was charged that in some cases culprits had died under this punishment. In October 1833, two privates of the First Dragoons convicted of desertion were sentenced to be branded with the letter “D” on the right thigh, to have their heads shaved, and be drummed out of the service of the United States with strong halters around their necks.

In the early 1850’s a traveler coming from the Northwest left an interesting picture of Fort Gibson: The Verdigris River forded, “another ride of an hour or more brought us to the Neosho (Grand River); this forded, we ride into Fort Gibson. This is a pretty place. There is the fort itself, with its blockhouses, the palisades with their heavy wooden gates, the stables on a hill nearby, the quarters of the dragoons in a former day and their look-out, the campus outside the fort, a plot of ground elevated above the river, having on two sides the houses of the officers, the chapel and schoolhouse, the government store, and all newly whitewashed. In this enclosure was a little burying ground, carefully protected and tastefully adorned with trees and shrubs. We pass out into the Cherokee country by a large gate, near which is a store having one entrance from the fort, and another from the Indian country. Around this door a great number of horses were tied while their riders were within, some with articles to barter for goods, others endeavoring to purchase by giving a lien on the annuity which will come next year, which annuity may be sold or gambled away to several other parties, all of whom will be at the council to claim it when it at length arrives.”

Fort Gibson was still a young fort when it was discovered that the green logs of which the houses were built were rapidly decaying and constant repairs were required to make them habitable. It was a sickly place and the great number of deaths which occurred there gave it the name of the charnel house of the army. From the time of its founding to December 8, 1835, eleven and a half years, 561 privates and 9 officers had died at the post. During the years 1834 and 1835 the deaths numbered 293 privates and 6 officers. In the summertime, in order to avoid the miasmic breezes carrying disease from the surrounding swamps and canebrakes, detachments of troops were ordered to camp on the hill above, or seven miles east on Bayou Manard at a place known as Clark’s Springs, where at one time the Cherokee agency, and later the home known as the McLain place, were situated.

Probably no fort in the West exerted a greater influence for the civilization of the surrounding country than did Fort Gibson, and this became the purpose of its maintenance for many years. With the appointment of the Stokes Indian Commission in 1832, efforts were made to bring representatives of the wild tribes to Fort Gibson for the purpose of making treaties with them and impressing them with the sovereignty of the United States; it was hoped that they would conform their conduct accordingly and become friends of the whites and of the Indian immigrants from the East who were to be the new owners of the Indian Territory. Ellsworth’s efforts in 1832, when Irving accompanied him, failed to accomplish this result. In 1833 another expedition set out from Fort Gibson commanded by Lieutenant Colonel James Many. In his command were two select companies of the Seventh Infantry and three companies of Rangers commanded by captains Bean, Ford, and Boone, the latter Nathan Boone, son of the famous Daniel. They went as far as the country on the Washita, Blue, and Red rivers, but returned empty-handed after suffering tremendous hardships.

The third effort to make contact with these Western Indians was successfully carried out in 1834, by what became known as the famous Dragoon Expedition. General Henry Leavenworth arrived at Fort Gibson April 28 of that year and assumed command of the post, which he held until June 12 when he departed in