Showing posts with label U.S. Army. Show all posts
Showing posts with label U.S. Army. Show all posts

Monday, December 13, 2021

A French film will be made about the funeral of Norbert Herriges. . .

 a P47 pilot who was killed over the country on August 12, 1944.  He was from Montana.

His body was hidden by the farm family where he landed when he attempted to parachute out of his stricken plane.  Villagers of the village of Pourrieres conducted a funeral that gathered three times the residency of the town's, which was 1,000.

Wednesday, November 11, 2020

Lex Anteinternet: November 11, 1920. Armistice Day.

Lex Anteinternet: November 11, 1920. Armistice Day.

November 11, 1920. Armistice Day.

It was, of course, Armistice Day.

In the U.S., veterans gathered.


In France and the UK, their unknown soldiers were interred.

In the UK, Parliament passed the Government of Ireland Act which provided for home rule in Ireland, in two separate political entities, north and south Ireland.  It never went into effect in the south due to the Anglo Irish War.  It simply came too late.

Thursday, October 15, 2020

Merrill's Marauders to receive Congressional Gold Medal.

 


The 5307 Composite Unit (Provisional), know by most as Merrill's Marauders, have been awarded a Congressional Gold Medal, an award honoring collective heroic achievements.  The 5307th famously served in deep penetration raids in the China Burma India Theatre during World War Two.

Only eight men of the unit remain alive today.

The act reads:

AT THE SECOND SESSION
Begun and held at the City of Washington on Friday,
the third day of January, two thousand and twenty

    To award a Congressional Gold Medal to the soldiers of the 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional), commonly known as “Merrill’s Marauders”, in recognition of their bravery and outstanding service in the jungles of Burma during World War II.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the “Merrill’s Marauders Congressional Gold Medal Act”.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

Congress finds that—

Under such regulations as the Secretary may prescribe, the Secretary may strike and sell duplicates in bronze of the gold medal struck under section 3, at a price sufficient to cover the costs of the medals, including labor, materials, dies, use of machinery, and overhead expenses.

SEC. 5. STATUS OF MEDALS.

Medals struck pursuant to this Act are national medals for purposes of chapter 51 of title 31, United States Code.





Speaker of the House of Representatives  





Vice President of the United States and President of the Senate  

Wednesday, June 24, 2020

Lex Anteinternet: Military Installation Names. What they were, and are, and how they got there. Part 3.

Lex Anteinternet: Military Installation Names. What they were, and ...:

Military Installation Names. What they were, and are, and how they got there. Part 3.

We've just done two posts in this three part series on the naming of military posts, starting off with the controversy, although there doesn't seem to be that much of of a controversy, over the suggestion that military posts in the South named after Confederate generals ought to be renamed.



We eclectically started off our post on Southern Posts with this entry, which wasn't in the South.





Why did we do that?



Well, at that time this series was conceived of as a single post.  But by the time we had all the text we were interested in posting, the post was so long, as Part 2 no doubt shows, that it no longer made much sense to do so. But it still makes sense to ask the questions we intended to, and those had to do with why posts were named what they were.



It probably shouldn't surprise anyone, but there are Army Regulations. . . now, for  naming posts. The more surprising things is that this hasn't always been the case.  The Army's Center For Military History sums up the story, which they likely are asked about a fair amount, particularly now, this way:

Naming Army Installations 


The naming of posts started as a tradition when the Army was young. In the Continental Army, many posts and camps were named by the commander or supervising engineer for high ranking officers, including those still living; for example, Fort Washington on the New York and Fort Lee on the New Jersey sides of the Hudson in 1776, Fort Putnam at West Point, or Fort Mifflin below Philadelphia on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware. Forts were also named for fallen heroes, such as Fort Mercer, built in 1777, on the New Jersey side of the Delaware opposite Fort Mifflin, named in honor of Brig. Gen. Hugh Mercer who fell at Princeton in January of that year. 


For much of the Army's history in the 19th Century, the naming of posts was still mainly a local prerogative. For example, War Department General Order Number 79, dated 8 November 1878, left the naming of installations to the commander of the regional Military Division in which the installation was located. Although not always, the names of installations usually reflected a local influence, such as Fort Apache in Arizona, established in 1871, and the Chickamauga Post in Georgia, established in 1902. In the 1890s, the then Quartermaster General, Maj. Gen. Richard N. Batchelder, recommended that the War Department assume responsibility for naming installations, but that did not become policy until World War I when the massive general mobilization saw the establishment of numerous installations of various sizes and functions. The names usually, but not always, reflected some regional connection to its location, and usually with a historic military figure significant to the area: for example, Camp Lee near Richmond, Virginia, and changing the name of the Chickamauga Post in Georgia to Fort Oglethorpe. 


In the years between the World Wars, it became the common practice for the War Department to entertain recommended names for posts from installation commanders, corps and branch commanders, and the Historical Section Army War College, as well as from outside the Army. Public opinion and political Influence sometime weighed heavily on the decisions. For an example of the latter, when in 1928 the Army renamed Fort George G. Meade in Maryland as Fort Leonard Wood, the Pennsylvania delegation in Congress held up the Army's appropriation bill until the service agreed to restore the name of the Pennsylvania-born general. The regional connection, however, cannot be overemphasized. Fort Monmouth in New Jersey, for example, was originally named Camp Alfred Vail, in honor of the Army's then chief Signal Officer, when the installation was established as a Signal Corps training facility in 1917, but changed to Fort Monmouth, for the 1778 battle fought nearby, when it became a permanent installation in the 1920s. 


The War Department better defined the criteria when it established the policy for "naming military reservations in honor of deceased distinguished officers regardless of the arm or service in which they have served" in a memorandum dated 20 November 1939. 


Shortly after World War II, in 1946, the Army established the Army Memorialization Board. Governed by Army Regulation (AR) 15-190, Boards, Commissions, and Committees: Department of the Army Memorialization Board, it assumed responsibility for deciding on the names of posts and other memorial programs and the criteria for naming them. The regulation stated that all those individuals memorialized must be deceased and fall within one of five categories: 


(1) a national hero of absolute preeminence by virtue of high position,

(2) an individual who held a position of high and extensive responsibility (Army and above) and whose death was a result of battle wounds,

(3) an individual who held a position of high and extensive responsibility and whose death was not a result of battle wounds,

(4) an individual who performed an act of heroism or who held a position of high responsibility and whose death was a result of battle wounds, and

(5) an individual who performed an act of heroism or who held a position of high responsibility and whose death was not a result of battle wounds.


On 8 December 1958 , AR 1-30, Administration: Department of the Army Memorialization Program superseded AR 15-190 , and removed responsibility for naming installations from the Memorialization Board and transferred it to Headquarters, Department of the Army. In turn, AR 1-33, Administration: Memorial Programs superseded AR 1-30 on 1 February 1972. This revision retained the same memorialization criteria and categories as the previous regulation, but added a list of appropriate memorialization projects for each category. For example, it would be appropriate to name a large military installation after a person in category two, while it would be appropriate to name a building or a street after a person in category five. The final decision on naming a post was still made by the Headquarters, Department of the Army. The 15 January 1981 revision of AR 1-33 named the Army Chief of Staff as the responsible individual for the naming of installations. 



The current AR 1-33 became effective on 30 June 2006, and redefined and expanded the categories of individuals to be memorialized, and listed appropriate memorialization programs for each category. The naming of installations is now the responsibility of the Assistant Secretary of Army (Manpower and Reserve Affairs). The Director of the Installation Management Agency is responsible for the naming of streets, buildings, and facilities on all military installations except medical installations, where the Commander of the U.S. Army Medical Command has the approval authority, and on the United States Military Academy, where the Superintendent of the United States Military Academy has the approval authority.
This post here, of course, started off with the topic of the Confederate named posts, and the Congressional Research Service recently issued this short synopsis of the Confederate posts and military installation names in general, about which it must have been receiving inquiries from members of Congress.
Confederate Names and Military Installations  
Updated June 16, 2020  
On June 8, 2020, an Army spokesperson made a statement that the Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and the Secretary of the Army Ryan D. McCarthy are “open to a bi-partisan discussion” on renaming the Army's 10 installations named after Confederate leaders. This statement follows the Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. David Berger’s message (MARADMIN 331/20) on June 5, 2020, instructing commanders to “identify and remove” displays of the Confederate battle flag on Marine bases. Gen. Berger's order was signed following a House Armed Services subcommittee hearing on February 11 regarding the rise of white supremacy in the ranks. A 2019 Military Times survey found that “36 percent of troops who responded have seen evidence of white supremacist and racist ideologies in the military, a significant rise from the year before, when only 22 percent reported the same in the 2018 poll.” In addition to some Department of Defense (DOD) officials, certain Members of Congress have expressed interest in renaming military installations named after Confederate leaders. There is also interest in the DOD’s selection and approval process for naming military installations.  
U.S. Military Bases Named in Honor of Confederate Military Leaders  
There are 10 major military installations named after Confederate Civil War commanders located in the former states of the Confederacy. These installations are all owned by the U.S. Army. They are: Fort Rucker (after Col. Edmund W. Rucker, who was given the honorary title of “General”) in Alabama; Fort Benning (Brig. Gen. Henry L. Benning) and Fort Gordon (Maj. Gen. John Brown Gordon) in Georgia; Camp Beauregard (Gen. Pierre Gustave Toutant “P.G.T.” Beauregard) and Fort Polk (Gen. Leonidas Polk) in Louisiana; Fort Bragg (Gen. Braxton Bragg) in North Carolina; Fort Hood (Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood) in Texas; and Fort A.P. Hill (Lt. Gen. Ambrose Powell “A.P.” Hill), Fort Lee (Gen. Robert E. Lee) and Fort Pickett (Maj. Gen. George Edward Pickett) in Virginia. 
Naming Policy by Military Service  
Currently, DOD does not have a department-wide review process to evaluate the naming of military installations. Each military service has its own naming criteria and approval process summarized below.  
Army 
In general, the naming of Army installations is the responsibility of the Assistant Secretary of Army for Manpower and Reserve Affairs (ASA (M&RA)), However, the Secretary of the Army retains final approval authority for the Army Memorial Program—a program that oversees the naming of all Army real property. For the Army, the naming of a U.S. Army installation after a deceased individual is considered a memorialization, while naming an installation after a living individual is termed a dedication. The Army maintains separate criteria for memorialization and dedication of Army real property. The regulation that sets these criteria is Army Regulation (AR) 1-33, The Army Memorial Program (October 2018). In addition to dedicating and memorializing installations after people, the Army can also name an installation after an event. AR 1-33 provides a separate set of criteria for this “naming” and is defined as “the non-permanent naming of Army real property after famous battles and events.”  
Navy
OPNAV INSTRUCTION 5030.12H(October 2017) explains the U.S. Navy’s policy and procedures for the naming of streets, facilities and structures. According to this instruction, “names selected should honor deceased members of the Navy.” It may also be appropriate to honor deceased persons other than Navy personnel who have made significant contributions to the benefit of the Navy. This instruction is applicable to naming a structure or building that is identified by a real property unique identifier or a street. Naming designations of internal portions of buildings or spaces can be assigned at the discretion of the local installation commander. The spokesman for the Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday announced on June 9, that Adm. Gilday directed his staff to draft an order that will ban the Confederate battle flag from all public spaces and work areas on Navy bases, ships, subs, and aircraft.  
Marine Corps 
The Manual for the Marine Corps Historical Program addresses the Commemorative Naming Program and specifies that “property may be named for individuals highly regarded within the Marine Corps and/or local communities. Names of deceased Marines, or members of other military organizations who died while serving with or in support of Marine Corps units, will be considered first.”A Marine Corps Installations Command Policy Letter 3-15 offers guidance for Marine Corps Installations Command. 
Air Force Air Force
 Manual 36-2806, Awards and Memorialization Program (2019), sets Air Force policy for the Air Force’s memorialization program. The manual states “The memorialization program is designed to provide enduring honor and tribute to living and deceased military members and civilians with records of outstanding and honorable service through the naming of Air Force installations, streets, buildings, and interior spaces of buildings.” Chapter 4 of the manual provides naming criteria and approval authorities for Air Force installations, and states: “When naming an Air Force installation ensure only the most deserving individuals are selected for memorialization. Selections should bring honor to the Air Force and reflect the goodwill of the local community.”  
Author Information 
Barbara Salazar Torreon Senior Research Librarian
Well, there you have it. From that you can take it to be the case that the Army wouldn't be naming any posts after Confederate rebels today as they wouldn't meet the first two criteria.  I.e., no Confederate figure is a "national hero", in spite of what some in the South may have viewed over the last century about figures like Robert E. Lee, and in spite of the treatment those same figures were given by the Army in the early and mid 20th Century, and the second criteria implicitly presumes that they were in the U.S. service, which none of the Confederate figures was at the time of their famous or infamous service.



Camp Wheeler, Georgia, named after Joseph Wheeler and which was used in World War One and World War Two.  The land was returned to its owners following the Second World War.  Camp Wheeler is arguably the only former military post that would meet the current rules, as while Wheeler had been a Confederate General in the Civil War, he was also a Maj. Gen. in the U.S. Army during the Spanish American War.  Wheeler is associated with Georgia, but was actually from Connecticut.


None of which means that the post would be, or should be, renamed, although we addressed that topic in our first post in which we concluded that they  largely should be.

As the Army's Center for Military History item notes, early on posts were named as a matter of local prerogative.  When we looked at the Wyoming posts names, an interesting added part of the picture comes to light.  When the U.S. first established any military presence in Wyoming at all, it was acquiring existing facilities and simply keeping their names. Ft. Laramie was the first permanent U.S. post in what would become Wyoming and the Army simply bought Ft. Laramie and kept the name.  Jaques LaRamy wasn't an American military figure and wasn't an American at all.   This didn't seem to figure into the Army's naming conventions at all at the time.  Other forts occupied prior to the Civil War went the same way, in part.

Having said that, on some occasions the office establishing a camp was naming it after himself, or in quite a few instances, a commander who was up his chain of command.  A person can look at that more than one way, rather obviously, but both were common.

When the Civil War hit, in Wyoming, the 11th Ohio and 11th Kansas came into the state, and they established the practice of occupying established "stations" of a civilian nature and building posts at them.  Sometimes they observed the pre war naming convention, but more often they simply named the station after where they were.  

The Civil War was a great national shock and following it hte officer corps of the Army was made up of veterans of that war, many of whom had held much higher ranks during the ar than they did after it.  Even as the war was raging the Army started to name new posts after U.S. Army senior officer who had lost their lives during the war or, in some cases, very soon after it.  Wyoming posts like Ft. Buford and Ft. Sanders (the same post) or Ft. Phil Kearny provide such examples.



During the Civil War the Indian Wars heated up massively as Indians tribes, either intentionally or due to circumstances engaged non Indians with increasing frequency.  At the time, and for many years thereafter, this was attributed to Indian opportunism but a careful look at the era would lead a person to question that.*  The war resulted in the withdrawal of the Army from the Frontier to a large extent, although it should be noted that the military presence on the Frontier was very small to start with and the distance between the prewar Frontier forts was massive in extent, so the extent to which that alone was responsible for the uptick in conflicts, as some have asserted, is questionable.



The war directly caused a big upswing in European migration on the transcontinental trails across the West which arrived at the same time in which Indians tribes noticed and became increasingly concerned over the character of European American presence in the upper West.  Prior European Americans had been small in number and were often fairly feral in their nature.  The new migrants were largely passing through but they were also largely of the yeomanry class whose view of hte land was markedly different, and they were also descendant in large numbers of prior American populations that had a history of conflict with Indians.  Simultaneously miners began to penetrate the West in numbers for the first time. Towns, and even cities, began to be built which was a notable and dangerous new development for Indians and finally the railroad began to penetrate as well.  All of this made an already touchy situation explosive.



As did events like the Sand Creek Massacre on November 29, 1864 during which Colorado militia attacked a Cheyenne band with no real cause. This put the Cheyenne to flight and also to war, with that war spreading north very rapidly into Wyoming.  In turn, Sioux bands allied with the Cheyenne could not help but note was occurring generally.



All of this meant that even as the Civil War was being fought the Plains Indians Wars were igniting, meaning that as early as 1865, if not earlier, the Army was naming posts after Army figures who had been killed in combat with Indians.  Ft. Caspar was one of the first such examples, but it would soon be joined by Ft. Fetterman and Ft. Brown.  Civil War figures were not replaced by Indian War figures, however, with the seminal name of Abraham Lincoln being given to the post of that name in 1872.**



This loose practice kept up as the Army approached World War One.  Camp Cody, featured above, was named for example at the time of the Punitive Expedition.  Other posts incorporated varied names.


Camp Furlong, Columbus, New Mexico.  1916.  I don't know who this post was named for, as there's little easy to find information on that.  However, it's worth noting that this post in 1912 was established at time at which Wesley J. Furlong, a black recipient of the Medal of Honor from the Civil War, was still living.



Camp Stewart, not Stuart.  I'm not sure which military figure this post was named for, but it was not J. E. B. Stuart. It may have been named for Brig. Gen. Daniel Stewart, whom Ft. Stewart, Georgia, was also named for. That Stewat was a general in the Revolutionary War. Of note, teh Amy chose not to retain this name with this post 

When the US ran up to entry in the Great War, the naming conventions, but not regulations, tighted up considerable.  As the CMH item notes, the practice became to name military posts after generals of historical importance and preferentially with a connection to the region of the post.  Unnamed as a policy, it very clearly became the practice to name Southern posts after Confederate generals even to the extent of naming some after figures of some infamy or who were even of questionable military competence.***



The fact that even figures who were not only rebels, but in some occasions associated with the worst of the Confederate cause and also those who were not bright shining military lights really tells us something about the extent to which the Lost Cause mythology had seized and altered the common historical understanding of the Civil War.  It also says something about the extent to which the Army, faced with the largest war it had been in since the Civil War, looked back on that war for guidance.  Seemingly it was also the only thing that compared to what it was now in.



It was the only thing that it had been in for nearly eighty years in which Southern military figures, save for Joseph Wheeler, had really shined in an obvious fashion. There's been a lot of notable figures of the Indian Wars since 1865 and the Spanish American War contributed additional names to the Army's heroic list. These names were not forgotten, but the policy of local attribution meant that they largely were absent from the South. They were used, and sometimes more than once.  Frederick Funston, only recently departed and expected to have lead the American Army in France if war came, was a hero of the Spanish American War who died shortly before the war. Two Camp Funston's were named for him thereafter, for example.



Camp Funston, Leon Springs, Texas.

Camp Funston, Kansas.

In Michigan, which was his home, George Armstrong Custer of Little Big Horn fame, or infamy, found his name attached to the World War One training post there, Camp Custer, which survives today as Ft. Custer, a Michigan National Guard training range.

Camp Custer, 1918.  This post remained in service after the war and was designated a permanent base and therefore a "fort" in 1940.  After World War Two it went into use as a Marine Corps and Navy Reserve post but reverted to the Army at the start of the Korean War.  It was turned over to the state of Michigan as a National Guard training range in 1968, but interestingly it still sees some Navy Reserve use.

So the naming conventions remained loose during the Great War but there was obviously an unofficial policy of naming posts after a military figure with a local connection, and in the case of the South, that meant, in the minds of Army leaders, picking Confederate generals' names.  To put it fairly, however, they didn't seem to be under any mental reservation about that.  Indeed, during the war the widow of at least one Confederate general, and one of the problematic ones at that, was honored, and therefore the general himself vicariously honored, at the post.


What black soldiers thought of this seems unrecorded, or at least I haven't run across their thoughts. They were obviously aware of it and indeed as many black soldiers hailed from the South they saw service in some of these posts.  Indeed, it's worth noting that black combat soldiers were more likely, as a class, to see combat in World War One than World War Two.  While the services were segregated at the time, save for the Marine Corps which didn't allow blacks to enter their service at all until mid World War Two, the Great War did not see an effort to preclude black troops from the front lines to the same extent that was done in the Second World War and there were a variety of black National Guard units that saw service in the war.****  Some of those units would have trained at these posts.

National Guardsmen of the 370th Infantry of Illinois, which had black officers and enlisted men.  Black officers were very unusual, but once again this was a feature of a few such units in World War One.  The 370th had an all black officer corps, the only such unit to have that feature.

It should have been noted that there were ways around naming posts after Confederate officers, if the Army had chosen to do them.  For one thing, they could simply have been named for their locations, which would have been easy enough. As has been already pointed out in Part 2 of this series, that's exactly how Wyoming's two National Guard training ranges were named, even though by the time the second one, Camp Guernsey, was being established, there was clearly a Wyoming personality, Jay L. Torrey, whose name was available for use.*****Another option, in some instances, would have been to use the names of Southern figures from the Revolution or the War of 1812, although that would have perhaps simply served to remind Southerners that names of Confederate generals were being excluded.  Finally, while it would be controversial today, names of Indian War figures were available, but that would have had to have been done without regard to their place of origin and, as odd as it may seem, the Plains Indian Wars were closer in time to World War One for the most part than the Civil War such that many of the participants in those wars remained alive, with some Army officers, such as Pershing, having served in them.

Whatever the situation may have been during World War One, it's harder to justify the ongoing practice of naming Southern posts after Confederate figures after 1918.  By that time, the new war had produced more than its share of well known national heroic figures.  Nonetheless, the practice continued all the way through World War Two. The reason it did is truly an example of institutional racism.  By that time, no matter what the majority view of the country may have been, the Army basically accepted the Lost Cause thesis and had made up, in its mind, with the rebellious Southern officers of the 1860s and accepted them as their own.  Indeed, as an example of that, John J. Pershing and his aid, George Marshall, visited the tomb of J. E. B. Stuart at VMI in 1920, honoring the rebel cavalryman by their presence.  During the same time frame the Army actually became more prejudiced in its view towards its black soldiers, not less, and when the Second World War Came the Army acted to exclude existing black Regular Army formations from combat in spite of their World War One examples.  Half of the Army posts now subject to controversial Confederate names were named during the Second World War, not the First.

Segregation in the Army came to an end in the Truman Administration and it was Missouri born Truman who first used the Regular Army in support of desegregation in the South.  Blacks were conscripted in a fashion roughly analogous with whites during the Korean War and combat units in that war were desegregated.  This has been true, of course, ever since.  Also under Truman, official naming conventions in the Army, already set out above, but repeated here, came into existance in 1946, providing:
(1) a national hero of absolute preeminence by virtue of high position,(2) an individual who held a position of high and extensive responsibility (Army and above) and whose death was a result of battle wounds,(3) an individual who held a position of high and extensive responsibility and whose death was not a result of battle wounds,(4) an individual who performed an act of heroism or who held a position of high responsibility and whose death was a result of battle wounds, and(5) an individual who performed an act of heroism or who held a position of high responsibility and whose death was not a result of battle wounds.
And that is where we are now.

As noted above, none of the Southern posts named after Confederates would meet these criteria now, but then not all of the remaining posts named after others would as well.  At least Michigan's Fort Custer is probably named after an individual who is as despised by a significant number of Americans as the Southern posts are.  So renaming them merely because they don't meet the current criteria likely wouldn't be in order.  Renaming them because of who they are named after, however, very well might be.


_________________________________________________________________________________
Prior posts in this series:



Military Installation Names. What they were, and are, and how they got there. Part 1. Named for Confederate Generals


Military Installation Names. What they were, and are, and how they got there. Part 2. Posts in Wyoming



*I'm not saying that such a careful look has in fact taken place.

**Ft. Abraham Lincoln, North Dakota, was the location from which the 7th Cavalry dispatched in 1876 in their message to gather the Sioux from the plains. The campaign would result in the Battle of the Little Big Horn.

***The universal military quality of Southern officers is a myth of the Lost Cause Era.  In truth, the South has an inordinate number of marginal or even incompetent officers.

****The story of segregation in the Armed Forces is a little more complicated than it might at first seem, and has been dealt with here in earlier posts, specifically:


Blacks in the Army. Segregation and Desegregation



That post deals with the Army and the Navy, in spite of its caption.

As noted in that post, during the Revolution blacks were actually common in the Continental Army and it wasn't until after the Revolution that Congress banned their entry into the Army.  Even with an official prohibition, actually enforcing the ban seems to have been loosely enforced at first.  Only as the 19th Century progressed towards the Civil War were blacks actually excluded from the Army, but that day did arrive. During the Civil War the ban was reversed and the segregated Army came in, which remained all the way until just prior to the Korean War.

The Navy in contrast wasn't segregated until the late 19th Century, reflecting the fact that the Navy recruited from ports in the wood and sail era.  During that time it was more concerned about bringing in experienced sailors than anything else and it accordingly disregarded race and even nationality in recruiting enlisted men.  Only when the steel Navy came in post Civil War did that change and the Navy officially segregated in 1893, although officially enforcing that policy on a preexisting structure also took some time.  This change reflected a change in recruitment in which mechanical and technical skills now took precedence over sailing skills, and the Navy was now recruiting largely from the interior of the country.

The Marine Corps had barred entry of blacks from the very beginning as it strictly limited its recruiting to whites.  This was for a peculiar reason, however.  The logic of its first commanders was focused on the mutiny suppression role that Marines fulfilled and they therefore tried to make the makeup of the Marine Corps reflect the largest national demographic out of a fear that allowing in minorities would cause conflicts in loyalties should mutinies occur.  Interestingly enough, the one real mutiny, although it is not called that, which the Navy experienced didn't occur until the early 1970s at which time the black commanding officer of the vessel had to be ordered to stand down in his plan to arm his Marines and storm the parts of the ship held by protesting black sailors so, while the event occured two centuries later, ethnic loyalties did't play a part in that event when it really came.  The Marine Corps allowed blacks into the service during World War Two and was integrated along with the Army and Navy in 1948. The Air Force had already taken the step in 1946 upon its coming into existence and was never officially segregated, although as it was formed out of the segregated Army, it took it until 1949 to really desegregate.

*****Torrey was a legislator and rancher who had lead the formation and recruitment of the 2nd Volunteer Cavalry during the Spanish American War.  That unit failed to see action, but it was sufficiently well remembered that a Rough Rider was adopted as the unit patch for Wyoming National Guardsmen at some point and while different patches have come in, in recent years, for some units, it's still the default patch for the Wyoming Army National Guard.  It's fairly surprising that Camp Guernsey wasn't named Camp Torrey.

Tuesday, June 23, 2020

Lex Anteinternet: Military Installation Names. What they were, and are, and how they got there. Part 2. Posts in Wyoming

Lex Anteinternet: Military Installation Names. What they were, and ...:

Military Installation Names. What they were, and are, and how they got there. Part 2. Posts in Wyoming

Part 1 of this post was originally just a few introductory paragraphs before what was intended to be a discussion on Wyoming's posts, but it grew so large, we made it a separate entry.  Here we go on to the second part of the discussion, which was supposed to be the main point of the discussion.

The Wyoming Posts

Wyoming has had a large number of military installations over the years, but most of the posts that have existed within it are long closed, with some of them closed installations for over a century. Today, there are only three really substantial full time military posts in Wyoming, with two of those being National Guard facilities.  We'll take a look at those posts first.

Current Posts

1.  F. E. Warren A.F.B.

Ft. D. A. Russell, 1910.

Warren is named after Francis E. Warren, former Wyoming Senator and Governor and father in law to Gen. John Pershing.  He was also a Civil War Medal of Honor recipient, an award conferred on him post war.  Warren was a major Wyoming political figure during his lifetime.  The post wasn't named for him at first, however.  It was named for David A. Russell.

David A. Russell.

David A. Russell was a career officer and West Point graduate who was a casualty of the Civil War.  Russell had fought in the Mexican War and in the West at the Rogue River War, but had no direct connection with Wyoming of which I'm aware.  Russell was killed by shrapnel in September 1864 at Winchester, Virginia.

Ft. D. A. Russell was established in 1867, the same year that Russell was posthumously brevetted to Major General, and therefore just a few years after Russell's death.  It retained that name up until 1930, when President Hoover had the base renamed for the recently departed Francis E. Warren.

Francis E. Warren.

Warren was a legendary Wyoming political figure of the late 19th and early 20th Century.  He was the state's last Territorial Governor and it first State Governor.  He served in the Senate for a long time, dying in office in 1929.  He was also the recipient of the Medal of Honor for valor in action at age 19 when he was an infantryman of the 49th Massachusetts during the Civil War.  He was John J. Pershing's father in law.  The changing of the name of the post no doubt had as much to do with his long service as a politician as his military service.

The post became an Air Force Base in 1947.  It is perhaps somewhat unique for an Air Force Base as it doesn’t contain a runway.  It’s a strategic missile post.

This post, in the context of the times, provides an interesting example of a post being renamed.  For the first sixty-three years of its existence it bore the name of the unfortunate D. A. Russell, and for the next ninety it has borne the name of Francis E. Warren.  It's also interesting in that it provides an example of a post being renamed for a state political figure between World War One and World War Two.

2.  Camp Guernsey.


The heavily used National Guard training range is named after the town of Guernsey, Wyoming.  This post receives so much use that it is, for all practical purposes, a ground combat training range in constant use by the Army and the Marine Corps, as well as the National Guard.

This National Guard post went into operation in the summer of 1938 when it replaced the Pole Mountain Training Range.  The 115th Cavalry trained there in 38 and 29, and then was called into active duty in 1940.  Training resumed there after the Guard was deactivated in 1945 and has continued on every since.

Guernsey itself was named for C. A. Guernsey who was a local cattle rancher and author.  If viewed in the fashion of Ft. Laramie, therefore, Camp Guernsey was vicariously named for him.  It's interesting that unlike the numerous camps and forts established during World War One and World War Two all around the country, no effort was seemingly made to name it after a military figure, even though numerous Indian Wars battles had been fought in the state and the state had contributed men to the Spanish American War, Philippine Insurrection and World War One by that time.

Indeed, in that context, its surprising that's never been done, even though the Wyoming National Guard has now participated, in some fashion, in every war fought since statehood.

3.  Wyoming Air National Guard Base.

The unimaginatively named Air Guard base in Cheyenne is also heavily used and is called simply that.  It’s odd to think that this Air Guard base, which is extremely active, basically overflies Warren AFB, which as noted lacks a runway.

4.  Army National Guard Armories

At least one current National Guard Armory, the one in Douglas, was named after a long time serving National Guardsman.  Unfortunately, I've been remiss in recording his name and I wasn't able to find it when putting up this post.  I know that he'd served for a long time before World War One, served in the war, and then after the war, as the units full time enlisted man.  He was likely the only full time soldier at that post for much of that time.

The Armory in Rawlins, when it had one, was similarly named after a very long serving Guardsman, Darryl F. Acton.  Acton had been the full time enlisted man and the First Sergeant of the unit for a very long time and after his retirement it was named for him.  He outlived that designation, and therefore this entry more properly belongs below, as the Rawlins Armory was closed post Cold War when the National Guard was reduced in size. Today the Wyoming Department of Transportation occupied the building and the name no longer remains.  1st Sgt Action died in 2019.  His military service dated back to the Korean War.

Former and Closed in the 20th Century.

Not counting all of the National Guard Armories in the state, of which there a large number, including many which have been replaced or simply closed over the years, Wyoming still has a surprising number of 20th Century military post that were occupied at one time.  Many of these fit into the Frontier period with their establishment trailing on into the 20th Century, but a couple of them were World War Two installations.  We deal with them below.

1. Casper Army Air Base.  

Flag pole base of parade ground.

This enormous airfield was built during World War Two as a bomber training facility, opening in September, 1942.  It was transferred to the county following World War Two in 1949 and is now the Natrona County International Airport.  It continues to get a lot of military traffic including so much Royal Canadian Air Force traffic that I jokingly refer to it as the southernmost Canadian air force base.

A lot of the World War Two era buildings remain at this location, but almost all of them have been altered. A museum constructed in recent years, however, contains original World War Two era murals within it.



3. Heart Mountain Relocation Camp.


I'm not quite certain if I should regard this as a military installation or not, but given as there were troops there, I'll count it.

Heart Mountain came about when the Federal Government acted to move Japanese and Japanese American residents from the West Coast to the interior and keep them in camps.  The act was illegal, but it was done, resulting in one of the more shameful episodes in American 20th Century history.  One of the camps was Heart Mountain, which was opened in 1942 and remained open throughout the war, although Administration policies put in place in 1944 that started to allow for the return of the residents meant that by June 1945, prior to the end of the war, the population had been reduced by around 2,000 residents.  Given that over 10,000 people were interred there during the war, that meant that few had left by the war's end and in fact the last internees left the camp in November, 1945.  Given everything that occurred during the war return to their homes proved extremely difficult in many instances.


The state's reputation has been given a black mark by the existence of the camp even though the state didn't cause it to come into existence.  The state did enact discriminatory laws, however, during the war aimed at it residents, who were legal residents of the US or US citizens, so the state doesn't deserve a pass on it either.  The state definitely wanted the internees to leave once they could.

The land for the camp belonged to the Bureau of Reclamation prior to the war and when the camp closed it reverted to that ownership.  In the 1990s efforts were made to preserve what little remained of it and a state interpretive center was opened in 2011.

It's interesting to note that in recollections by the internees Heart Mountain is fairly uniformly regarded as a horrible place, whereas generally the entire Park County region it is in is regarded as one of the nicest places in the state.  This demonstrates how conditions define views.  The structures at the camp were regarded as temporary and were basically tar paper shacks, something that would be difficult to live in a Park County winter even if a person wasn't a prisoner.
This post, considered a pork barrel project at the time it was established, is one that  had a long association with the military horse in that the remount aspects of this post were a major give and take for the town.  The area where the post was located, Sheridan, had a substantial English ranching connection and a lot of high quality horse breeding occurred there.  Polo was introduced there and it remains in the form of the Big Horn Polo Club.  As noted, even after the post closed the Army remained in the form of an ongoing Remount program for years, even though the troops associated with it were technically serving on a distant assignment from Ft. Robinson.  Given this, the lack of importance the fort is generally viewed with really is not fair.

Ranald S. "Bad Hand" Mackenzie.  Mackenzie lost two fingers during the Civil War which is the probable reason for his nickname.

Ranald Mackenzie was a famous and tragic U.S. Army commander.  An 1862 graduate of West Point, he was a brilliant commander and was breveted to general in 1866.  Following the Civil War he distinguished himself in the post Civil War Indian Wars.  Even by the 1870s, however, he was showing signs of mental instability and was discharged from the service in 1884.  While his decline was commonly attributed to falling from a Wagon while stationed at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, there's fairly good reason to believe that it was due to the progress of syphilis.  The decline of his fame was such that his death was little noted in the press, even though he'd been a very well known and followed commander only a decade before, but he was sufficiently well remembered to be honored in the form of the name of this post.

Some years ago I posted photos of Ft. Mackenzie on another site, where they'd be of interest.  I just recently moved those over to one of our companion blogs, and therefore, while it may burden this thread a bit, I'm reposting them here as well:

Ft. Ranald Mackenzie (Sheridan Wyoming Veterans Hospital)
















5. Pole Mountain.  

Pole Mountain was an Army and a National Guard training range located at Pole Mountain, Albany County.  The range was used by both the Army and the Wyoming National Guard in the 20s and the 30s until Camp Guernsey was opened just prior to World War Two.  It’s National Forest today.

It was a cavalry training range during its existence, due to the presence of cavalry at Ft. Warren and in the Wyoming National Guard during that period.  The nearby presence of the Union Pacific Railroad allowed troops to be deposited at the area by train or to ride there from Ft. Warren.

6. Ft. Yellowstone.  

Fort Yellowstone in 1910.

Named after Yellowstone National Park, which it served, the post was established in 1886 for the purpose of administering the National Park, which was a task originally assigned to the Army.  Gen. Philip Sheridan dispatched the original cavalry detachment there which accordingly named the post Camp Sheridan, giving us an example of the naming of a Wyoming post after the living honoree, although only barely, as Sheridan was to die the following year at age 57.  The post was renamed Fort Yellowstone when it was given permanent status in 1891.  The Army occupied the post until 1918 when it was turned over to the National Park Service which had taken over the duties of park administration.

Today its Mammoth Hot Springs in the park.  Many of the original buildings remain.

This post had to offer its troops some of the best duty of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.

7. Ft. Washakie.  

This post was named after Chief Washakie of the Shoshone was living at the time and in fact outlived the post, dying at about age 100.

Visit of President Arthur to Ft. Washakie, 1883.

The area has a somewhat complicated history in regard to the establishments of military installations.  The first post established there was Camp Augur, which was a subpost of Ft. Bridger.  It was established in 1869.  Augur was a Mexican war and Civil War general who was the head of the Department of the Platte at the time, giving us another example of the naming of an installation after a living figure, although it was a camp, not a fort.  While Camp Augur is regarded as the predecessor of Ft. Washakie, it was actually located where Lander Wyoming is located today.  It's purpose was to protect the Shoshones at the Wind River Indian Reservation and it was located at the Indian Agency headquarters.  In 1870 the camp was renamed Camp Brown, in honor of Cpt. Frederick Brown who was killed at the Fetterman Fight.

In 1871 the agency headquarters were moved fifteen miles to the north and the Army post went with it.  In 1878 the post was renamed Ft. Washakie.  The town that developed there is the seat of government for the Wind River Reservation and many of the military buildings remain in use.  

This post was one of two (the other being D. A. Russell) which at which the 9th Cavalry was stationed in the state for a time.

This post is unusual in that it was named after an American Indian, and a living one at that. It's occasionally claimed that it provides the only example of this being done, but that is disputed.

Former and closed in the 19th Century.  


Map by William Henry Jackson depicting Pony Express stations.  This is posted here as many of the same stations were used by the Army during the Civil War as small military posts.

This list will be incomplete.  There were many, many, temporary camps, stations and installations in Wyoming during the frontier period, many of which simply bore the name of where they were.  Indeed, my house is quite near one whose exact location is unknown.  Some of these which are remembered are because they were more established than the others or they're associated with a specific event.

On this, there's a couple of things we should note.

One is the presence of "stations".  During the Civil War the 11th Ohio and 11th Kansas Cavalry, and to an extent the 1st U.S. Volunteers, the latter of which were "galvanized Yankees" who were mostly from Tennessee in Wyoming's case, established a network of stations along the Oregon Trail to protect it and the telegraph line that had gone in.  Many of these were existing civilian locations that were thought deserving of protection in any event, but not all of them were. And not all of the existing civilian stations received an Army garrison.  This was a change in strategic thinking as it allowed patrols to be shorter and forced Indian parties that might have some destructive intent to deal with a much more extant military presence, even if the number of soldiers at any one station was often very small.  The strategy was quite effective.

Not all of the locations for these stations is presently known today. I’m presently within a few miles of three of them, two of which have known locations and one of which doesn’t, but is probably within several hundred yards of my house.

During the same period, and before, the Army also established a lot of camps, quite a few of which were very temporary in nature. Even ones that featured log structures were often only occupied fairly briefly.  These bases served campaigns in vast contested territories and had the chance of becoming permanent in some instances, although many did not.

1.  Camp Augur and Camp Brown.

See Ft. Washakie

2.  Fort Bernard

I'll abstain going into depth on this post, as it was a private American Fur Company trading post near Ft. Laramie.  This trading post had a surprisingly long life, existing from 1845 to 1866, when it burned down.

3.  Fort Bridger

Ft. Bridger is named for its founder Jim Bridger, who founded it as a trading post in 1842.  The post seems to have been sold by a partner of Bridger's to Mormon interests in 1855 during a period of time during which Bridger, who did not get along well with the Mormons, was absent.

Frontiersman Jim Bridger.  Bridger was a long lived individual for the dangerous life he lead.  Born in Virginia and orphaned in Missouri at age 13, he lived to age 77 and died on his farm in Kansas.  He was married three times due the deaths of his spouses, with each of his wives being a Native American.  His last was a daughter of Chief Washakie.  Of his several children, only one outlived him.

The post was burned in 1857 by the Mormons during the Mormon War in order to keep it out of U.S. Army hands, but they wintered there and rebuilt the fort as an Army post in 1858.  The Army thereafter occupied it against both of its prior owners until abandoning it in 1878. The Army then reestablished it in 1880, and then closed it again in 1890.

This post was one of the numerous frontier posts established by civilians who named them after themselves.  Occupied prior to the Civil War, the Army of that period simply retained the prior name.

2.  Ft. Caspar.  

This post amed for Lt. Caspar Collins who was killed at a battle with the Cheyenne at that location in 1865, prior to which it was Platte Bridge Station.

The post location was at a point on the North Platte River that could be forded and it had been used as a temporary military camp prior to Platte Bridge Station prior to the Civil War.  In 1849 a ferry was established on the location by the Mormon church.  French Canadian entrepreneurs established a bridge there shortly afterwards, and a trading post along with it.  When the telegraph line was put through the area, Western Union established a telegraph station there.  In 1861 the Army posted troops at the location, given its obvious importance,  naming the station after the Bridge.  In 1865 a battle was fought across the river from the location in which Lt. Caspar Collins was killed leading a relief party attempting to get to an Army wagon train that was some miles distant and being besieged.  The Army then named the post after the late Lt. Collins.

Statue of Collins in Casper, Wyoming.

The location was not named “Ft. Collins”, however, as the lieutenant’s father already had a post named after him, Ft. Collins, which is in northern Colorado.  Lt. Collins himself was a member of the 11th Ohio Cavalry which was stationed in Wyoming during the Civil War.  His actual post was Sweetwater Station and he just happened to be at Platte Bridge Station when the nearby Battle of Red Buttes developed and he volunteered to lead the relief party.  The post was closed as a result of Red Cloud’s War after which the Sioux burned it down.  It’s been rebuilt as a very nice city park and historical site.

Oregon Trail Memorials, Ft. Caspar Wyoming

This is an Oregon Trail memorial at Ft. Casper Wyoming. I somewhat wonder if the medallion on this one came from an older monument, as the medallion is a very common site along the trail on older memorials. At some point prior to World War Two a significant effort was made to place such memorials commemorating the trail, which in many locations had become state highways.

This is an even older Oregon Trail Memorial, also located at Ft. Caspar. As can be seen from the monument, it was placed in 1914. During this period, traveling on the trial itself was very common, as nearly every stretch of it was some sort of local road. Indeed, in some parts of Wyoming, this is still the case.

Once again, these monuments probably really do not belong here, but they are strongly associated with the history of Western movement, which involved a lot of sacrifice of all sorts by all involved.

This post has the distinction of being the first post in Wyoming to be named after a soldier who died in an Indian Wars engagement, signalling what would be a major change in naming conventions that was just beginning.

3.  Cheyenne Depot (Camp Carlin).


I'm going to leave this photograph as the description for this one, as its about all I know about a post that I would have regarded as an auxiliary to Ft. D. A. Russell.

3.  Deer Creek Station

Deer Creek Station was an Army station on the Oregon Trail that is near the present town of Glenrock.  Named simply for its location, its associated with a battle that took place on May 20, 1865 which was actually a series of engagements in the general area of the post.  In those actions groups of soldiers were attacked by more numerous parties of Indians but were able to hold off the attacks due to their superior arms.  Like Ft. Caspar, this post was abandoned at the end of Red Cloud's War and it was burned by Indians in August, 1866.

I just recently posted an item on this on one or our companion blogs, and hence will include that post here:

Deer Creek Station, Glenrock Wyoming.


In the last couple of days I've put up some photos of Frontier Era Army posts in the state which were taken years ago. All of those were originally posted elsewhere, but a change in how Photobucket operated made them difficult to view, and I was left wondering why I hadn't blogged those photos.  I know the reason why, actually.  It used to be hard to upload lots of photos onto Blogger.  That's changed.

Anyhow, this photograph is new.  This is the former location of Deer Creek Station.


The sign itself isn't placed on the exact location, actually.  It's near it, more or less, but really a couple of miles away.  I'd guess it may be 1 mile to 2 miles from the original post.  Anyhow, the sign does a good job of giving the history of the post, which started off as a civilian trading post in 1857 and which was occupied during the Civil War by state troops sent to police the frontier.  This post, like a collection of others, was burned by the Indians following the abandonment of the fort in 1866.




3. Ft. Fetterman.

Ft. Fetterman today.

This post was named after the officer of that name killed at “The Fetterman Fight” at a time at which his reputation was not yet tarnished, a process that was at least partially aided by the long efforts of his former commander, Col. Carrington, which is not to say that the fading of Fetterman's star wasn't deserved.

The post was built in 1867 just after the conclusion of Red Cloud's War in which Fetterman had lost his life.  It was a major post during its existence, although something about it caused it to have the highest insanity rate in the Frontier Army.  At the height of its importance it was a major staging area for the Powder River Campaign of 1876 which would see the Battle of the Rosebud as its major battle, and which occurred just south of Little Big Horn a few days prior to that battle.  Following the decline of Indian combat, it was abandoned as unneeded in 1882.  Most of the buildings were carted off following the posts closure and were used for the construction of a nearby and fairly infamous town that no longer exists.

4. Ft. Halleck 

Ft. Halleck was a large post established on the Overland Trail near Elk Mountain in 1862.  It was built to protect that trail, but it was abandoned, in spite of its size, in 1866 when Ft. Sanders was built near Laramie. By that time the Union Pacific Railroad had passed through the area which altered the strategic nature of patrolling this stretch of Wyoming, given as that could now be done with the assistance of rail.

Gen. Henry Halleck with an extraordinarily unusual kepi or forage cap.

The post was named after Gen. Henry Halleck who was living at the time.  He was a career soldier whose career was interrupted by an additional career of being a lawyer.  He had a mixed military record, but was good in subordinate commands and brought a spirit of professionalism to the Army.  He died in 1874 at age 56.

5. Ft. Phil Kearny.


Principally recalled for the disaster of the Fetterman Fight, and the somewhat redeeming battle of the Wagon Box fight, this post was named after Phil Kearny, a Union general who died at the Second Battle of Bull Run. This post was originally named Ft. Carrington by Col. Carrington, it’s first commander who never outlived the disgrace of the defeat of the Fetterman Fight. The post was burned to the ground by the Cheyenne following Red Cloud’s War.


The post proved to be poorly located and consumed a gigantic quantity of wood, which was one of its downsides.  Col. Carrington's career as an Army officer (he'd been a pre Civil War lawyer) was ruined by the events of the Fetterman battle, although he personally managed to escape being court martialed, an event that happened with blistering frequency in the 19th Century Army and which Grant had sought to do after the disaster.

The wealthy, eclectic Phil Kearny, who served in two American wars and two French ones, and who was married twice and divorced once.

Phil Kearny, we might note, was an unusual Army officer in that he was born into a wealthy family and inherited his family's wealth after his parents passed away while he was young. Raised by grandparents, he had always wished for a military career but went to law school and became a lawyer at his grandparents insistence.  He practiced law for four years but, upon the death of his grandfather, he received a commission in the Army and shortly went to France to study cavalry tactics at the famous French cavalry school, the Saumur.  While a student there, he actually went to Algeria with the French forces and served as a cavalryman, seeing combat, with the French.

Kearny thereafter lived an odd and adventurous life, twice resigning from the U.S. Army due to a lack of action going on within it, and then rejoining it.  He served in the Mexican War and the Civil War, in which he was killed, but he served with the French forces a second time as well, fighting with them against the Austrians.

Perhaps that all explains why this post in Wyoming was named after him.  Another already had existed, and ceased to exist, also named in his honor, outside of Washington D. C.  Neither post had long existences.

The naming of both posts, however, also shows how people should be considered in the context of their times, while also keeping in mind that absolute truths are universal.  Obviously Kearny's Army contemporaries admired him, and he was no doubt supremely interesting to be around.  He was highly educated and wealthy, with a taste for adventure.  He'd also served in two wars for a foreign power, one of which was a naked colonial enterprise.  We wouldn't admire that latter item today, but at least as late as the 1980s there were Americans who seriously entertained, and even served, in foreign wars that were comparable to some extent.

Ft. Phil Kearny was really unusual, we might note, in that it actually had a log post wall around it.  Frontier forts are commonly depicted that way in film, but few really were built in that fashion. This one was.  Today the location of the former fort is a nice State of Wyoming Park.

I photographed Ft. Phil Keany for another site some years ago, and I just reposted those photographs on our companion blog.  Given that, I'm reposting them here as they may be of interest.

Ft. Phil Kearny




























































5.  Ft. Laramie.  


Named for its location on the Laramie River this post started off as a civilian trading post named Fort William.  William Sublette founded the post in 1833/1834 and the post was initially named after him.  In 1841 the post was sold to the American Fur Company in 1841 and renamed Fort John in honor of John B. Sarpy, a partner in that company.  In 1849, following the end of the Mexican War, it was purchased by the U.S. Army and renamed Ft. Laramie, reflecting the fact that the post was routinely called Fort John on the Laramie River.  Laramie of the name was a French fur trapper who had the misfortune of disappearing in the location.  Jacques LaRamy, (by some spellings) donated his name, by that method, to the state and as a result the fort, two towns, a river, a county, a mountain range, and a geologic event are all named for him.



The post was a major Army post for decades and one of the most significant in the region.  It's importance declined, however, after the transcontinental railroad became fully established and then the end of active Indian campaigns in Wyoming further decreased its role.  The post was abandoned in 1889 and decommissioned in 1890.  Even though the Army removed fixtures of use in 1890 and locals further stripped the post after it was closed, the base was so well established that much of it remained when it was made a National Historic Site in 1931.

In terms of names, it's one of two posts in Wyoming that were basically named after thier locations, although in this case the name was simply inherited from prior use.  If a person views Fort Laramie as having been called that as a contraction of Fort John on the Laramie River, that's the case.  Of course, by extension, as noted, Jacques La Ramee (another spelling) contributed his name.  La Ramee was a Quebecois Metis who disappeared in the area in 1821 at age 37.  His death has been attributed to falling through ice and from an Arapaho raid, but nobody really knows what happened to him.
6. Ft. McKinney

The first Ft. McKinney, or Cantonment Reno, today.

There were two posts named this, both named after  2nd Lt. John McKinney, who went down in a hail of hostile gunfire in the Dull Knife Battle in 1877.  Given that he was a young officer at the time, he is somebody that I don't know anything else about.  He was assigned to the 4th Cavalry and was likely fairly new to the Army at the time.

The first post named after McKinney had been first named Cantonment Reno, which was established in 1876 as a staging area during the Powder River Expedition.  As a Cantonment the post, which was the second one located at that spot in the Powder River Basin was the second one in that location named Reno, as will be seen below.  It was renamed and repurposed as a fort the following year after McKinney's death, but the location proved to be a poor one for a sustained presence due to the lack of resources most of the year and the decision was made to move the garrison across the Powder River Basin in 1878. When the new garrison was built, it retained the name of the prior one, which of course had only recently been named. The new Ft. McKinney was manned until 1894 when it was closed.  In 1903 the grounds were turned over to the State of Wyoming and they are used today as the state's veteran's home.

Ft. McKinney played a notable role in Wyoming's history when cavalry form the location was dispatched to intervene in the Johnson County War.

Cantonment Reno is one of those locations I've photographed for another reason, and I just reposted those photographs on our companion blog.  Given that, I'll repost that item here:

Cantonment Reno (Ft. McKinney)












7. Ft. Reno.



This post is mentioned immediately above and, as noted, the name was used twice, making it have an odd legacy with Ft. McKinney, which one of the Reno posts became, as that name was also used twice.

Jesse L. Reno.

Both Reno installations were named after Maj. Gen. Jesse Lee Reno, a Union officer killed early in the Civil War.  He was not related in any fashion to Marcus Reno of Little Big Horn fame.  He was born in what was then Wheeling Virginia, and which became Wheeling, West Virginia, during the Civil War, making him an officer who hailed from a state that was severed in two by the Civil War.  He'd graduated from West Point prior to the Mexican War and had served continually, earning a reputation of being a "soldier's soldier".  He was killed by friendly fire while in advance of his troops reconnoitering the area, when one of his own soldiers mistook him for a Confederate.


The first Ft. Reno had originally been called Ft. Connor as it was established by Patrick Connor, a regional commander in Wyoming during the Civil War.  It was renamed for Reno after only bearing the name Ft. Connor in October and November 1865, the month of its establishment.  Like Ft. Phil Kearny, it was unusually for a Wyoming post as it had actual walls, which most frontier posts did not.

Patrick Connor

Patrick Connor, who first established the post and whom it was first name for, was a firebrand from Ireland who served a stint in the U.S. Army as an enlisted man before becoming a citizen in 1845.  As a private he saw frontier duty and fought in the Seminole War.  He served again in the Mexican War and was commissioned, resigning in 1847 due to rheumatism, at which time he was only 27.  He was a California Ranger after that and a California volunteer at the start of the Civil War.  His Civil War service was all on the frontier and was extremely active, although it was marked by actions that were rash and not always directed at the Indian parties that he was seeking to combat.  His headquarters were in Salt Lake City where he remained after being discharged from the service in 1866.  Unlike some of his contemporaries, his military service does not seem to have worn on him and he lived until age 71, dying in Salt Lake City.


8. Ft. Sanders

Ft. Sanders was surprisingly a Civil War contemporary of the other Civil War era forts and posts noted here. The post is generally obscure, even though it had a longer life than its contemporaries.

Not much remains of Ft. Sanders today.

Ft. Sanders was established near where Laramie now is in 1866 to guard the Overland Trail, but its location meant that it was located on the path of the Transcontinental Railroad and therefore its purpose converted to guarding it fairly quickly.  It soon bordered Laramie, which was established in 1869 with the establishment of the railroad.  It started to become redundant with the establishment of Ft. D. A. Russell, but it was none the less manned until 1882.

William P. Sanders

The post was named after Gen. William P. Sanders who was killed at the Siege of Knoxville, although that was its second name. Sanders was a West Point graduate who had barely graduated as the Superintendent of West Point at the time, Robert E. Lee, recommended his dismissal.  The Secretary of War at the time, Jefferson Davis, who was also his cousin, intervened and saved Sanders career.  He was killed in action in Kentucky at age 30, in 1863.  A position in the campaign in which he was killed was also named Ft. Sanders.

John Buford

This post was originally Ft. John Buford, who died of illness also in 1863. Buford, like Sanders, had southern connection and was also from Kentucky, and has also remained loyal to the Union.  Prior to the war he had seen frontier service as a dragoon and his military career had a lasting legacy in teh U.S. Army as he is associated with the development of bugle calls.  He died of typhus while serving in the field.

M8 Buford

Buford remains remembered in the Army and the M8 light tank, that was adopted but not put into service, was named after him.  He also had a fort named after him in what is now North Dakota which was manned from 1872 until 1895.  The town of Buford, Wyoming, is likewise named after him.  His legacy is oddly cut short, much like his life, in the things that were named after him.
9. Ft. Fred Steele. 


Named for Frederick Steele who rose to the rank of Maj. Gen. during the Civil War but who died as the result of an accident while experiencing ill health in 1868.  Somewhat fittingly, this is now the most depressing historical site in the state.

Ft. Fred Steele was built in 1868 specifically to provide security to the transcontinental railroad and, after its construction, was part of a three fort network, including Ft. Sanders and Ft. D.A. Russell that served that purpose.  The garrison of the fort in fact did use the railroad for transportation when needed, and its location, that was highly isolated, but at the same time centrally located on the rail line, made such deployments ideal.  The post dispatched troops as needed as far away as Chicago and deployed to put down the the anti Chinese riots in Rock Springs when that occured.  The garrison fought a major engagement in the White River War in 1879 at Milk Creek, Utah, that went very badly leading to the unit being besieged for a period of days necessitating additional deployments from the post and Ft. D.A. Russell.  The post was no longer necessary by the mid 1880s and it was abandoned in 1886.

Fred Steele himself was a career officer who had served in the Mexican War and the Civil War with distinction.  He saw immediate service in Texas and the Northwest following the Civil War but took medical leave in 1867.  He died due to an apoplectic fit that caused him to fall from a buggy in 1868.  The post, therefore, was named for him the very year he died.

10. Ft. Supply, 

Ft. Supply will be mentioned here, but as it was a private Latter Day Saints fort, and never an Army post, we'll just do that.  It was built in 1853 in what is now Uinta County and abandoned along with Ft. Bridger in 1857 during the Mormon War. Unlike Ft. Bridger, the Army did not rebuild it but only occupied the position briefly.

11. Sweetwater Station.  


Sweetwater Station was one of the numerous stations occupied by the 11th Ohio and 11th Kansas Cavalry during the Civil War, during that period of time in which they patrolled the Oregon and Overland Trails. This station was a significant one on the Oregon Trail.  Lt. Caspar Collins, who died at the Battle of Platte Bridge Station, was actually stationed at Sweetwater Station.

Perhaps somewhat fittingly, the location today remains a rest stop on the highway.

The station was on the Sweetwater River and was named after it.
12. Richard’s (Reshaw's) Bridge.


This station was informally but not officially named for the bridge and trading post owned by the individual of that name and had an occasional military presence dating back to November, 1855 when troops were first stationed there and the post was named Ft. Clay.  That following March the post was renamed Camp Davis and then abandoned that November after having been occupied for one year.  The post was occupied again in 1858 during the Mormon War, this time as Camp Payne, but then once again abandoned in 1859.


Richard was Quebecois and therefore the pronunciation of this name in the French lead to the phonetic "Reshaw".  The bridge was an important one in Central Wyoming on the Oregon Trail but it drew competition from Guinard's bridge, owned by fellow Quebecois, which was opened in 1859.  The Mormon ferry was located at that location as well. Because of this the importance of Reshaw's Bridge declined and the Army did not reestablish a regular garrison at the bridge when the 11th Ohio and 11th Kansas occupied the stations during the Civil War.  It was important during the 1850s, however, and the Army garrisoned it successively each time there was a need to, renaming the garrison three times.

So there we have the Wyoming installations.  What does that tell us about how the Army named its installations over the years?  We'll look at that next.

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Military Installation Names. What they were, and are, and how they got there. Part 1. Named for Confederate Generals