36 lengthy letters from Colonel Isaac Van Duzen Reeve to his son, Charles McCormick Reeve, written primarily while Reeve was stationed in Kansas, Dakota Territory, and Montana Territory, 1862-1869. Consisting of 126 pages on 39 separate, mostly bifold, sheets of varying size, with 4 letters incomplete, apparently lacking a second sheet. A substantial series of correspondence highlighting Reeve's role as a Colonel in the 13th Infantry Division, then serving in far Western posts in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. The present collection includes three Civil War-date letters sent from New York in 1862-3, with the rest following his reassignment to the West, beginning with a series of ten letters from Fort Leavenworth and Fort Riley, Kansas, from 1865-6, followed by eighteen letters sent from (or while traveling to) Fort Rice, Fort Claggett, and Fort Shaw in Dakota and Montana Territories, 1866-8, with a final group of five letters sent from Washington, D.C. and Saint Louis, 1868-9. The letters provide a substantial account of an officer's life frontier outposts in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, mixing social, personal, and military details. The collection is highlighted, in particular, by the series of letters which detail Reeve's role in the founding of the first two U.S. military bases in Montana - Fort Claggett, also known as Camp Cooke, and Fort Shaw along the Sun River - describing the building, settlement, and construction of these forts during the first months of their foundation, as well as letters sent while traveling by steamboat along the upper Missouri River while traveling from fort to fort. Letters include accounts of both cooperation and conflict with local Native American tribes, as well as métis from British North America, along with the more mundane aspects of frontier life, including issues of discipline, supplies, religious services, and entertainment. Two selections from the territorial letters are follow, with other excerpts available on request:
On board Steamer "Rubicon", (75 miles above Sioux City) D. T. [Near present-day Yankton, South Dakota], May 23, 1866
...Tuesday morning (yesterday) at 5 A.M. a bearer of dispatches arrived at my Hd.Qs. with order from Genl. [Philip St. George] Cooke, breaking up the expedition to building a post at the Black Hills, in consequence of the remonstrances of the Indian Commissioners, who made a treaty last year with the Indians in that region, and who are now about to hold further Councils with them - + further, that there is every probability that hostilities would result from the movement. Instead of there, I have to go + meet complications which arisen in another quarter, and much further off. I am on my way to Fort Benton, there, or near there, to establish a post to hold in check the Blackfeet Indians, who live on the upper Mo. - + much of the time on the north of our boundaries. They have not broken out in hostilities, but the inhabitants of Montana consider themselves in danger from the temper shown by these Indians - and should any open conflict arise, it would be difficult to chastise them, because they can so easily get into the British possessions where we cannot follow them. I am to go up + look after matters there, + return to Fort Rice in the fall, + there establish my Hd. Qs. It will be long trip but I dare say not an unpleasant one, if the weather should be tolerably good. I expect to go all the way by boats, but may not be able to do so. I am to seize any boats I may come across, which can go so far up the river, unless they are willing to make some arrangement, without seizure. I hope this may be done. The boat I am on is a good fast boat, but she draws too much water. I shall probably take her as far as I can. You will find Fort Benton the Map to be an "inland" location. It is about 250 or 300 miles north east of Virginia City - one of the great mining regions, + from the former good are constantly shipped to the latter by trains. Some 30 steamboats have gone up to Benton this summer with goods. One was burnt yesterday near where this boat now is. We met the crew this morning in small boats going down to Sioux City. This boat has three Companies of my regiment on board wit the Band - making in all - including officers + women about 300... There are no post offices above Sully, + all mails above are carried by our expresses, + there will be no opportunity to send after I leave Rice, unless some boat may be met coming down. The wreck of the burnt boat is in plaint 1/2 mile up the river. We cannot get any information about her as to particulars. This will be a long journey, but I have no great objection to it if I can get hold boats enough to do the work... I expect to put this letter with some others, on shore tomorrow at a place called Yankton. There has been a small guard stationed there, + there are some 25 tons of pub. stores to take on, in order to remove the guard + have it mustered out...
Steamer Mary McDonald, Mouth of Judith River [Present-day Fergus County, Montana], July 18, 1866
I had only time when I wrote last to tell you of my safe arrival here, as the boats going down were starting + I had other writing to do. I have written to day to Mrs Thompson, having nothing to do but wait for my train with the troops coming up from Milk river. I thought they ought to be here sooner, so I took eleven men, mounted, (+ an Ambulance) and started across the Country on the morning the 15th to see if I could find the troops and to satisfy myself what kind of country they had to travel over. There is no road after they run off from Milk river, but the guides informed me that the country was good, + water at convenient distances. I went twenty miles, stopped and got some dinner (made my own coffee), + went on making about 30 miles. We took what the guide called a short cut, close under the foot of the western extremity of the "Bears Paw Mts.", + crossing a ravine just at dark the driver of the Ambulance continued to get one of the hind wheels on a rock nearly as large as a barrel, + upset of course, + one of the mules being fractious commenced plunging + broke the tongue + harness badly. There was no wood, not even a bush, in sight + no water. So we laid down for the night + trusted to luck for the morning. In a deep ravine near by we found some willows, large enough repair with the aid of ropes, and some water. We should have been through the ravine before night, but our party killed a buffalo just at sundown, + waiting to get what we wanted of it detained. We went to the water got out breakfast, and proceeded about ten miles further, + finding nothing of the train, and not being able to see anything in the direction from which it should come, although we could see ten or twelve miles with a spy glass, we turned back. The next morning I sent the guide alone to meet the train + learn what detained it. Yesterday I came home here, having been about forty miles from the river. The guide met the train yesterday about noon, and this morning messengers came in with the report that it will be here tomorrow. I expect to start back from here on the 20th and should be back at Fort Rice by the 1st of Aug. + perhaps in five days. The boats go very rapidly down stream. The weather is very warm, and we had a hot tiresome ride up to the mountains. The Dr. who went with me has been ever since he came back. There were no signs of Indians on the whole route. Plenty of game. We killed one buffalo + one antelope - but we did go for hunting.
A graduate from the 1835 class of West Point, Isaac Van Duzen Reeve (1813-1890), served as an officer in the Seminole Wars, Mexican-American War, and in the Texas borderlands, where he was captured and made a prisoner of war by the Confederate Army in 1861. Following his release, he was given a series of administrative posts in the Far West, represented in the current archive, where he established the first two United States military bases in Montana Territory.
