The fort was established August 28, 1858 slap-dab on the Red River in what was then the Dakota Territory. Ol' Lieutenant Colonel John J. Abercrombie must not have been too good at reading the signs of flooding (debris in tree limbs, etc.) because within two years the Fort had to be relocated a tad farther away. It was the first permanent military fort (lots of fur-trading forts were built in the Territories), but it was the first military fort in what was to become North Dakota.
Two years later, Fort Abercrombie became the only fort in the Territory to ever be attacked by Indians. During the Minnesota Indian War of 1862 (Minnesota being just on the other side of this here Red River), Dakota warriors laid siege to the fort for almost six weeks. Interestingly (check the date: 1862), the regular army had been called back East, and there was only the Minnesota Volunteer Infantry to protect the settlers that gathered here for safety.
Now, my literature says that the blockhouses nor the palisades (wood fences) were here during that siege, just several scattered buildings surrounded by brush and trees - which were good cover for the Indians. Funny, back then surrounding your homes with trees was dangerous for that reason; now, surrounding your homes with trees is considered wise as protection from blizzard winds. Ah, the times they are a changin'.
The remainder of the story reads like a movie script:
When the seventy-eight men of Company D of the 5th Minnesota Militia Regiment left Fort Snelling in March of 1862, they were told there would be 20,000 rounds of ammunition waiting for them at Fort Abercrombie. There was, but it was the wrong caliber. This must be where the term SNAFU originated. SNAFU is an acronym for Situation Normal, All Fouled Up. The ammunition that awaited them was .58-caliber. They needed .69-caliber for the Harpers Ferry muskets that Company D had been issued. (Those are the very same muskets that Lewis and Clark used fifty years before!) Captain Vander Horck requested the correct caliber in April. In May he was told it was on the way. June 10th he again requested it. July 30th Vander Horck was again notified that it was on the way - but it never arrived.
Along with the seventy-eight men of Company D there were about eighty men, women and children that came to the fort for protection once they knew the Indians were on the war path. There was no regular military, essentially no bullets, no fences, lots of brush - but they did have three 12-pound mountain howitzers. Everyone set to work building piles of cordwood and timber around the buildings and setting up the howitzers.
On August 23rd things began to accelerate. Patrols found the mutilated bodies of three men, a woman, and a child in a building about fifteen miles away. Then they found a wounded, elderly woman, crawling along a riverbank, who had managed to stay alive by eating frogs. (Ewww!) She said the Indians had killed her husband and kidnapped her grandson. And people think women - especially old women - are wimps. Not!
Couriers were sent out to request reinforcements from St. Paul, Minnesota.
A week later, on the 30th, the Indians attacked. Three days later, at daybreak, almost 400 nearly naked warriors (except for war paint and a loin cloth) attacked. By sundown six Indians were thought to have been killed and fifteen wounded. The garrison was down to 350 rounds of ammunition, so the defenders began searching through a "treaty" train that had arrived at the fort just as all the commotion was about to begin. They found black powder, fifty muzzle loading shotguns, and canister for the cannon. Someone had the bright idea of opening those canisters and, lo and behold, found .69-caliber balls just right for the Harpers Ferry muskets! Folks, Hollywood can't write it this good!
Again at daybreak, on September 6th, the Indians attacked and everyone experienced the fiercest fighting yet. There were thought to be 150 - 200 Indians from the upper Sioux Sisseton and Wahpeton band of Dakota Sioux, including a known warrior, Sweet Corn, of the Sisseton. The Indians set fire to the haystacks, then came at the fort from three sides. At least two made it to within thirty feet of the fort before being killed. After extended fighting, cannon fire drove them back to the riverbank.
The fort lost three men; the Indians fared much worse apparently, because when men later went to the river to fetch water (there was no well at the fort) they found blood soaked rags and bits of clothing along with broken guns.
On September 21st, Vander Horck having heard no word of reinforcements, sent two men - along with twenty men as an escort until they got past the Indian lines - for help. The escort was attacked as it was returning, losing two men.
By that time, a relief column of about 450 men was on its way, and they found the body of a man named Austin. His scalped and severed head was found some distance away. Two days later, September 22, they discovered two more mangled bodies. The next day two more, horribly mutilated bodies were found. (Now, I could tell you in detail exactly what they mean by "mutilated," but it really is way too gruesome. I have a rule about watching television: if it's too bad to happen live in our living room, it's too bad to watch, change the channel, Granpa. Well, this is about the same: it's too bad to talk about. What I do want people to know is that the American Indian was not all about communing with nature and being like the 1960's flower child. American Indians of the old west, when they were war-like, were brutal beyond description. (Yes, there were - and I'm afraid still are - white men just a brutal, but Hollywood usually leaves out the barbaric nature of the Indians of the Old West. An exception that does come to mind, though, is the 1992 version of "The Last of the Mohicans" with Daniel Day-Lewis.)
The reinforcements arrived at Fort Abercrombie on the 23rd, bringing the mutilated bodies with them for burial. A true humdinger of a celebration took place right then and there for the salvation of the settlers. (Why don't we celebrate like that when someone accepts Christ and has eternal salvation??) Scattered fighting continued for a while, but the siege was over. All in all, Vander Horck lost five men with another five having been wounded. Not too bad.
The relief force soon got sent back east to fight in the Civil War, but Vander Horck remained, clearing the brush and trees that the Indians had used for cover, erecting three blockhouses and a stockade on three sides of the fort. They continued to provide protection for anyone and everyone until abandoning the fort in 1877.
Whew! What a Saturday this has been!!
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