Fort Dalles was one of the original forts set up by the Army as it came west after the 1846 treaty with Great Britain solidifying borders on the 49^th parallel.  Before 1855, the fort was a small fort with room for one or two companies of troops.  The Yakama War changed that.  From the middle of 1856 until the beginning of 1859, the fort became one of the Army’s main centers in the Northwest.  Home for the Ninth Regiment, Fort Dalles became the jump-off point for campaigns, interior explorations, road, and fort building and a supply depot for all these activities.

THE DALLES

The site was a landing spot on the Columbia River downstream of the last rapids – “les Dalles des Mort” – below the mighty Celilo Falls.  Huge salmon migrations swelled the local populations as Natives from many tribes gathered to trade and fish.  

A Methodist mission, the Wascopam Mission, was founded 21 March 1838 with ties to the Willamette Mission of Jason Lee through his nephew Daniel Lee one of the cofounders.  From here, emigrants would stop to build rafts or contract with boatmen to float down through the Columbia River Gorge last part of their journey to Fort Vancouver.  Emigrants eventually gained an alternative to the sometimes perilous and expensive river voyage in 1845 with the development of the Barlow Road around Mt Hood.

The Cayuse War blew up in the late period of 1847 following conflicts between Natives and newly arrived whites from the east.  The unrest led to the abandonment of Wascopam Mission.   To better protect travelers on the Oregon Trail, the Army occupied the old mission buildings in 1850 with the hope of capturing the still unpunished Cayuse Natives involved with the Whitman Massacre.  That hope went by the way since by the time troops of the Mounted Rifles arrived on their overland march from Missouri to establish Camp Drum – the fort’s original name – on 20 May, the Cayuse had already sent the guilty on to the Willamette Valley for judgment.

CAMP DRUM

Camp Drum got its name from Captain Simon Drum of the Fourth US Artillery, a graduate of West Point Class of 1830.  He served two years as instructor of infantry tactics at the Point after graduation, then served in Florida and in Mexico, dying during the assault on Mexico City.  Drum belonged to an ill-starred class with 25 graduates out of 42 dead by 1862.

The Mounted Rifles left the following spring – 1851 – turning the fort over to a small detachment of the First Artillery.  The post, now home to only a dozen men, cost as much to run as one supporting three companies.  Being at the edge of nothing, the cost to support the fort, was always a big factor.

A NEW FORT

The Fourth Infantry arrived in the northwest in 1852 with one company sent east to take over the camp.  The name of the fort changed sometime in 1853 to Fort Dalles.

American expansionism in the mid-1850’s led to both the Rogue River and Yakima Wars.  Major Gabriel Rains – West Point Class of 1827 – attempts to bring the Yakamas to peace in 1855 were unsuccessful.  The fort was still a one to two company post in 1854 when Major Rains returned with four companies and a dragoon detachment – 368 men.

The Department of the Pacific, included Oregon and California was commanded by Brigadier General John E. Wool, a man local settlers grew to hate.  He believed the problems in the West were due to local militias who wanted to exterminate the Native populations rather.  Wool saw part of the Army’s role was to protect the Natives from the incoming emigrants, a sentiment not shared.

A NEW FORT

Problems with the Yakamas led to the dispatch of the newly formed Ninth Infantry to Oregon to help bring about clarification to a confused situation.  Under the command of Colonel George Wright, West Point Class of 1822, the Ninth was ready in March 1856 to move upriver from Fort Vancouver to focus on the Yakama.  The regiment was moving onto Walla Walla when a Native assault was launched on the portage road at the Cascades.

That assault fended off with Wright moving north instead of east.  He spent the spring and summer wandering around central Washington trying to bring the Yakamas to battle which in face of the size of wright’s force – 450 men – they declined.

A NEW MAKEOVER

Left in charge at Fort Dalles while most of the troops were in the field was the new quartermaster, Captain Thomas Jordan.  He and his civilian colleague Louis Scholl, an emigrant post-1848 from Baden in Germany, transformed the camp using patterns adapted from Andrew Jackson Downing’s Cottage Residences and Architecture of Country Houses.  Using plans from those books, Jackson and Scholl designed officers’ quarters for both Fort Dalles and later Fort Simcoe to resemble “cottage residences” expanding the details to include other buildings on the fort to bring a sense of unity. Colors chosen were brown, buff or sand yellow to blend with surroundings – according to Downing’s theory of color blending and seen in Scholl’s watercolor plans.

The plans for the buildings still exist at the Oregon Historical Society, though only one building from the fort remains – the Surgeon’s Quarters.  Other quarters built incluced those for Colonel Wright, Captain Jordan, Major Lugenbeel and Captain Frederick T. Dent.

RESPONSE FROM ABOVE

Change was never a strong suit for the Army, however.  With the troops in the field, a couple hundred civilians stayed busy working from May until December. This increased the payroll extravagantly in the eyes of the Pacific Department headquarters opinion.  Hidden in the ‘exorbitant’ expenses were large costs incurred by the fort’s isolated location. Costs even more so were incurred at other forts built even farther away than at The Dalles – Fort Walla Walla was 165 miles away and only accessible by wagon and pack trains. Fort Simcoe 100 miles away was accessible only by pack train.

OLD FEUDS SMOLDERING

Hidden in the criticism was also the smoldering antipathy held by the Army’s commanding general, Winfield Scott, for Wright.  Wright had served earlier in Florida and Mexico under William Worth.  Worth had been a close friend of Scott’s before the Mexican War, even naming a son of his after Scott.  The friendship ended during an assault on Mexico City.  Scott, the commanding general, did not allow Worth to modify a plan of attack his division was responsible for.  Many unneeded casualties resulted, and the recriminations brought the friendship to a sudden end.  Worth renamed his son. 

After the war, Scott, with the memory of an elephant, remembered who supported him and who supported Worth.  It also paid to be on the good side of the old general.  Wright was an easy target.  When the Civil War came, Wright remained a colonel while seventeen officers who served under him passed him by in rank.

CHANGE SUPERSEDED

criticism launched

“Style” was an easy way for criticism to be launched.  Brigadier General John Wool in charge of the Department of the Pacific at the time Fort Dalles’ update had no problems with the modifications but the general – Newman S. Clarke – who succeeding Wool, expounded upon criticism arising from the East stating future structures of Posts not declared to be permanent to be “of the plainest kind”. 

The house of Colonel Wright came in for the most critique.  Colonel Thomas Swords, Deputy Quartermaster of the Department, noted his regret at the plans and expense of Colonel Wright’s house “… a double house with two full stories and attic are such as I have never seen occupied by a private gentleman except at or in the neighborhood of our large Eastern Cities; no private residence at all comparable to it can be found on the Pacific.”

post importance emphasized

Jordan’s work, backed up by Colonel Wright who sent Jordan’s report of construction to California with his own approval.  He reminded those back in the California of the importance of the new post. The fort served as a supply depot for all operations east of the Cascade Range.  Five companies at Fort Walla Walla and another four at Fort Simcoe pulled supplies from Fort Dalles.

Along with the transformation of the fort came the development of the town of The Dalles, as well.  Work on the fort, military roads and supplying all with agricultural commodities increased the area’s population from under 200 in 1855 to around 1,000 by 1859.

BOOM AND BUST

The Yakama wars had brought boom to the fort and town between 1856 and 1858. Their end also brought about the fort’s decline.  Colonel Joseph K. F. Mansfield inspected the Pacific Northwest army posts in 1858. He noted Fort Walla Walla was in a better location as a forward base for the retreating frontier.  Captain Jordan was relieved and brought south to California.  The Department of the Pacific was divided with a new Department of Oregon being instituted for the Northwest.  The new commander, Brigadier General William S. Harney – no favorite of Winfield Scott’s either – operating out of Fort Vancouver.

Harney was not one to play second best. He did what he could to increase the power at Fort Vancouver and cut down Fort Dalles.  New expenditures for buildings at Fort Dalles were suspended in 1859.  Wright was ordered to send his regimental headquarters east to Walla Walla.

last service

The fort did not go away immediately.  Expeditions went out from the post to southeastern Oregon in 1859 and 1860.  Gold discoveries in Idaho and eastern Oregon brought an increase of travel to the interior. The fort continued serving as a depot and station for volunteer militia forces occupying the fort during the Civil War after Regulars moved elsewhere. The Ninth stayed in California during the war to keep an eye on a secessionist minded populous. 

END OF THE OLD FORT

The fort was finally abandoned in 1867 and slowly sold off.  Around the same time, the size of the military reservation reduced from ten square mile to one. Eventually, the entire reservation was sold off.

Only the Surgeon’s Quarters remained over the years housing the Fort Dalles Historical Society today, one of the oldest historical museums in Oregon, established in 1905.  The fort organized in an octagon around a parade ground above the Columbia River.  The Surgeon’s Quarters was the smallest and cheapest of the officers’ homes – four in all – at less than $5,000 with Colonel Wright’s home the most expensive at $22,000 – emigrants referred to it as the “$100,000 House”.  There was not enough money to build a water system leading to eventual fires burning down most of the structures.

TODAY’S MUSEUM

The Museum dedicates exhibits to both the military history of the fort, as well as to early pioneers of Wasco County.  The museum holds a collection of pioneer artifacts antique vehicles and a homestead from the late 19^th – early 20^th century moved here from its former location many miles to the south. The house recently damaged by a windstorm sports new repairs.

The doctor who lived here was Dr Joseph Bullock Brown. He served here with his family from 1857 until 1861 when he went east to serve in the Army of the Potomac with the rank of major.  Eventually, Brown became the medical director for the Fourth Corps, before being sent west to serve in the Assistant Surgeon General’s Office in St Louis and later Louisville.  Near the end of the war, he helped serve patients at Fort Columbus in the New York harbor during a cholera epidemic, service rewarded for with a brevet to brigadier general.  After the war, he was the medical director for the Department of the Platte, an area covering much of the northern Great Plains.  A diary and collection of his drawings from his time in the west is held in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.

COLONEL WRIGHT’S REWARDS

Colonel Wright went on to command the Department of the Pacific during the Civil War.  Given command mostly of militiamen raised primarily from California – only the Ninth Regiment remained on the Pacific Coast while the other elements of the regular army withdrew to fight in the east.  At the end of the war, Wright and his wife were moving back to Ft Vancouver to take over the new Department of the Columbia.  The ship they were on sank just north of Crescent City in rough weather 30 July 1865 drowning them and most of the other 200-300 passengers on the probably overloaded vessel.  Their bodies recovered with time and lie buried in Sacramento.

FORT DALLES’ ARCHITECTS

THOMAS JORDAN

Thomas Jordan – West Point Class of 1840 – involved himself in the early establishment of the Confederate Secret Service, even before his resignation from the U.S. Army 22 May 1861.  Starting a captain in the Confederate army, he was a full colonel serving as chief of staff for General P.G.T. Beauregard by the time of First Manassas.  He followed Beauregard west serving at Shiloh.  Promoted to brigadier general, he served as chief of staff for Braxton Bragg during the Kentucky campaign of 1862. 

With Beauregard reassigned to Charleston, South Carolina, Jordan followed, given the command of a military district of South Carolina.  After the war, he wrote articles and was an editor for a newspaper in Memphis. He then joined a Cuban rebel army as chief of staff.  Given full command of the liberation army by the end of 1869, he won an initial victory in early 1870.  He resigned, however, a month later returning to the US settling on Staten Island, New York City where he spent the rest of his life writing.

LOUIS SCHOLL

More of Louis Scholl’s designs are found at Fort Simcoe further to the north in the Yakima Valley.  Here, five of the original buildings still stand – the Commander’s House, three officer’s quarters and a blockhouse.  Scholl continued to work with the Army in a civilian capacity with Rufus Ingalls – Grant’s West Point roommate – in the Quartermaster Department during the Civil War and after continued working with the Army.  With his wife and children, Scholl lies buried near the town of Wasco southeast of The Dalles.