Tag Archives: Ninth Infantry

FORT SIMCOE – SHORT STORY PAUSE TO THE STORM

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two pound cannon
Looks like a two-pound cannon, one of two on the east side of the Parade Ground with Officer’s Row on the opposite side. Artillery would have consisted more probably of M1841 mountain howitzers.

Of the many military posts erected by the US Army during the 19th century, few remain as well preserved as the collection of buildings found here in the middle of the Yakama Nation at Fort Simcoe.  The post was only manned for three years before the fort was abandoned; the men sent north to Fort Colville.

Brevet Captain George McClellan’s party, in 1853, found traces of gold along the upper reaches of the Naches or Yakima Rivers.  They searched for a railroad route over the Cascades, something McClellan continually stressed when meeting with Natives from the local Yakama tribes.

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RE-FOCUSING THE ARMY EASTWARD ON THE COLUMBIA – FORT DALLES

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James Madison Alden’s painting of Fort Dalles from 1857.

Beiniecke Library Yale University.

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 49th 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.

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BLOCKHOUSE GUARDIAN ON THE COLUMBIA – FORT CASCADES

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Steamboats making for the Cascade Locks near the Upper Cascades later in the 19th century. Fort Lugenbeel was just around the corner to the left.

Fort Cascades served as the main post comprising several blockhouses set up to defend the vitally important transportation corridor along the Columbia River through one of the treacherous points along the river.

The Oregon Trail was a long and perilous route.  Perhaps the most difficult section lay almost at the trail’s end as it made its way through the Cascade Mountains to the promised lands of the Willamette Valley.  Once the Trail dropped down out of the Blue Mountains of northeastern Oregon, it followed along the Columbia River.  It was possible to float your wagons down much of the river, but most kept to the road leading up and down along the south side of the Columbia.  Crossing the John Day and Deschutes rivers were minor difficulties compared to the last difficulty lying ahead in the mountains.

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