The Diaries of John Gregory Bourke Volume 4: July 3, 1880--May 22, 1881

7. Fort Niobrara and the New Agencies

131 Chapter 7 ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ Fort Niobrara and the New Agencies Bourke returns to the present. Lieut. Davis took me over to the new post which is rapidly approaching completion. The site is a most agreeable and healthy one, being a flat table-land well drained, ending in a bold bluff at the river, into which a dozen first class springs gush from the banks above. The quarters are of adobe, with brick corners to resist the encroachment of the sand-laden winds. The roofs are of shingles made at the post saw-mill. Each house is well provided with bath-rooms, dressing rooms & closets. The parade is a broad level piece of prairie, thickly covered with natural sod. For the water-supply, there is a windmill and a tank, holding 40.000 Gallons. In one of the little ravines alongside the post, is a very pretty waterfall and much beautiful scenery which Col. Upham intends preserving by enclosing the whole ravine as a park. Dined with Lt. Davis and his agreeable and handsome young wife. In the evening, read in the Révue de Deux Mondes an able exami- 132 More Staff Duties nation of the Irish Land questions1 and afterwards went to Mr. Thacher ’s (the post trader’s) tent to drink a glass of champagne with him and the officers. November 1st 1880. Colonel Upham, Colonel Stanton, Lieut. [Augustus Canfield] Macomb, 3rd Cavy. and myself, took horses and began an inspection of post and surroundings. We crossed the Niobrara river close to the foot-bridge, and visited the Hotel erected by Mr. John Reed, on the site of Sharp’s Ranch, near the Minni-Chaduza. This is one of the few log-houses I have sever seen on the frontier with any pretensions to neatness of appearance. Mr. Reed has a dairy yielding a good supply of milk for which he finds a steady demand at good prices. In a little enclosure, a few rods from the door, are five tame black and white tail deer.* At the door itself are large logs of petrified cotton-wood, 5 @ 6 feet long and 10 @ 11 inches in diameter. After going through the new post, which I had carefully examined yesterday under guidance of Lt. Davis, we inspected the water-dam, the brick and adobe yards, the site for the hospital, corrals, stables, wood and hay-piles, and laundresses’s quarters, all of which, excepting the first, are to be down on the river-bank, under the hill, and thus out of sight of the garrison. Going home, we enjoyed a good glass of punch. Colonel Stanton and I took dinner with Captain and Mrs. Payne and then struck out along the lines of tents to pay our respects to the ladies.—Mrs. Davis, Mrs. Marston, Payne, De Witt, Rogers, Montgomery and Paddock,—all charming, intelligent and refined. Until their new quarters shall be completed, they must live in tents, but they have made themselves extremely comfortable and by their presence will add greatly to the attractions of the Post. Our old friend, Lt. Carpenter, 9th Infy. called upon us. He is in charge of the 1. By the time of Bourke’s writing, the Irish Land Question had haunted British governments for over forty years. It originated in the absolute power given to landlords, many of whom were ethnic English, and the expropriation of land that Irish peasants considered to be theirs. Rather than addressing the basic problem, the British response was a series of Coercion Acts, which deepened Irish resentment and led to a campaign of terror. In 1880, the nationalistic Irish Land League implemented a policy of boycotts (taking their name from a Captain Boycott who was one of the targets) that brought Ireland to a virtual standstill. The following year, the government responded with another Coercion Act that gave the viceroy in Dublin almost unlimited powers, but tempered it with a Land Act that conceded almost every demand by the Land League. For the next three years, Ireland remained relatively quiet. See Churchill, Great Democracies, Chapter 19. *Bourke’s note: There is a great deal of black and white tail deer and antelope in the vicinity of post; also of geese, ducks, chickens &c. Fort Niobrara and the New Agencies 133 post saw-mill, some miles away; hence, he could not get down any sooner. Like all the others, he is enthusiastic about the post, especially on...