Omaha Military History

OMAHA , NEBRASKA : COMMAND AND SUPPORT CENTER
THE HISTORY OF THE POST OF OMAHA , FORT OMAHA ,
FORT CROOK AND THE QUARTERMASTER DEPOTS

Footnotes

Page 6

FOOTNOTES

1. Most of the previously unknown material on the Post of Omaha is in the Post Returns in the records of the Adjutant General’s office and the District of Nebraska records in the records of the War Department, U.S. Amy Commands, National Archives.

2. General Order 11, Department of Missouri, November 2, 1862. Craig’s force was initially known as the Defense of the Overland Mail Route Command with headquarters at Fort Laramie . General Order 6, District of Kansas, April 16, 1862.

3. The Herndon House was located at the northeast corner of Ninth and Farnam Streets.

4. The territorial capitol was located at 20th and Capitol Avenue .

5. J. Craig to S.R. Curtis, April 15, 1863. District of Nebraska, Letters Sent. The 7th Iowa and other units which camped at the west edge of Omaha informally named their clusters of tents Camp McKean and Camp Mitchell after General Craig’s successors in command of the District of Nebraska.

6. Special Order 57, District of Nebraska, August 19, 1863.

7. For a first hand description of the activities of the 7th Iowa , see Eugene F. Ware, The Indian War of 1864 (Introduction and notes by Clyde C. Walton, Bison Book ed., Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1960). See pages 6-12 for Ware’s description of Omaha in 1863.

8. Alfred E. Sorenson, The Story of Omaha (Omaha National Printing Company, 3d ed., 1923), 425.

9. The location was identified by superimposing early surveyor's plats showing the military bridge onto a map showing the streets of Omaha . The 1887 Sanborn insurance map shows the military bridge stable at the southwest corner of 25th and Cumings. The 1890 Sanborn map has the building still there but under the name of ”Jno B. Furay Livery”. It is not clear whether this was a remnant of the military post or a commercial business using a known location as its trade name.

10. Prospect Hill Cemetery .

11. The 5th was a “Galvanized Yankee” regiment.

12. William T. Sherman, Memoirs (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 2 vols, 2d ed. rev., 1886), II, 412. For a detailed history of the Department of the Platte during its most important years see Richard Guentzel, "The Department of the Platte and Western Settlement, 1866-1877,” Nebraska History, LVI (Fall, 1975), 389. Cited hereafter as Department of the Platte.

13. The last returns are for April 1866.

14. For a more day-to-day review of the events at and relevant to Fort Omaha during the 19th century, see Walter C. Sharp, Jr., “ Fort Omaha and the Winning of the West,” (unpublished MA thesis: University of Omaha , 1967). Cited hereafter as Winning of the West.

15. Report of W.T. Sherman, Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 40 Cong., 2d sess., House Ex. Doc- No. 1 I, 58-59.

16. The present main entrance is located at 30th and Fort Streets.

17. General Order 40, Department of the Platte , November 24, 1868.

18. Forest Lawn Cemetery became the Fort Omaha Cemetery beginning in the late 1880’s.

19. The Army and Navy Journal, July 29 and August 5, 1871.

20. See Department of the Platte for the history of the headquarters various moves between the city and the post. The attached article from the Omaha Bee newspaper also describes the various headquarters buildings.

21. General Order 9, Division Of the Missouri, December 30, 1878 in compliance with Adjutant General's Office, General Order 79, November 8, 1878.

22. See Winning of the West, 84-85 for the details of this event.

23. 25 F. Cas. 695 (C.C.D. Neb. 1879) (No. 14,891). See Thomas H. Tibbles, The Ponca Chiefs: An Account Of the Trial of Standing Bear (Bison Book ed., Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1972) for the general background and a first-hand description of this case. Tibbles is the reporter referred to in the text. For a narrative of the oral argument, see the Omaha Daily Herald, May 1, 4, 6, 7, 1879. There is a memorial plaque to Chief Standing Bear at the northeast end of the parade ground.

24. The Bellevue Rifle Range was located just north of old town Bellevue and just south of Fontanelle Forest . The site is on a narrow plain just west of the Missouri River bordered by bluffs on the west and north. According to photos in the Army War College museum at Carlisle , Pennsylvannia, the target pits were at the north end of the plain and firing was from south to north. The east-west distance against the bluffs simply was not enough distance for normal firing range intervals. The tent camp was on the east side of the plain, also running north and south along side of the firing range. Several photos show a tall flag pole and award assemblies in a grove of trees. This was likely in the grove of trees at the northeast corner of the plain where a farm house was located before the area was developed. The east side of the area where the tent camp was located is still open but the remainder, including the bluffs to the west, is covered by houses. See Buecker, “Guy V. Henry’s Famous Cavalry Rides,” in 78 Nebraska History 54, 55 (Summer 1997) for a photo of Guy V. Henry at the Bellevue Rifle Range.

25. The Army and Navy Journal, May 5, 1888.

26. W.T. Sherman to Robert T. Lincoln, August 2, 1882. Adjutants General’s Office, Letters Sent, 1882.

27. Marvin F. Schmitt (ed.), General George Crook: His Autobiography (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2d ed. rev. 1960), 268

28. Ch. 69, 25 Stat. 339 (1888-89).

29. Cong. Rec., H6443 (June 10, 1896).

30. The 3rd Nebraska Volunteer Infantry, under the command of William Jennings Bryan, mobilized at Fort Omaha during the period June 12-July 18, 1898, according to the 1897-1898 Report of the Adjutant General of Nebraska, 135 (1899). The 3rd’s camp was apparently unnamed. The 2nd Nebraska Volunteer Infantry returned to Fort Omaha on September 3, 1898 and was mustered out of service on October 24, 1898. Colonel Bills named the 2nd Nebraska camp at Fort Omaha , Camp Meiklejohn , after George de Rue Meiklejohn, Assistant Secretary of War and a former two term Republican congressman from Nebraska . The fort’s brick and frame buildings were used for both of these camps.

31. See USAF Historical Division, United States Army Air Arm, April 1861 to April, 1917 (Maxwell A.F.B.:1958), 15-17 for more details on the birth of balloon training at Fort Omaha .

32. The landmark balloon house north of the 1879 Department of the Platte headquarters building was demolished in December 1932.

33. A "veteran" frame building from the fort stood for many years at 4758 No. 24th Street . A field officers' quarters built in 1880 was moved there after the 1896 abandonment but is now gone. Many other frame buildings were moved rather than destroyed. The government sale of the frame buildings occurred in late 1899.

34. The Ponca Indians confined with Chief Standing Bear helped build these structures.

35. Unless indicated to the contrary, the building numbers are those assigned by the community college. This is community college building 8.

36. Five is the college’s designation. This was building 15 on the last military plat of the fort.

37. The military designation.

38. The military designation was 2/3 to reflect its duplex construction.

39. For a detailed history through 1955 see History of Fort Crook/Offutt Air Force Base (author unknown, unfinished and unpaginated manuscript in the files of the historian of the 3902nd Air Base Wing (SAC), Offutt AFB, no date but circa 1955-56). Cited hereafter as Fort Crook History.

40. Ch. 301, 28 Stat. 403 (1894-95).

41. Omaha Daily Bee, May 27, 1894.

42. The first troops arrived on June 20, 1896. Headquarters, Offutt Air Force Base, A Chronology of Offutt Air Force Base (SAC) (Offutt: January 1, 1962), 2. Cited hereafter as Chronology.

43. Omaha Daily Herald, June 28, 1896.

44. O.M. Smith, W.H. Wassell, R.L. Hamilton, History of the 22nd Infantry, 1866-1922 (Manila, P.I.:E.C. McCullough and Caripany, 1922) as quoted in Fort Crook History.

45. Omaha Daily Bee, July 4, 1898. Colonel Wikoff was then commanding the 3rd Brigade of the First Division comprised of the 9th, 13th and 24th U.S. Infantry regiments. He was killed at the ford across the San Juan River which became known as "Bloody Ford" because of the large number of men killed and wounded there. The camp at Montauk Point , New York for troops returning from Cuba was named after Colonel Wikoff.

46. Letter, Colonel Ira A. Rader, USAF (ret.) to OAFB Historical Section, June 6, 1955, as quoted in Fort Crook History.

47. Adjutant Generals Office, General Order 14, section 2, May 3, 1924.

48. Maps indicate there was a rifle range at Plattsmouth as early as 1912 in the area northeast of town. The Nebraska National Guard had its annual encampment at Plattsmouth several times.

49. Chronology, 25, 28.

50. A. Kountze to M.C. Meigs September 19, 1866, copy in Letters Sent, Department of the Platte , 1866.

51. The 1887 Sanborn insurance map does not show any remnants of the quartermaster depot. The four corners of the depot were at (1) just north of 13th & Webster; (2) halfway between Webster and Burt at 12th Street ; (3) just west of 13th Street and halfway between Cumings and Izard; and (4) just west of 14th Street and just north of Cumings.

52. The Government Corral can be seen at the lower right in the 1868 and 1876 large lithographs of Omaha . The main branch of the Omaha Public Library has copies of both lithographs on the wall of the Genealogy Room on the 3rd floor.

53. The 1878 contract is still in the Union Pacific’s legal files.

54. Omaha World Herald, September 11, 1932.

55. See Stuart C. Lynn and Jeff R. Henningfield, History of the Old Corral (unpublished manuscript 1994) for more information.

56. The building designation is from the 1903 plat of the depot.

57. This organization also created a summary of the 20th century activity of the depot in (PFC) David E. Lavash, The Old Corral (unpublished manuscript, Omaha : XVI Corps, circa 1964).

January 26, 2000.

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