Fort Scott National Parks

Policing the Frontier

In its brief but varied life, Fort Scott mirrored the course of western settlement along the middle border. From 1842-53, troops from this post helped keep peace on the Indian frontier. Between 1854 and 1861, the years of ‘Bleeding Kansas,’ the town was caught up in the violent struggle between ‘free-soilers’ and slave-holders. During the Civil War, the post – now reactivated and greatly enlarged – became an important supply center for Union armies in the West. In the 1870s, the U.S. Army returned to the town of Fort Scott, this time to protect workers building a railroad across disputed land.

When the army established this fort, this was Indian country, the ancestral land of the Osage, but assigned in recent years to eastern tribes that the government had exiled westward beyond the line of white settlement. This line was known as ‘the permanent Indian frontier.’

It was garrisoned at intervals from Minnesota to Louisiana by forts manned by infantry and a special breed of mounted troops, the colorfully dressed, heavily armed dragoons, trained to fight on foot as well as horseback.

A Dragoon Company

In 1842 two companies of dragoons – about 130 officers and men – arrived at this site and began putting up the first quarters. The new post (named for Gen. Winfield Scott) stood on a bluff, surrounded by prairie and rolling hills. Strategically, it filled the gap between Fort Leavenworth (built 1827) in northern Kansas and Fort Gibson (1824) 150 miles south. The fort was planned around a spacious parade-ground. Officers’ quarters lined one side, dragoon barracks and stables another. Most buildings were frame, Greek Revival in style, and comfortable, with high ceilings, walnut woodwork, porches, and fireplaces. By 1848 the fort we see today was essentially finished.

Indian Country Kansas

The fort’s primary purpose was to keep peace between the relocated Indians from the east, nomadic tribes, and white settlers. As it turned out, the Indians were quiet, and the main duties were to guard the caravans on the Santa Fe Trail and patrol the far Indian country. Two expeditions rode escort on the trail in 1843, and the next year dragoons from Scott and Leavenworth marched into Pawnee country to try to end fighting between that tribe and the Sioux. These campaigns were a rehearsal for the great expedition of 1845 under Stephen W. Kearny, who marched his horse soldiers 2200 miles in 99 days in a grand tour of the wilderness empire of the Plains Indians.

While the dragoons were showing the flag on the Plains, events in Texas were drifting toward war with Mexico. Part of Scott’s dragoons marched with Kearny into California, part served with Zachary Taylor at Buena Vista. Both campaigns were American successes.

These actions were a far cry from the usual monotony of garrison duty, drills, details, construction, and maintenance. If anything, the infantry had it worse, for the dragoons could at least go on expeditions or perform escort duty.

Whether hard or merely boring, this life came to an end in 1853. The frontier had passed through, and there was little need for a fort here. The garrison was transferred to Leavenworth, and a couple of years later the post buildings were sold at auction.

Such was the end of Fort Scott, but not of the military life of the post and town. ‘Bleeding Kansas,’ the Civil War, land squabbles in the 1870s – these issues brought the U.S. Army back to the scene. Those themes and others are recounted in exhibits and programs at the park.