Frontier Army Days brings 1870s Fort Sill to life

By Mitch Meador, Fort Sill TribuneOctober 5, 2018

Frontier1
1 / 5 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Frontier doctor Jason Harris demonstrates on Izabella Kelley how a badly injured arm would be treated, or more precisely, amputated, during Frontier Army Days, Sept. 28, 2018. Children also learned about the chemicals, painkillers (whiskey), and leec... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL
Frontier2
2 / 5 Show Caption + Hide Caption – (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL
Frontier3
3 / 5 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Children cover their ears as a Model 1841 Field Gun sounds its report during a demonstration at Frontier Army Days Sept. 28, 2018, at Old Post Quadrangle. Over 1,000 children from 14 area schools and home schools visited eight stations to learn what ... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL
Frontier4
4 / 5 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Katia Skiffington running the laundress station, shows students how to clean fabrics the old-fashioned way by agitating them on washboards in washtubs, using homemade lye soap. Back then laundresses were paid better than Soldiers: a private's pay was... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL
Frontier5
5 / 5 Show Caption + Hide Caption – (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

FORT SILL, Okla. (Oct. 5, 2018) -- Izabella Kelley, a 9-year-old girl home-schooled by her mother, bravely went under the scalpel of a frontier Army surgeon for the benefit of students attending the "School Day" portion of Frontier Army Days here Sept. 28.

"It was kind of fun, and scary," she said afterward.

The pioneers gave these country doctors the nickname "sawbones" for good reason.

Izabella was taken aback to see living history interpreter Jason Harris trot out a hacksaw while using her right arm as a visual aid to show medical practices of the 1870s.

"I kind of thought he might actually cut my arm off, for a minute," she said.

How about that wriggling leech he pulled out of his tin leech box? Was that a real leech he put on her arm?

"No, I tried to pull my arm back, but I couldn't. And he put a leech on me and I thought it was real for a minute," Izabella recalled.

She was afraid the leech might actually suck her blood, but it didn't. She came away from the experience with no marks or puncture wounds, and said she's glad to be living in the age of modern medicine, where doctors don't do things like that.

Does she know what she wants to be when she grows up?

"Yeah. A scientist," Izabella said.

Volunteers like Harris, who came from the Chisholm Trail Museum in Kingfisher, were out in force on Old Post Quadrangle. Fort Sill Museum volunteer Lori Siltman used the west side of Old Post Headquarters to show what daily life was like for children attending a one-room schoolhouse. After she versed students of today on "the three R's" and the use of slate and chalk, the groups headed outdoors, where museum volunteer Kim Warnock showed them some games their ancestors used to play.

Other members of the "Gentle Tamers of Fort Sill" support group had their own roles to play, with Marcia Peppel conducting school groups through the 1870s Cavalry Barracks, and Katia Skiffington running the laundress station, where students learned to clean fabrics the old-fashioned way by agitating them on washboards in washtubs, using homemade lye soap.

Back then laundresses were paid better than Soldiers: a private's pay was $13 a month, while a laundress could pull in $25-30.

This year's Frontier Army Days is actually part of the lead up to an important milestone for Fort Sill its 150th birthday on Jan. 8, 2019. Fort Sill Director of Museum Services Frank Siltman said everything the museums do from now until then, including the Candlelight Stroll in December, will be focused on the 150th anniversary celebration being headed up by Monica Guthrie of the Fort Sill Public Affairs Office.

Looking back on the "world of used-to-be," Siltman observed that 150 years ago this week, nothing was here but open prairie. The first stake marking Old Post Quadrangle would still be months away.

"The 10th Cavalry had actually been here and camped at Medicine Bluff, 150 years ago this summer. (Col. Benjamin) Grierson, in fact, had camped out there. You go out, and they've camped in (The Punchbowl). So they've been here, which is what led them back here in January of 1869, because you know they were at Fort Cobb. The Kiowa burned Fort Cobb during the (Civil War), and most of the buildings were destroyed.

"And when they got there, after the Battle of the Washita, there was about two feet of snow. Three days after they get there, it starts raining. And it's just a cold, muddy place with no buildings. And that's where Gen. (Philip H.) Sheridan was like, this isn't going to work. And Grierson is there to say, 'Hey, you know what? Thirty miles to the south of us, there's grass, trees, water.'

"And people today, we don't think much about that, that grass, trees, and water are critical. But in 1852, when (Capt. Randolph) Marcy had been here, one of Marcy's reports was they need a strong post in the Wichitas to maintain peace and stability, and Medicine Bluff has grass, water, and trees. So that was a strategic advantage for this area, because unlike today, around here it was mostly grassy plain. A lot of the watercourses, the streams were seasonal. They weren't consistent. And so here you had annual water resources, you had trees on the water banks of Medicine Creek and Cache Creek, and so, for the Army, this was a place that had the resources they need. And so it became a strategic point because of that," Siltman said.

At the cavalry station out in front of the Cavalry Barracks, museum volunteer Wallace Moore and museum technician Robert Anderson represented the "Buffalo Soldiers" of the 10th U.S. Cavalry who built the Old Post. Buffalo Soldiers served in the U.S. Army from 1866 until 1944. By the end of the Spanish-American War, 18 of them had received the Medal of Honor and three had graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.

In describing the operation of his six-shooter, Moore said, "Sam Colt didn't make this gun. Sam Colt died in 1862.

"This gun wasn't made until 1873. Mrs. Sam Colt made this. Nobody would buy a gun made by a girl back in those days. We didn't have CNN to tell anybody, so nobody knew Sam Colt was dead, so she got it together herself, and the world was satisfied."

Moore also introduced students to his 18-year-old mare, Remedy, a sorrel quarter horse who likes people and doesn't get spooked when a howitzer goes off. He went on to explain the U.S. Army bridle, halter, shanks, and connecting strap that Remedy wears.

Retired Lt. Col. Jeff Nester, a volunteer with the Artillery Museum Detachment, explained how a gun crew worked the Model 1841 six-pounder Field Gun used to signal a change of stations for the rotating school groups.

Step one is to run a sponge down the tube and extinguish all sparks so the next round doesn't go off prematurely. Next, a hard wooden mallet is used to push the projectile down the tube to get it ready to fire.

On the front left is crewmember No. 2, the one who carries the actual round, puts it in the muzzle, and gets it ready for No. 1 to ram down. On the right rear is No. 3. He has three jobs. First, he has a one-finger glove on his thumb that he puts over the vent so when No. 1 is sponging the tube it creates a vacuum within the tube. That means no air, and no air means no spark, Nester pointed out. Second, he uses a vent pick to push down the vent and poke a hole into the powder bag. Third, No. 3 comes back to the rear of the one-ton gun and helps the gunner aim it. The gunner can set the elevation of the tube unassisted, but he needs help moving it left or right.

No. 4 has all the fun. He's got the primer and the lanyard. He puts the primer in the vent, and when he pulls the lanyard it shoots a jet of flame into the hole that No. 3 poked into the powder bag.

Explosive gases instantly build up behind the cannonball to such an extent that the ball shoots out of the tube with resounding fury, making the "BOOM!" that can be heard for miles around.

Volunteers told the infantry story were volunteers from the 24th Missouri Infantry Group. Kevin Dally of Dallas, Cal Kinzer from the Tulsa area, and Michael Jordan, a professor at Texas Tech in Lubbock, demonstrated firing procedures, showed how intimidating bayonets could be to an advancing force, and talked about the advantages of wool over cotton in Army uniforms of the 1870s.

Does seeing how the frontiersmen scraped by make school groups of today better appreciate what they have?

"I think it does," Siltman said. "Part of it is the seeing, feeling, and touching history. They're not reading it in a book. I'm a museum guy, I love museums, I love museum displays, but for a kid to read a text panel is really not very realistic. But here they can see it, they feel it, they touch it. And I think that has a greater memory impact as far as an educational learning experience for them."