b'Forty Miles A DayOn Beans and HayPART 2 By Alan Rockman Fort Abraham LincolnTHE JOURNEY :The recruits, whether native - born Americans or European immigrants would be issued uniforms and weapons, and then they were sent off to the three army depots set aside for training. For cavalry, it was the Jefferson Barracks in Missouri, for the infantry it was Devils Island in New York and Columbus Barracks in Ohio. At the various depots, the men would be separated into the regiments they would be serving in. They were then met by hard - nosed drill Sergeants who, as late as 1884 were Civil War Veterans. The recruits were subjected to a brief but very rigorous training in close order marching, marksmanship, and at the Cavalry Depot at Jefferson Barracks mounted and dismounted saber drills plus the importance of keeping your mount( horse )well - fed, groomed, and taken care of as it was often a good horse that was the difference between survival on the field or death on the prairie. Personal hygiene was also a major issue since many of the men never took regular baths. For the Frontier Army, a clean( and well -fed )soldier was usually a good soldier-It was imperative to keep and stay clean since many of the forts were positioned in dusty, grimy, isolated areas, especially those in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.A las, as we shall note, the dust, dirt, and grime, theNorman, Oklahoma, 1963, pp. 33-49). Bear in mind thatobsolescence, the Trapdoor had its shortcomings too, unsanitary conditions of some if not all of thea skinflint Congress had kept the regular U.S. Army toand one that would prove fatal to Custer\'s immediate forts, not to mention the monotonous diet of salta maximum skeleton force of 25,000 men despite thecommand. While they were perfect at long range - and pork and hardtack would adversely affect a considerableprotests of Generals Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan, andthe Indians didn\'t come at you in mass - they were amount of the frontier Army. the efforts of political cartoonist Thomas Nast (Davidextremely ineffective as a short-range rifle, tended to Nevin and the Editors of TIME-LIFE BOOKS, Thejam, and yes, because the inner firing tube was made of The recruits were expected to learn the proverbialSoldiers, Time-Life Books, Alexandria, Virginia, 1974,copper instead of brass, the overheated copper would "ropes" on their own as A Soldier\'s Handbook would notpp. 168-171). retain the cartridge tube after firing, which caused the be issued until 1884. After a few days or in some casessoldiers to extricate the overheated or stuck cartridge as long as three months, the recruits would be sent outThe ignorance of Congress in appropriating funds andtubing with a knife. Winchesters and repeating Henrys usually by train, wagon or even steamboat to the variousmaterials down to the troops they expected to guard thewere almost nowhere to be found.forts their regiments would be stationed at. The length offrontier and provide security for settlers moving West training at the recruitment depots varied per need. If thewas even reflected in the sidearm that the soldiers used.Yes, there were Gatling guns, a rare moment of foresight Army was desperate for new blood, as it was in the wakeWhile the Colt revolvers were almost always first-rate,by a stingy Congress to appropriate funds for the of Custer\'s defeat, the training would last just a couple ofthe same cannot be said about the rifles the soldiers wereforerunner of the machine gun. But those early Gatling days; if the need wasn\'t so great, training periods couldissued. The old muzzle-loading Springfield rifles wereguns were awkward, had to be transported by wheel, and last as long as three months (Don Rickey Jr., Forty Milesreplaced by the more modern Springfield "Trapdoor"they too would jam and be useless if moved across rocky a Day on Beans and Hay, University of Oklahoma Press,rifle, and while that was an improvement overor uneven terrain. Perhaps Custer\'s command might have been saved if he had chosen to take along a Gatling gun or two instead of rejecting the offer of them from General Terry. Then again, maybe not.Even though the majority of the freshly-minted soldiers, adequately armed or not, were quickly sent West, with such a truncated army it was not enough to keep isolated settlements, ranches, and farmhouses safe. As a result, they were always hard-pressed and stretched to the limit.THE FORTS:Most of the forts they arrived at were not the wooden stockades we are used to seeing in Hollywood Westerns where the cavalrymen are firing down from the top ledge as the Indians attacked. As David Nevin wrote: "The uniformity of most government issue did not apply to the hundreds of forts that guarded the frontier. Although life on the forts followed a fixed and monotonous routine, the forts themselves were unique in appearance and constantly changing. Built of whatever material was nearest at hand, some were the epitome of ramshackle misery and others approached opulence" (Nevin, The Soldiers, p. 47).custer with his family and members of the 7th cavalry at fort lincoln44 May 2020'