"It requires indefatigable care..."

Civil War histories often focus on the more "glamorous" combat related aspects of campaigning and don’t often dwell on the more mundane tasks. Sometimes, though, a glimpse of those less dramatic, but important duties comes through in a soldier’s account, a regimental history, or in a modern history. If a historian was willing to take it on, I suspect an interesting account could be written about the wagon trains that made their way to and from Fort Scott, Kansas, and the Union troops that protected those vital supplies.

While reading through W. S. Burke’s Military History Of Kansas Regiments During The War For The Suppression Of The Great Rebellion (1870), I spotted the following passage from the sketch about the 9^th Kansas Cavalry:

“Col. [Edward] Lynde, with his regiment, in February, 1863, was ordered to Fort Scott as a convoy to an immense supply train, accompanying which were a number of refugee wagons. It is no idle responsibility to safely conduct a train several miles in length through a hostile and dangerous country. It requires indefatigable care, energy and watchfulness. Of the many hundred thousand dollars’ worth of army stores and provisions which have been entrusted to the protection of this regiment, not one dollar’s worth has been captured or wrenched from it by guerrilla band or rebel force” (p. 275). 

Supplies from Fort Scott

Trans-Mississippi soldiers, such as those in the 28^th Texas, operated in a region that was, for the most part, still a frontier. Supplying armies west of the Mississippi was particularly challenging, and the diaries and letters kept by soldiers there reflect a deep and abiding interest in supplies. Union soldiers operating in the border region along the Kansas/Missouri and Indian Territory/Arkansas lines were quite dependent on supplies from Fort Scott in Kansas. Wiley Britton in Memoirs of the Rebellion on the Border: 1863 wrote from the northeastern part of the Indian Territory, “It takes from five to seven days for a train to come down from Fort Scott, the distance being about one hundred and twenty-five miles” (p. 92). In the spring of 1863, Confederate forces attempted to destroy one of the wagon trains from Fort Scott, and Britton noted “Had they succeeded in capturing or burning the train, we should have been obliged to abandon this post, as we could have issued full rations only for a day or so longer. Indeed, of some articles we have already been obliged to issue less than the full allowance. This country could afford no subsistence, except fresh beef; and all our other supplies would be exhausted before we reached the Kansas line” (p. 271).