Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
Spring 1998
Document Type
Article
Citation
Great Plains Quarterly Vol. 18, No. 2, Spring 1998, pp. 192.
Abstract
Formal exploration of the Black Hills was long thwarted by their remoteness in northern Indian country and then by their inclusion in the Great Sioux Reservation created by the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty. Changing national circumstances by 1874, however, led to Custer's well-publicized Black Hills survey where gold was discovered, as he reported, among the roots of the grass. Though several practical miners traveled with Custer, his expedition's pronouncements were not scientifically grounded, and doubt shrouded his discovery.
Across the nation the prospect of a new El Dorado grew irresistible, and the federal government soon authorized a formal scientific study of the Hills to better judge their mineral wealth. The 1875 mission was organized by Professor Walter P. Jenney of New York's Columbia School of Mines. His corps numbered seventeen, including two geologists, a topographer, astronomer,naturalist, photographer, head miner, and laborers. Commanding Jenney's military escort was Lieutenant Richard I. Dodge, Twenty-third Infantry, who led eight companies of soldiers drawn from the Second and Third Cavalry and Ninth Infantry, in all 452 men and seventy-one supply wagons.
Dodge, appreciating the national significance of his assignment, compiled a record of daily activities and observations from the time of his departure from Omaha Barracks, Nebraska, in early May until his return in midOctober; it is these detailed journals that are presented here. A West Pointer, class of 1848, Dodge was a seasoned soldier with a reputation for discreet good judgment and administrative competence. More important, he had a literary bent, being both an avid reader and aspiring writer, and drew upon the observations he penned in 1875 for an official report of the expedition and his second book, a natural history of the Black Hills published in 1876.
Comments
Copyright 1998 by the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln