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Most of what Americans "know" about the West was created by Hollywood, or before that sensational printed acounts, and is commonly wrong.
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When establishing a new fort, the soldiers would sometimes occupy buildings already established, but more often, were required to construct the new fort from materials available in the area. In forested areas, wood was usually used; adobe in the desert, and stone, where available. The typical frontier fort consisted of officers' quarters, barracks, stables, storehouses, and headquarters buildings, grouped around a central parade ground. Most forts did not have walls surrounding them because attacks were generally unlikely.
Physical attacks on large groups of soldiers was rare in the West. Ambush and raids were the way native Americans fought the Army when they did. They weren't stupid enough, or numerous enough, to attack well built fortifications.In many respects US forts in the West served the same purposes as fire bases in Vietnam. Places to provide combat support from, not places that were actually going to be attacked normally.
Much of the plains has few trees and hauling lumber there, particularly when no served by rails would have been prohibitively expensive. This was an army that only allocated 20 shots a year for target practice and chose not to use repeating weapons in large part because they cost to much. So the Hollywood wooden forts were going to be rare in practice.
I found this interesting.
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For the soldier, life was difficult and often monotonous at these many frontier outposts. The vast majority of recruits saw little or no combat and spent their time doing manual labor.
Most of what Americans "know" about the West was created by Hollywood, or before that sensational printed acounts, and is commonly wrong.
Physical attacks on large groups of soldiers was rare in the West. Ambush and raids were the way native Americans fought the Army when they did. They weren't stupid enough, or numerous enough, to attack well built fortifications.In many respects US forts in the West served the same purposes as fire bases in Vietnam. Places to provide combat support from, not places that were actually going to be attacked normally.
Much of the plains has few trees and hauling lumber there, particularly when no served by rails would have been prohibitively expensive. This was an army that only allocated 20 shots a year for target practice and chose not to use repeating weapons in large part because they cost to much. So the Hollywood wooden forts were going to be rare in practice.
So you're questioning the historical accuracy of "F Troop"? Wooden forts were found from Missouri on East (like Boonesborough, KY). Bent's fort, of adobe construction, would have been more typical of a Western fort.
Well i've been to Ft. Union, Ft. Craig, Ft. Selden and Ft. Cummings here in New Mexico and they all have (had) adobe walls around them although they've deteriorated badly over the last 150 years and yes they were needed as the Apaches that roamed southern New Mexico and Arizona were very ferocious fighters back in the 1860's -1880's.
Interesting note: One thing all the soldiers had to do here in the desert was put all 4 posts of their sleeping cots in a bucket full of water to keep the scorpions from crawling up them at nite and stinging them while they slept in their barracks.
So you're questioning the historical accuracy of "F Troop"? Wooden forts were found from Missouri on East (like Boonesborough, KY). Bent's fort, of adobe construction, would have been more typical of a Western fort.
An obvious difference between the West and East is that there was a lot more wood in the East. The US Army was nothing if not cheap.
I sure hope F troops was not accurate......actually I can't think of any Hollywood movie showing forts that were not wood. I also assumed they were....
GS noted on another board how infrequently people actually had the gunfights of the Hollywood versions. Which makes sense. They were trying to stay alive so they shot people from ambush or when they did not have their guns (like say in church).
One of myths that Hollywood played up was that of the outlaw gang that rode into a small town and took it over, while its citizens cowered in terror, helpless to do anything about it. The thing is, it did not happen. In every western town between 1865-1900 most of the men were civil war veterans, or if not, had fought in the Indian wars. They were just as skilled with firearms as the outlaws, and there was no lack of courage or resolve. A gang trying such a thing with only a few men would have been met by instant deadly force. For an example of such response, recall what happened to the James/Younger gang in Northfield, Minnesota, and the Dalton gang in Coffeyville, Kansas. Both gangs were shot to pieces when they tried what they thought would be an easy bank robbery.
GS noted on another board how infrequently people actually had the gunfights of the Hollywood versions. Which makes sense. They were trying to stay alive so they shot people from ambush or when they did not have their guns (like say in church).
It usually didn't involve the dueling scenes you see in the movies where one squared off against another. I have a relative who was a county sheriff and was killed by the town marshal on the streets of Durango, CO in 1906 over lax gambling enforcement. Generally, as in the case of my relative, one person just started shooting at another because he was drunk, pissed off, or whatever and then the other would fire back. Sometimes if they ran out of bullets they'd just resort to whacking one another with their guns, fists, or whatever until they put the other dude down.
One of myths that Hollywood played up was that of the outlaw gang that rode into a small town and took it over, while its citizens cowered in terror, helpless to do anything about it. The thing is, it did not happen. In every western town between 1865-1900 most of the men were civil war veterans, or if not, had fought in the Indian wars. They were just as skilled with firearms as the outlaws, and there was no lack of courage or resolve. A gang trying such a thing with only a few men would have been met by instant deadly force. For an example of such response, recall what happened to the James/Younger gang in Northfield, Minnesota, and the Dalton gang in Coffeyville, Kansas. Both gangs were shot to pieces when they tried what they thought would be an easy bank robbery.
Often there were sympathizers in town who aided the gangs and used them to help tip the balance in civil disputes. You can read descriptions of just about all of them here:
One of myths that Hollywood played up was that of the outlaw gang that rode into a small town and took it over, while its citizens cowered in terror, helpless to do anything about it. The thing is, it did not happen. In every western town between 1865-1900 most of the men were civil war veterans, or if not, had fought in the Indian wars. They were just as skilled with firearms as the outlaws, and there was no lack of courage or resolve. A gang trying such a thing with only a few men would have been met by instant deadly force. For an example of such response, recall what happened to the James/Younger gang in Northfield, Minnesota, and the Dalton gang in Coffeyville, Kansas. Both gangs were shot to pieces when they tried what they thought would be an easy bank robbery.
The Coffeyville battle involved the Daltons and a related Doolin gang trying to rob two banks at one time. They got slaughtered, several being gunned down by one man (accounts vary on how many he shot). It was very dangerous trying to seperate the citizens of that era from their money.
Some of the other hollywood myths. In the movies outlaws, and lawmen gun down huge numbers of people (I particularly remember Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke who seemed to kill several a show). The reality is that with some rare exceptions like Billy the Kid or Wes Hardin, this did not occur (or at least there are no such records). Wyatt Earp is a good example. This famous "gun fighter" is not known to have killed any one before Tombstone, although he claimed to have killed one person before that.
Also speed or accuracy, stressed in Western fiction, was not critically important. The guns were not notably accurate to start with and threw off white smoke. It was more important, a variety of gunfighters argued to be determined (meaning willing to kill people without flinching) that it was to be fast.
The western stable of attacks by native Americans on wagon trains virtually never happened (probably because they were not where the wagons were moving through. The most famous such attack, was apparently planned not by native Americans but Mormons (the mountain medows massacre). Starvation was a much more serious problem than hostiles in the West, one of the first to discover the Comstock starved going from there to California.
Hollywood, possibly deliberately, ignored the context of the time. Class conflict was common in the US and the West was not exempt from that. It took many forms including anarchism, mining wars between unions and owners (in which the Pinkertons played a grim role), and some of the range wars (notably the Johnson County war).
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The US Army was nothing if not cheap.
