Fort Dilts

In the summer of 1864, while the United States was still in the throes of civil war, emigrant wagon trains crossed the northern Great Plains to the mountains of western Montana and Idaho. Gold had been discovered in sizable quantities in those mountains, and a considerable interest in going to the gold fields had arisen in residents of the northern states and particularly in Minnesota Territory, then the westward limit of organized frontier settlement. Two routes to the gold fields were available: boat travel down the Mississippi and then up the Missouri River to Fort Benton, or overland wagon train from St. Paul to Montana. River travel was time-consuming, at times dangerous, and could be quite expensive if whole families and their belongings were to be transported.

The overland route posed problems of supply, protection, and navigation because the wagontrains would necessarily travel a distance of more than a thousand miles through territory that was virtually unmapped and unoccupied except for large numbers of Indians. The best information available on the overland route of the beginning of the 1860's were maps and notes of an 1853 exploring expedition led by Isaac Stevens, who was seeking an acceptible northern route for a transcontinental railroad. Steven's route generally ran from St. Paul northwestward across what is now central Minnesota and North Dakota to Fort Union, a fur trading post on the Missouri River, then westward along the Missouri and Milk Rivers to Fort Benton. Wagon trains successfully followed this route, and one more northerly, in 1862 and 1863 without major incident with the Indians of the region.

In the autumn of 1862, however, the Indian menace to the wagon trains and the white occupants of Minnesota increased when members of several bands of Sioux conducted wide-spread acts of hostility in what became known as the Minnesota Massacre. In the following three years major military campaigns against the Sioux were conducted by Colonel H. H. Sibley and General Alfred Sully in areas through which the wagon trains would pass. Indians in what are now central and western North Dakota who had not taken part in depredations were provoked to hostility by indiscriminate attacks by the military units.

Amid this climate of hostility and gold fever, Captain James Fisk led a wagon train out of Minnesota in early July, 1864. Fisk had led trains over the usual Stevens route in 1862 and 1863 after being appointed military superintendent of emigration on that route. The 1864 train was very late in making its start westward, and Fisk determined that the train would take a more direct westerly route. The train left Fort Ridgeley and traveled along the Minnesota River and overland to Fort Rice on the Missouri River in what is now south-central North Dakota. Fort Rice was then under construction and was serving as the base camp for the Sully campaign of that year. Fisk discovered that the main Sully force had departed to the northwest toward the Little Missouri River Badlands about three weeks before the Fisk train arrived at Fort Rice.

After obtaining a military escort of fifty men, Fisk departed Fort Rice and followed Sully's trail along the Cannonball River for about 80 miles. At a point where Sully had turned his troops northward to intercept a band of Indians, Fisk turned the train to the south and west on a course that he hoped would skirt to the south of the dreaded badlands and shorten the distance to the mouth of the Bighorn River.

On September 2, 1864, ten days after Fisk left Sully's trail, the train was attacked by a party of Hunkpapa Sioux near Deep Creek in what is now Slope County, North Dakota. Two trailing wagons were cut off by the Indians and, although the military escort repulsed the attack, nine whites were killed and three more were seriously wounded. After a sleepless night the train broke camp and continued westward, leaving a loaf of strychnine-soaked bread at the campsite. The Sioux, who were on a hunting expedition and who later demanded a ransom of food for release of the train, found and devoured the bread. Some days later a scout for the train reported having found the bodies of several Indians, which had been partially eaten by wolves.

The wagon train continued westward for two days under continuous attack by a growing Indian force until September fourth, when the wagons were formed into a corral on a commanding ridge top. Within the day a six and one-half foot high wall of earth and sod was built around the circled wagons. The Indian attacks continued unabated for several days, and three more men died and were interred under the walls of the fortification. Among the dead was Corporal Jefferson Dilts, a scout for whom the location was named. A contingent of ten men left the fort during the night of September 4-5 to summon aid from Fort Rice.

The Hunkpapa Sioux, who had skirmished with Sully's force at least twice in the previous weeks, continued their attacks for several days and then offered to parlay the freedom of the train for food and other goods. The Indians also offered to release a white woman they had captured some weeks earlier, in exchange for a large amount of goods. When Fisk offered a smaller ransom, the Indians refused the offer because they believed a better bargain could be struck at Fort Rice. The woman begged Fisk to secure her release at any price, but she remained in captivity until released at Fort Sully on the Missouri River in December, 1864.

After sixteen days of confinement in the fortification, the Fisk train was rescued by a detachment from Fort Rice. Although Fisk and some of the emigrants wished to proceed westward, the train was refused further military escort in that direction. The train then returned to Fort Rice without further harassment by Indians and was disbanded.

The fortification area of Fort Dilts has not been disturbed since 1864, except for placement of military heads tones for the soldiers buried under the wall. The site retains its unbroken vistas and the feeling of vastness or desolation that greeted the emigrants of the Fisk wagon train. Fort Dilts may be the only site of a classic Indian attack on a wagon train crossing the Great Plains which retains visible evidence of the incident and which remains virtually unaltered since the attack. Because of the unique history of Fort Dilts and the representative relationship of the site to the broad themes of Indian-White Warfare, trans-plains emigration, and the gold rush of the 1860's, it is recommended that Fort Dilts be designated a National Historic Landmark.