Ft. Scott Hist. Site and Nat'l Cemetery No. 1

Location:  Both attractions are easily located in the city of Ft. Scott, and are easy to find from Hwy US 69.  To get to Ft. Scott Nat'l Historic Site, exit at the Jct. of Hwy. US 69 and Hwy. US 54 and follow the signs.  The National Cemetery is located on East National Street and the turn-off from Hwy. US 69 is well marked.

Contact:  Ph. 620/223-0310 or visit the website:  Ft. Scott Nat'l Historic Site

A visit to the Ft. Scott National Historic Site is like stepping back in time to the mid-1800's.  Thanks to a lot of work by the National Park Service and the labor of many volunteers, the place has the look and feel of a frontier fort.  Construction began in 1842 with the arrival of two companies of Dragoons, a heavily armed, highly trained horse mounted soldiers considered to be the elite of the Army at that time.  The fort functioned as a military installation from 1842 until 1853, in 1855 the buildings were sold at auction.  The fort had been constructed on a military road that stretched from Minnesota to Louisiana and marked the Western boundary of White settlement and the beginning of Indian Territory, including all of present day Kansas.  By 1853, the frontier had passed the fort by, so the fort was abandonded and the troopers were transferred to Fort Leavenworth.  After the buildings were sold, they quickly became the center of the fast growing city of Ft. Scott.    Former barracks were used as 
private homes and places of business.  The government's decision to abandon the fort would prove short-sighted, however.  By the late 1850's, the argument over whether Kansas should be a slave state or free state had boiled over into violence which became known as Bleeding Kansas.  Two of the former barracks had become hotels, located directly across from one another, one was a Free State Hotel, the other a Pro-Slavery Hotel.    Many an argument had a violent conclusion.  In 1858 the territorial governor held a meeting in the Western Hotel to try to settle the differences.  This nearly broke into a riot, but in the end the "Peace Convention" did bring an end to the violence in the area for a short while.  "Bleeding Kansas" was but a small, if bitter, taste of what was to come.  That period of Kansas History ended when the state joined the Union as a free state in 1861, but the blood bath of the Civil War would soon rage.  This once again brought the military to Fort Scott.  The former barracks were rented back and troops camped in tents on the former parade grounds.    By 1865, the guns of war had again cooled, and the    military once again abandoned the old fort.  But again in the 1870's there was a need for troops in the area.  With the coming of the railroads to the area, there was trouble with settlers or "squatters" as they were known, on the land which belonged to the railroads.  The railroad right of ways were broad swaths of land, given by the US government to the railroads as an incentive to extend rails into the West.   The railroads then sold off the excess land as a means of funding the laying of track.  The Squatters often attacked railroad construction crews.  Troops were once again brought into the area, and were based at the old fort.  

When peace again returned to the area, the old fort was abandoned by the Army for the final time.  Again it was converted to use as houses and businesses.  Some of the orginal buildings were moved, some were torn down, and some burned.  In the late 1970's, the US government once again returned to the fort, but this time it was the National Park Service.  Through years of careful research, all of the orginal buildings have either been rebuilt or restored to what they would have looked like in the 1840's.  The attention to detail is impressive. On some weekends in the summer, volunteers dress in period uniform and demonsrate life on the fort.  An excellent museum is housed in the old Officer's barracks, with displays on Bleeding Kansas as well as many other things of historical interest related to the fort.

No visit to Ft. Scott would be complete without a visit to the National Cemetery there, one of the original 12 created by President Lincoln.  Here laid to rest are veterans and their families who have protected our freedom from the 1860's to the present.  Any society which takes it's freedom for granted is in grave danger of losing it.  The men and women laid to rest here are deserving of a few moments of quiet meditation.

Among the points of interest in this   walled cemetary are the graves of the Confderate solidiers pictured at right.    They died while  Prisoners of War at Ft. Scott, and when they were laid to rest, their graves were offset from the otherwise orderly rows of graves.  This was done since they were "out of line" with the Union at the time of their deaths, and was not intended as a sign of   disrespect.  

Also buried in the cemetary were American Indian soldiers of the US Army in the 1860's.  Whether they were scouts or regular troops is not known, but when they were buried, their Indian names were used on their tombstones.  You will find markers with names like "Deer in Water" and "Stick Out Belly" with place of birth listed as simply:  Indian Territory.

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