The third supporting question, “What challenges around obtaining food were faced by the people living at a military fort on the northern Great Plains?” helps students use sources to unwrap the context of the time and topic being examined.
The U.S. Army sent troops into northern Dakota Territory in 1863 to locate Dakota Indians who had fled southern Minnesota following the outbreak of the US-Dakota War of 1862. Troops briefly occupied the old fur trade post called Fort Union but gave it up for new forts built along the Missouri River including Forts Rice (1864), Buford (1866), and Stevenson (1867).
The Missouri River posts were located hundreds of miles from the nearest railroad line and depended on the river for most shipments of supplies and mail. Some freighting continued during the cold winters by dogsled, but the loads were necessarily light. River traffic was limited to about six months of warm weather if the river levels did not drop too much during a long dry spell in the summer. The isolation of the posts from supply centers, especially during the winter, presented a new set of difficulties for the Army. In addition, the posts were hastily constructed, and the poorly insulated buildings could not protect vegetables from freezing during the intense cold of winter nights. Most of the posts lacked underground, frost-free storage cellars. The Army had noted the hazards of isolation at Army posts in 1818 and had ordered all frontier posts to plant gardens to ensure the health of the soldiers. But, when Fort Rice was built in 1864, few people believed that it was possible for vegetables to ripen on the northern plains, which was still widely believed to be a desert. Without vegetables, the soldiers could become ill with any of a variety of diseases related to poor nutrition and vitamin deficiencies, including dysentery and scurvy.
In the documents that follow, you will read about how the isolation of Army posts, inadequate information about vegetable gardening and preservation, and the short growing season in northern Dakota Territory led to serious health problems for the Army. Drawing on their experience in gardening, officers of these posts, engaged in an argument in the national press about the future of general agriculture and the Northern Pacific Railroad in Dakota Territory. Complete the following task using the sources provided to build a context of the time period and topic being examined.
Formative Performance Task 3
Use the information from Featured Sources A-E, and additional research from library and internet sources, to answer the following questions: Did the Army have a fit fighting force on the Northern Great Plains between 1864 and 1870? What could the Army have done differently to maintain the health of the soldiers? Army surgeons did not understand why Indians did not have scurvy. What ideas or assumptions prevented them from understanding how Indians remained healthy? Why didn’t the surgeons simply ask the Indians for more information? Martha Gray Wales’ mother baked a lemon pie for her family as part of her effort to prevent scurvy. Find a recipe for lemon pie and try to determine how much Vitamin C it would contain. Why was lemon pie popular on the frontier? What vegetables were in your school lunch yesterday? How much vitamin C do you think was in that meal? Are there any populations in the world who are susceptible to scurvy today? Why is scurvy a problem for these people? Create a menu for a day or a week based on the commonly available food at a military fort. Bonus points for cooking a meal using those ingredients.
Featured Sources 3
Read featured sources A-X. In a group or as a class, answer the following questions: What type of sources are they (letters, photos, maps, diaries, etc.)? What kind of information do they contain? Who created each of these sources? Who was the intended audience for each source? Why were these sources created? When were the sources created? How do we know? What else can you find?
For more information on North Dakota’s early military posts, visit our website. Learn more about gardening in North Dakota in the How Does Your Garden Grow? Online Exhibit.