Bicentennial Story #109-Rats at the forts

Bicentennial Story #109-Rats at the forts

Account of the number of rats that were in forts in Dakota Territory.

9/30/1975

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mp3

audio reel, analog, 1/4 inch polyester tape

English

BS-109

Dakota Territory

Copyright Stark County Historical Society and Dickinson Museum Center

The military outposts in Dakota in the 1860's were mostly log barracks, with dirt floors, and infested with swarms of bedbugs, fleas and other insects. Every post was infested with rats in such numbers that it was impossible to keep either provisions for the soldiers or forage for the few horses except in metal-covered cases, for they would gnaw through wood as if it were paper. In 1868 Colonel D.B. Sackett estimated that the rats destroyed one thousand pounds of corn and provisions daily. The great cost in bringing in the supplies by steamboat was the biggest factor in preventing the bringing in of a cavalry unit to help the less mobile Infantry units that manned the lone outposts.

This is Bicentennial Story No. 109, prepared by Father Louis Pfaller for the Stark County Historical Society.

Hanson, Conquest of the Missouri, 84-85

Sound recordings

1:15

128kbps

1970 1979

Bicentennial tape #7, Bicentennial stories 108-127