Newspaper Clipping - Newspaper Clipping Scan - Special Publication on Historic Fort Snelling - 6/1/2016UNE 2016 • PREMIUM SECTION NORTHWEST PUBLICATIONS
HISTORIC
FORT SN ING
Almost 200 years ago, a limestone stronghold arose on a bluff at the edge
of America's northwestern frontier. Today, the fort still has many more stories to tell.
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HISTORIC FORT SNELLING
TwinCities�,-com PIONEERPRESS
PREMIUM SECTION
JUNE 2016
NORTHWEST PUBLICATIONS
Section editor
Lauren Osborne
Writers
Nick Woltman,
Andy Rathbun
Copy Editor
Maren Longbella
hotographers
Andy Rathbun,
John Autey
Map Nat Case
RISTORIC FORT SNELLING
is a Northwest Publication.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction: More stories to tell
As Fort Snelling nears its bicentennial, the Minnesota
Historical Society reworks programming to reflect a
wider range of the site's history.
20-23 j Slavery
at the tort
Dred Scott and his wife
weren't the only slaves
at Fort Snelling.
26-33 1 A bloody war
and a tragic aftermath
The
confinement of
innocent Dakota
at the fort after
a deadly conflict
stands as 'a
dark moment'
in state history.
4C -4-3 1 Aiding a
secret war effort
Even while many of their families
were in internment camps,
Japanese -American recruits trained
at Fort Snelling.
j More inside
16 1 Frontier's edge:
The fort was built
to protect the
American fur trade.
24 1 The Civil War:
24,000 troops
mustered through
Fort Snelling.
34 1 Buffalo soldiers:
An all -black Army
regiment served at
the fort for 5 years.
N
1�
r
36 1 World wars:
The fort's role,
plus the story of
a beloved horse.
44 1 Hallowed
ground:
16 little-known facts
about Fort Snelling
National Cemetery.
On the cover
"Fort Snelling, Upper Missis-
sippi" by F. Jackson, 1857.
(Image courtesy of the
Minnesota Historical Society)
On Page 2
The Round Tower at Fort
Snelling, the oldest standing
structure in the state.
(Photo by Andy Rathbun)
TwinCities.com St. Paul Pioneer Press 1 3
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14 1 Premium Section June 2016
So man more
•
stories to tell
BY JOHN AUTEY, PIONEER PRESS
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Fort Snelling interpreter Peter Edwards fires a musket in April while talking with students from Hastings Middle School.
6 1 Premium Section June 2016
EN
PIONEER PRESS: ANDY RATHBUN
As Fort Snelling nears its bicentennial,
the Minnesota Historical Society
reworks programming to reflect
a wider range of the site's history
BY NICK WOLTMAN
Not much has changed at Historic Fort Snelling in the past 40 years.
The thousands of Minnesota schoolchildren who visit the fort on field trips
each spring have many of the same experiences their parents' generation did.
Operated since the 1970s by the Minnesota Historical Society as a living history
museum, Fort Snelling is designed to transport visitors 200 years back in time,
using costumed re -enactors to teach them about the outpost's early days on the
American frontier.
"It's a really limiting window into the history of the site," said Matt Cassady, a
program development specialist for the Historical Society. "A big part of our pro-
gramming for a long time has been trying to re-create the atmosphere of the
early 1800s. That's a blip in the history of this place."
The fort has many more stories to tell, added Cassady, who began working
there as a re -enactor in 2008.
The Historical Society hopes that by Fort Snelling's bicentennial in 2020, visi-
tors will get a more complete picture of its complex past. The fort and its envi-
rons have been the backdrop for many pivotal moments in Minnesota history
some proud, others painful.
Cassady, who serves on the Historical Society's 2020 initiative task force, said
the group is working to develop new programming, which highlights episodes
that are often overlooked.
One of the places they've turned for help is the International Coalition of Sites
of Conscience, a New York -based nonprofit organization that represents 225 his-
toric sites in 55 countries, including Fort Snelling.
Sarah Pharaon, the coalition's training coordinator, has held two seminars with
Fort Snelling and Historical Society staff members to prepare them to navigate
difficult, often uncomfortable conversations about some of the site's chapters.
"Is it easy to do? Not necessarily. There's a reason museums and historic sites
have existed for so many years in the way they have," Pharaon said. "There are
always stories that are more comfortable to share, that are easier to tell."
SHARING HISTORIES
While the fort's frontier days will remain part of its programming, that period
will share the spotlight with several other histories.
One group that has long been conspicuously absent from Fort Snelling's pro-
gramming is the Native American community.
Archaeological evidence suggests Native Americans have occupied the area
around the fort for more than 10,000 years, and many Dakota trace the origin of
their people to the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers — a sacred
site called `Bdote" in the Dakota language.
TwinCities.com St. Paul Pioneer Press 1 7
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PIONEER PRESS: ANDY RATHBUN
Students from Byron Middle School in Byron, Minn., get a history lesson while in the Commandant's House at Fort Snelling in May.
But it is also a site of tragedy for the Dakota people. After the
U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 — in which hundreds of innocent settlers
died along with U.S. soldiers and Dakota warriors — blameless
Dakota women, children and elderly men were imprisoned in a
concentration camp in the river bottom. Many died there.
"From a Dakota perspective, I've heard many people say that it's
a place of genesis and genocide," Cassady said.
Fort Snelling is also the site of Minnesota's first significant
African-American population — as many as 20 slaves at a time
lived at the fort between 1820 and 1858. Among them were Dred
and Harriet Scott, whose unsuccessful bid for freedom ended with
a U.S. Supreme Court decision that pushed the country toward
civil war.
It was also occupied by the all -black 25th Infantry of the U.S.
Army — the famed Buffalo Soldiers — for a handful of years in
the 1880s.
During World War II, the U.S. Military Intelligence Service oper-
ated a secret language school at the fort to teach Japanese Ameri-
can soldiers to interrogate enemy prisoners and translate cap-
tured documents.
The school's graduates had a profound impact on the war effort
and saved countless lives — all of this while many of their families
8 1 Premium Section June 2016
l
PIONEER PRESS: ANDY RATHBUN
Interpreter Rose James checks her phone while waiting in the employee
break room at Fort Snelling in May. She was dressed as a working-class
woman — "probably an enlisted soldier's wife," she said.
Lower Post of Fort Snelling, as seen from the top of the fort's Round Tower.
were locked away in internment camps in the western United
States.
2020 VISION
Over the past several years, the Historical Society has
worked bits and pieces of these stories into its programming.
A short orientation film shown at the visitor center now
gives guests a taste of the fort's larger history.
Fort employees still wear period garb to keep up the look and
feel of the frontier era,.but they no longer portray characters
from the early 1800s, which prevented them from answering
visitor questions that fell outside the time period they 'lived
in." They are now able to speak to a wider range of the fort's
history.
"That was when I saw the first shift in visitor expectations,"
Cassady said. "It allowed the staff to talk about the bigger pic-
ture."
The Historical Society's plans for its 2020 bicentennial would
move the site further in that direction.
PIONEER PRESS: ANDY RATHBUN
In addition to expanded programming, these plans call for a
new three-story visitor center in one of two 112 -year-old bar-
racks buildings adjacent to the historic fort. This facility would
include permanent or rotating exhibits addressing the full
spectrum of the fort's history.
The new visitor center would include venues for community
groups to hold lectures, film screenings and other events
related to the site. It would also house the fort's museum store,
meeting rooms and staff offices. The current visitor center
would be razed.
While the fort is now open seasonally for about seven months
of the year, the new facility would allow it to remain open year-
round.
A former ordnance warehouse next door would serve as an
orientation center and would likely include a cafe.
"The new site will more actively explore that wider range of
history," Cassady said. "Over the next few years, we're going
to be phasing in different elements, so that by 2020, the experi-
ence you have here will be different than anything you've ever
seen."
TwinCities.com St. Paul Pioneer Press 1 9
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rry Peterson, site manager for the Upper Post, shines a light down a dark hallway in one of the barracks buildings in May.
The fort's Upper Post is about to undergo a revitalization
BY NICK WOLTMAN
Also due for a revitalization is Fort Snelling's Upper Post —
the buildings south of Minnesota 55.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, which
manages the Upper Post, accepted a proposal from Plymouth -
based developer Dominium last year to turn 26 of its buildings
into affordable housing.
The $100 million project will likely yield roughly 176 units,
said Russ Condas, a development associate at Dominium.
"It's a unique opportunity for Dominium to be involved with
such a historic piece of property," Condas said. "The people
living there will be working families. Right in that immediate
area, you've got the Mall of America, the airport, the veterans
hospital — a lot of good jobs there."
- The historic buildings targeted for redevelopment date from
about 1880 to 1940 and are primarily located along Taylor and
Leavenworth avenues, across Minnesota 55 from Historic Fort
Snelling. Many have been vacant for decades.
Construction could begin as soon as the second quarter of
2017.
The project will be largely financed through state and federal
historic tax credits and federal low-income housing tax cred-
its.
Dominium also converted the Schmidt Brewery in St. Paul
into artist lofts in 2014 and is now doing the same with the
Pillsbury A Mill in Minneapolis.
TwinCities.com St. Paul Pioneer Press 1 13
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`Center of
our universe'
To the Dakota, the area was
tvhome for thousands of years —
until Fort Snelling was built
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91
All-
CK WOLTMAN
confluence of the Minnesota and Missis-
ivers is sacred to the Dakota.
taeological evidence suggests Native
[cans have inhabited this area for at least
years, and many Dakota believe their
originated at the confluence, which they
Idote."
Lt's our creation story," said Ramona Kitto
y, a member of the Santee Sioux Nation.
,s we come from that place. It's the center
universe."
generations, Dakota women traveled to
tote area to give birth. At the end of their
many were brought back to that same
D be buried in mounds, many of which still
Dakota leaders used the site as a meeting
for hundreds of years.
Laeological excavations of the area in and
0
4*
around Fort Snelling uncovered the remains of
fire hearths, projectile points and other mdica-
tions of human habitation dating from 8,000 to
10,000 years ago, said Pat Emerson, director of
archaeology at the fort.
The area was excavated between the 1950s
and 1970s, but the archaeologists involved were
concerned only with the site's frontier days,
paying little attention to any prehistoric arti-
facts they uncovered.
"It kind of gives us a glimpse of what was
going on, but there are a lot of questions that we
really can't answer," Emerson said. She believes
there's much more to be learned from future
digs at the site.
The little we do know about the early inhabit-
ants of the area suggests they were unlikely to
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THE MINNES9
resource base," Emerson said. "They were prob-
ably moving substantial distances to utilize dif-
ferent resources at different times of year"
This is how the Dakota were living when the
first Europeans arrived in the area. 40
"Me French came first, followed after 1760 by
the British.... For the most part, the early Euro-
pean traders did little to disturb the native
world, not wanting to change the Indians or
their ways," according to Gary Clayton Ander-
son, author of "Little Crow: Spokesman for the
Sioux." "Only after the United States Army
moved up the Mississippi and established Fort
Snelling at the mouth of the Minnesota River in
1819 did it seem apparent that a new era has
began to the Dakota people."
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Fort Snelling was built to protect the vital -fur trade and convey the strength
of the U.S. — on what was then the northwestern edge of the American frontier.
MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Oil portrait of Col. Josiah Snelling, circa 1818.
18 1 Premium Section June 2016
BY NICK WOLTMAN
Although no important battles were
ever fought at Fort Snelling — its guns
were never fired in anger nor was it
ever fired upon — it was nonetheless
important to the early history of what
would become Minnesota.
While beaver populations in the east-
ern United States had declined sharply
by the early 1800s, the market for their
hides in Europe had not. The fur trade
began pushing westward to meet
demand.
To keep this vital economic engine
running smoothly, the fledgling U.S.
government in 1819 sent Lt. Col. Henry
Leavenworth and the 5th Infantry to
establish a military outpost on the
northwestern edge of the frontier.
The fort's garrison would be tasked
with intercepting any hostile British
venturing south from Canada, and
maintaining friendly relations with
local Native American populations,
who did the .bulk of the trapping that
supported the fur industry.
"It was built here for the express pur-
pose of protecting the fur trade," said
Matt Cassady, program development
specialist at Fort Snelling. "It was
meant to convey the authority and
strength of the United States."
When Leavenworth and his men
arrived at the confluence of the Missis-
sippi and Minnesota rivers in late
August 1819, Leavenworth selected a
mosquito -infested marsh near what is
now Mendota on which to build Can-
tonment New Hope — an ironic name,
as it turned out.
During the winter that followed, more
than 30 of his men died of scurvy and
dysentery, likely brought on by spoiled
food supplies and poor drinking water,
according to Steve Hall's 1987 book
MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Irt Snelling viewed from the ferry crossing on the east bank of the Mississippi River. This photograph was made in 1867 by
!njamin Franklin Upton.
"Fort Snelling: Colossus of the Wilderness."
When the weather warmed, Leavenworth wisely relocated
his men to Camp Coldwater near a natural spring on the west-
ern bank of the Mississippi, and began construction of a more
permanent fortification atop the high bluff overlooking the
confluence.
After months of begging his superiors for a new assignment,
Leavenworth was replaced by Col. Josiah Snelling, who arrived
at Camp Coldwater in September 1820.
An aristocratic New Englander, Snelling had distinguished
himself as an effective military leader during the War of 1812.
Under his direction, the men of the 5fth Infantry built an
uncommonly substantial fort using limestone blocks quarried
from the nearby bluffs. Most frontier forts at that time were
simple wooden affairs.
Snelling christened it Fort St. Anthony in 1821, after the falls
eight miles upstream on the Mississippi. When the fort was
completed in 1825, the military renamed it Fort Snelling in
honor of the man who oversaw its construction.
The diamond-shaped compound quickly became a hub of
social, commercial and government life for traders, Native
Americans and soldiers.
TwinCities.com St. Paul Pioneer Press 1 19
0
The rear of the officers' quarters, where it is believed slaves were housed for a period at Fort Snelling.
20 1 Premium Section June 2016
PIONEER PRESS: ANDY RATHBUN
Slavery at
Fort Snelling
Dred Scott and his wife, Harriet, weren't the
only slaves at Fort Snelling, but the couple
sued for freedom — and became famous for it.
BY NICK WOLTMAN
In 1846, an enslaved African-American
couple, who met and married at Fort
Snelling, sued the woman who owned
them in Missouri.
Dred and Harriet Scott argued that
because they had lived for a time in what
would become Minnesota, where slavery
was illegal, their owner's title to them
was invalid.
The U.S. Supreme Court's inflammato-
ry judgment more than a decade later —
that the Scotts were property rather than
citizens and therefore had no right to file
a lawsuit — helped propel the United
States to civil war and ultimately to abol-
ish slavery.
Although the Scotts are the most well-
known slaves to reside at Fort Snelling,
they were far from the only ones. Slavery
was a fact of life at the fort, from soon
after it was established until the _date
1850s.
At any given time, as many as 20 slaves
could be found living at the fort during
the first half of the nineteenth century,
says Walt Bachman, a historian who has
researched slavery at early American
military installations.
"In the vicinity of Fort Snelling and
throughout southern Minnesota, slavery
was the prevailing status for blacks at
the time, and many of the region's lead-
ing citizens were slaveholders," Bach-
man writes in his 2013 book "Northern
Slave, Black Dakota"
Six months before the construction of
Fort Snelling began, Congress passed the
Missouri Compromise of 1820, which out-
lawed slavery in northern U.S. territory
west of the Mississippi River, including
the site of the fort.
But the law was not strictly enforced,
especially at a frontier outpost like Fort
Snelling. Slaves had been kept in what is
now Minnesota for decades, many of
them forced to work in the fur trade.
VOUCHERS
Much of what is known about the slaves
who lived at Fort Snelling is a result of
pay vouchers filed by the Army officers
who owned them.
The U.S. military compensated officers
for servants they kept — the higher their
rank, the more servants they were
allowed to claim compensation for.
If the servant was a free person, this
subsidy would pay his or her wage. If the
servant was a slave, the officer likely
pocketed the money, Bachman said.
Depending on their rank and salary, offi-
cers who kept slaves could expect any-
where from a 15 percent to 30 percent
bump in pay.
"The effect (of this policy) was that the
Army subsidized slavery," said Matt Cas-
sady, program development specialist at
Fort Snelling.
Officers recorded their servant's name,
his or her height, hair color and eye color
on their monthly pay vouchers, offering
only a glimpse of the human being behind
them. Occasionally, they would even note
TwinCities.com St. Paul Pioneer Press 1 21
MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Dred Scott and Harriet Robinson Scott.
on the voucher that their servant was a
slave, openly defying the law.
Under Col. Josiah Snelling, who kept a pair
of slaves during his last two years as com-
mandant, slave ownership among officers at
the fort appears to have been the exception,
rather than the rule.
Only eight officers of Snelling's 5th Infan-
try declared slaves on their pay vouchers,
Bachman's research shows. This would
change dramatically when Lt. Col. Zachary
Taylor replaced Snelling in 1828.
Born in Kentucky, Taylor had been a slave
owner all his life. And a majority of the offi-
cers in his 1st Infantry were Southerners,
too. Of the 38 who served under Taylor, 33
officers owned slaves, according to Bach -
man's research.
Taylor would go on to be the last U.S.
president to keep slaves at the White House.
A slave named Jane, who served Taylor as
president, also lived with him at Fort Snel-
ling.
If an officer did not own a slave but still
wanted to claim servant pay, he could rent
one from the U.S. government's Indian
agent, stationed just outside the fort.
Lawrence Taliaferro, who represented the
government in its dealings with the Dakota,
owned dozens of slaves in his native Virgin-
ia. He kept anywhere from two to five slaves
at his home near the fort at any given time.
DAILY LIFE
Little is known about the daily lives of the
slaves kept at Fort Snelling. Nearly all were
illiterate, so they left no written record, and
they are rarely mentioned in early accounts
of life at the fort.
By and large, they were domestic slaves,
A path out of slavery
BY NICK WOLTMAN
One of St. Paul's earliest citizens came to
this area as the slave of a civilian employee
at Fort Snelling.
Born into slavery in 1799, James Thomp-
son was brought to the fort in 1827 as the
property of John Culbertson. After being
sold to an Army officer assigned to the fort
in 1839, Thompson was purchased by the
Rev. Alfred Brunson, who freed him and
hired him as a Dakota interpreter.
22 1 Premium Section June 2016
Thompson was a "stout, healthy" man,
about 5 feet 6 inches and 200 pounds, accord
ing to T.M. Newson's brief account of his life
in `Biographical Sketches of Old Settlers."
Once challenged to a fight over a pig by
local ne'er-do-well Edward Phelan, Thomp-
son "dodged his many kicks, when, all of a
sudden he seized him by his nether extrem-
ity and immediately the brute and bully was
on the ground and Thompson pummeled
him with his fists," Newson writes.
Phelan conceded the fight and admitted to
rather than agricultural. Their responsibili-
ties likely included preparing and serving
meals, washing clothes and other household
chores and caring for livestock.
But Bachman cautions against assuming
their lives were any more comfortable than
those of slaves who labored in Southern
fields. Domestic slaves lived at the beck and
call of their owners.
"You're on call 24/7," said Nancy Cass, an
interpreter at Fort Snelling who has
researched slavery at the post. "Their time
was not their own."
Most lived in the cramped kitchens where
they worked, either beneath the apartments
of the officers' quarters or in the basement
of the commandant's house, Cass said. The
commandant's personal servant likely slept
on the floor outside his owner's bedroom
door, in case he was needed in the night.
Many slaves suffered brutal punishment
at the hands of their owners. Bachman has
found accounts of slaves, inside and outside
the fort's walls, who endured beatings and
confinement.
"Slavery was not a pretty picture in Min-
nesota," he said. "No more than it was any-
where else."
Bachman knows of at least one example of
a slave who was apparently beaten to death
at Fort Snelling by the officer who owned
her, and her body thrown into the Missis-
sippi River. Her corpse was later discovered
downstream at Pig's Eye Lake. Her owner
was soon transferred to another post and
never charged in her death.
Although the lives of slaves at Fort Snel-
ling were as transient as the officers who
owned them, they likely formed social bonds
among themselves, Bachman said.
stealing the pig from Thompson. The two
men became lifelong friends. Thompson
even stood by Phelan after he was accused
of committing the city's first murder.
Thompson was also a respected member
of Brunson's congregation, having supplied
much of the lumber and labor for the con-
struction of his First Methodist Church on
Market Street.
Married in St. Paul in 1848, Thompson and
his wife had nine children. Thompson died
in Nebraska in 1884.
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in hon thea f, far may pan of tha Um, harem charpul that I aca ally owned, and kept in servwe, The hor— and private earl ants for
-"- Il th tines charged d xh t Y aid a t dwi.g tha tem sa hargad ...y pat th awf kaep o amplay, as.. _.a [ars at,artra f ldiere Mnatho lits,
that fko nx¢te d i, it -,.h, t d—ripti..af ta, that the wh.1a l anad charged for my A ff app i.t,..t, T lamlly and logatty ha
—t, and that F w, i tha A at d nh, -dig ng afflecr, at the do6h, rattan pant charged lot; and that an offim within my k¢owledga,
7 no ar doe., lm n for -id nM i, i, f .any part at tl a p.,Iod hargd, that I W.Uy i. tt eammand F n company forth vrhole than
barged; that Y o eat be n n tha pod n eco of any tafp'd ty far ¢ hE P 1 1 ,m D In i -d t w.xnpemai d¢ong the limn ad,]
m charged: th t f th wh t, in b a at pay hargad, T n duty and had a ...,and -Mg to my la—t ra¢k agreeable to )aw and
i that 1 ana tat in xr n with the U0.1 9tatc oany .—at hateoevar: that the )act p mat T race d r: as Loan Fnym "s
$. t da Nra th ae? v f b
law. a hnaaladR, that I t a c r "i"M f 'S9 x , ti � � � l Zt � 1{2 _ Paymasi,r in tha Army,
1f w - thlx ] „ Jay' of �.�.5 is Jf=', tb¢ sIa. a '3 E el l�ix Lx i
mad r 1 nta; iuiog thra aman"t, mat t d of
t t Ir,NFla fg'111 A� Er.
CREDIT
This document, dated Feb. 5,1850, lists debts incurred by Samuel Woods between Oct. l and Nov. 25,1849, while he led an expedi-
tion to the Red River of the North. In the bottom left corner of the page, two servants, Charles and George, are described as having
black complexions and black eyes. It is possible that Charles and George were slaves of Woods'.
"There was likely some sense of community," he
said. "It's likely there would've been friendships,
there would've been romance."
This is evidenced by the Scotts, who met and mar-
ried at the fort.
Dred Scott was brought to the fort in 1836 by the
post surgeon, Dr. John Emerson, who had recently
purchased him in St. Louis. Harriet Robinson was
already living at the fort as the property of Talia-
ferro, the Indian agent.
It was Taliaferro himself who performed the cou-
ple's marriage ceremony about 1837. Harriet gave
birth to the couple's first child, Eliza, during their
time at Fort Snelling.
Emerson later purchased Harriet from Taliaferro.
The Scotts lived at Fort Snelling until 1840, when
Emerson was transferred to Florida.
FREEDOM
Although it was the Scotts who became famous
for suing Emerson's widow for their freedom in
1846, at least two other Fort Snelling slaves had
already filed similar suits — both of them success-
ful.
Two women who had been enslaved at Fort Snel-
ling in the 1820s, identified only as Rachel and
Courtney, each filed freedom suits in St. Louis in
the 1830s. When a judgment was granted in Rachel's
favor in 1836, Courtney's owner conceded her case,
too.
A handful of Fort Snelling slaves gained their free-
dom in other ways. Some purchased their freedom
with wages earned working side jobs, while others
had their freedom purchased for them by local abo-
litionists.
Officers at Fort Snelling would continue to own
slaves until the post was temporarily decommis-
sioned by the Army in 1858. It was a war over slav-
ery that caused the fort to be reactivated in 1861.
Thousands of Minnesotans would be funneled
through Fort Snelling on their way to fight for the
Union in the Civil War.
SOURCES:
*"Northern Slave,
Black Dakota: The
Life and Times of
Joseph Godfrey" by
Walt Bachman.
*"Old Fort Snelling"
by Marcus L.
Hansen
•Slavery at Fort
Snelling
C1820s-1850s):
www.
historicfortsnel ling.
org/history/slavery-
fort-snelling
TwinCities.com St. Paul Pioneer Press 1 23
24,000 troops,
24,000 te
goodbXes
arful
Enlistees from across Minnesota came
to Fort Snelling to be trained and
sent off to fight in the Civil War.
Thousands never came back.
BY NICK WOLTMAN
When the newly formed Confederate States of America fired the first shots
of the Civil War at Fort Sumter in April 1861, Minnesota Gov. Alexander
Ramsey happened to be in Washington, D.C.
The morning after news of the attack reached the capital, Ramsey rushed
over to the War Department to offer President Abraham Lincoln 1,000 fight-
ing men from his 3 -year-old state, "thus earning Minnesota the distinction of
being the first state to tender volunteer troops to preserve the Union," histo-
rian Richard Moe writes in his book "The Last Full Measure."
Enlistees from across the state converged on Fort Snelling that spring to be
trained and outfitted. The majority were younger than 30, Moe writes.
Most made their livings as farmers, but their ranks also included bankers,
schoolteachers and lumbermen. The fort was the scene of many tearful
goodbyes as they left behind parents, wives and sweethearts.
By the war's end, more than 24,000 troops had been mustered through the
fort, roughly 14 percent of Minnesota's entire population at the time. To
make room for this sudden influx of men, the Army was forced to build sev-
eral wooden barracks outside the fort's limestone walls.
The state's 11 infantry regiments saw combat in many of the war's most
pivotal battles.
At Gettysburg, the 1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry suffered, by some
counts, the highest casualty rate in a single battle of any Union regiment,
turning back a determined Confederate charge on Cemetery Ridge. Had it
succeeded, the charge may have turned the tide of the battle in favor of the
Confederacy.
Between combat and illness, the Civil War claimed the lives of more than
2,500 Minnesotans.
24 1 Premium Section June 2016
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1 26 1 Premium Section we 2016
A Benjamin Franklin Upton
photograph of the Dakota confined
below Fort Snelling in 1862.
MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
PIONEER PRESS: ANDY RIO HWN
An inscription, which translates to "honoring and remembering," stands at the memorial
marking the camp where innocent Dakota were confined at Fort Snelling.
After the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862, which killed hundreds of innocent settlers
as well as American soldiers and Dakota warriors, hundreds of innocent Dakota
were rounded up and confined at Fort Snelling. Many did not survive.
BY NICK WOLTMAN
A four -mile -long caravan of Dakota — mostly women, children
and elderly men — arrived at the Minnesota village of Henderson
on Nov 11, 1862.
Despite its military escort, the wagon train was attacked by an
angry mob of white settlers. Some threw rocks at the Dakota; oth-
ers poured boiling water on them.
"I saw an enraged white woman rush up to one of the wagons
and snatch a nursing babe from its mother's breast and dash it
violently upon the ground," one onlooker recalled. The child later
died.
The U.S.-Dakota War had raged along the Minnesota frontier for
six weeks that summer, leaving hundreds of innocent settlers
dead. Some in Henderson that day likely knew families who were
killed by Dakota warriors.
MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
ft: "Apistoka, at Fort Snelling prison camp,"
otograph by Benjamin Franklin Upton, 1862.
But the Dakota they brutalized had taken no part in the fighting.
They were cleared of any wrongdoing by a U.S. military tribunal.
Still, they were marched as prisoners to Fort Snelling, where
they would spend the winter confined within a wooden stockade.
As many as 300 of them would die there. Those who survived
would be exiled to the Crow Creek Reservation in what is now
South Dakota.
"They were brought here to await expulsion. Effectively, this
was the removal of the Dakota from Minnesota," said Matt Cas-
sady, program development specialist at Fort Snelling. "It's a
really dark moment in the history of the state and of this place."
That moment is still very much alive for the descendants of
those Dakota. Ramona Kitto Stately's great -great-grandmother
had given birth to her fourth child the night before she and the
other Dakota began their 150 -mile forced march to Fort Snelling.
"For the Dakota, this is not something that happened a long
time ago," Stately said. "The wounds are very fresh."
TwinCities.com St. Paul Pioneer Press 1 29
A Benjamin Franklin Upton photograph from April 1863 of Bishop Henry Whipple confirming Dakota at Fort Snelling.
U.S.-DAKOTA WAR
By 1862, a series of treaties with the U.S. government had
pushed the Dakota onto a sliver of land along the Minnesota
River. These treaties, designed by the government to make room
for white settlers flooding into the state, promised the Dakota
annual payments in gold.
Unable to pursue their traditional subsistence pattern of moving
throughout the year to seasonal villages to exploit different food
sources, the Dakota became increasingly dependent on govern-
ment annuities.
Crop failures in fall 1861 left them with little to eat during the
coming winter. By summer, they were beginning to starve. Their
annuity payment, which was due at the end of June, did not
arrive.
On Aug. 17, 1862, four young Dakota men killed five white set-
tlers near Acton while stealing eggs from their farm.
Dakota leaders gathered that night to discuss how to handle this
transgression. Some factions viewed it as an opportunity to wage
30 1 Premium Section June 2016
MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
a long -overdue war against the U.S. government and its people.
"We have no choice," a chief named Red Middle Voice told the
group. "Our hands are already bloody."
Hundreds of blameless settlers _would die in the six weeks of
violence that followed — estimates range from 400 to 1,000,
according to Minnesota historian Mary Lethert Wingerd. Only 50
or so were armed. More than 70 U.S. soldiers were killed.
The death toll on the Dakota side was 75 to 100 warriors. It's
likely that fewer than 1,000 of the state's 7,000 Dakota participated
in the violence, Wingerd writes.
Little Crow, the reluctant leader of the Dakota forces, fled west
and avoided capture with about 200 of his men. Others scattered.
Some 2,000 Dakota surrendered near what is now Montevideo to
Col. Henry Sibley, who led U.S. forces against Little Crow. There
Sibley convened a military tribunal to parse which of the Dakota
in his custody took part in the killing.
"Reading the records today buttresses the impression that the
trials were a travesty of justice," writes Kenneth Carley in his
1961 book "The Dakota War of 1862."
None of the accused Dakota was repre-
sented by a lawyer. Many were declared
guilty in less than five minutes.
Of the nearly 400 men tried, 303 were con-
victed and sentenced to hang. Most of their
sentences would later be commuted by
President Abraham Lincoln.
The remainder of the surrendered Dakota
— many of them the families of those con-
victed — were absolved of any wrongdoing.
Some were even known to have aided white
settlers attacked during the war.
But they would not be allowed to return to
their reservation. During a special session
of the Minnesota Legislature called to
address the crisis, Gov. Alexander Ramsey
advocated genocide.
"The Sioux Indians of Minnesota must be
exterminated or, driven forever beyond the
borders of the state," Ramsey said.
The innocent Dakota would be held at
Fort Snelling until the federal government
decided their fate.
CONCENTRATION CAMP
On Nov 7, 1,658 Dakota began the march
to Fort Snelling under the protection of
about 300 soldiers led by Lt. Col. William
Marshall.
Anticipating trouble from angry whites
along the way, Marshall issued a warning to
settlers through the press.
"I would risk my life for the protection of
these helpless beings," he told a reporter. "I
want the settlers in the valley, on the route
we pass, to know that they are not the
guilty Indians ... but friendly Indians,
women and children."
Despite his plea, the caravan was attacked
several times before it reached the fort on
Nov. 13.
It is unknown how .many Dakota were
killed during the journey, but by the time
the first census of the captives was taken on
Dec. 2, only 1,601 remained.
Fort Snelling proved no less dangerous,
writes historian Corinne Monjeau-Marz.
Less than a week after their arrival, the
Dakota had established a camp in the river
bottom below the fort. One evening, a Dako-
ta woman who was out gathering firewood
alone was attacked and raped by a group of
soldiers, St. Paul newspapers reported.
Military leaders ordered a wooden stock-
ade built in the river bottom, with the inten-
tion of protecting the prisoners from white
J
il Dakota C-011 flirt
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PIONEER PRESS: ANDY RATHBUN
A marker memorializes the Dakota families who were imprisoned at what is now Fort .
Snelling State Park during the winter of 1862-63. The marker can be found at the park's
Thomas C. Savage Visitor Center.
antagonists as much as it was to coniine
them, according to Monjeau-Manz.
Armed guards patrolled the stockade day
and night, and no one was allowed in with-
out a pass.
The 3 -acre enclosure encompassed
between 200 and 250 tipis behind its 14 -foot
walls, according to Monjeau-Marz's
research.
The Dakota did have a few friends among
Minnesota's white population. Local clergy
made frequent visits to the stockade.
Episcopalian Bishop Henry Whipple
became an advocate for the prisoners, rais-
ing money for their care and arranging for
the release of several. The Rev. John Wil-
liamson,.who had lived among the Dakota
his entire life, would join them at the con-
centration camp and remain with them for
the rest of their ordeal.
Local photographers turned out to cap-
ture images of life in the camp.
"The enclosure also had its share of gawk-
ers, taunters, and those who came simply
relieved to see the Dakota confined," Mon-
jeau-Marz writes.
Among them was pioneer educator Harri-
et Bishop, who was disgusted to learn that
the government was spending $1 a day per
prisoner to maintain the camp, rather than
putting those funds toward the care of
white settlers victimized during the war.
"The streets were receptacles of all the
offal of the lodges, where barefooted women
and children splashed around in the filthy
snow slush," Bishop wrote of the camp after
her visit.
These conditions left the Dakota vulnera-
ble to diseases like measles.
Gabriel Renville, a half -Dakota man
imprisoned at the camp, later recalled in a
memoir that "we were so crowded and con-
fined that an epidemic broke out among us
and children were dying day and night."
"Amid all this sickness and these great
tribulations, it seemed doubtful at night
whether a person would be alive in the
morning," Renville added.
The total number of deaths is likely
between 100 and 300, Monjeau-Marz esti-
mates.
After the bodies of several dead Dakota
were exhumed and mutilated by whites, the
captives began burying the bodies of Ioved
ones in the floors of their tipis, the Rev. Ste-
phen Riggs later wrote.
When spring came, it became necessary
to move the camp to higher ground as the
rising rivers flooded the stockade. The
Dakota would spend the last two months of
TwinCities.com St. Paul Pioneer Press 1 31
their captivity at this new camp,
about one mile southwest of Fort
Snelling.
In March 1863, the U.S. Senate
voted to expel the Dakota from Min-
nesota. The annuities due them from
previous treaties would be paid to
the white victims of the U.S.-Dakota
War, Wingerd writes.
EXPULSION AND AFTERMATH
In early May 1863, the Army loaded
the 1,318 captives who remained at
the concentration camp onto a pair
of riverboats to be exiled to the
Dakota Territory. As they steamed
past the levee at St. Paul, a crowd
gathered along the river and pelted
them with rocks, Wingerd writes.
At St. Joseph, the Dakota were
loaded onto a single overcrowded
steamer for the final leg of their
journey up the Missouri River. Many
more would die before they reached
their destination.
A month after departing Fort Snel-
ling, the survivors disembarked at
the Crow Creek Reservation, a
"drought -stricken wasteland," Wing-
erd writes.
They were soon joined by the Ho -
Chunk (or Winnebago) of southern
Minnesota, who were also exiled to
Crow Creek despite having no part
in the conflict between the whites
and the Dakota. Cassady character-
izes this as a naked land -grab by the
state and federal governments.
But the stockade at Fort Snelling
would not remain empty for long.
As the hundreds of Dakota who
fled to the plains after the war were
captured or surrendered between
summer 1863 and spring 1864, the
fort became a waypoint on their
journey to Crow Creek. Included
among them was the family of Little
Crow, who remained at large until
he was killed near Hutchinson for a
$500 bounty offered by the state of
Minnesota.
Also brought to the Fort Snelling
during this time were Shakopee and
Medicine Bottle, two Dakota leaders
who had been kidnapped in Canada
and sentenced to death for their par-
ticipation in the war.
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' ._
f.
MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Little Crow's wife and two children at the Fort Snelling prison compound, circa 1864, photo-
graphed by Benjamin Franklin Upton.
11
V
PIONEER PRESS: ANDY RATHBUN
ie of many stakes in the ground at the Dakota memorial at Fort Snelling State Park. Each stake has two pieces of leather that have the names of
o female heads -of -household who were imprisoned at the camp.
They were hanged just outside the walls of
the fort on Nov 11,1865..As they awaited exe-
cution, the whistle of a steamboat coming
upriver was heard in the distance.
"As the white man comes in, the Indian goes
out," Shakopee said.
STILL A SOURCE OF SORROW
The painful legacy of the concentration
camp at Fort Snelling is still apparent today in
Dakota communities. Many see the fort as a
symbol of genocide and call for it to be torn
down.
Every two years, a group of Dakota re-cre-
ates the forced march to the site of the con-
centration camp.
Each mile, the marchers stop and place a
wooden stake into the ground. Tied to the
stakes are two strips of leather, each bearing
the name of a female head of household who
was imprisoned at the camp.
At the river bottom, they arrange the remain-
ing stakes in a circle where the camp is
believed to have been located.
Kitto Stately said she would like to see a
permanent exhibit at Fort Snelling to educate
visitors about her ancestors' captivity, akin to
the museum at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
"I would like people to know exactly what
happened there," Kitto Stately said. "I think
Minnesota has hidden its history."
SOURCES:
•"The Dakota Internment
at Fort Snelling, 1862-
1864" by Corinne L.
Monjeau-Marz
• "The Dakota War of
1862: Minnesota's Other
Civil War" by Kenneth
Carley
•"North Country: The
Making of Minnesota" by
Mary Lethert Wingerd
TwinCities.com St. Paul Pioneer Press 1 33
Apt
Af
aw
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
The Buffalo Soldiers at Fort Snelling, circa 1883.
The Buffalo
Soldiers
BY NICK WOLTMAN
Four companies of the all -black U.S. 25th Infantry Regiment — the famed Buffalo Soldiers — and
their headquarters band arrived at Fort Snelling by train in November 1882.
Although the next five years "were destined to be the least eventful in the regiment's history,"
according to historian John Nankivell, it was nonetheless a remarkable period for the fort itself.
The soldiers of the 25th Infantry represented the first significant African-American population to
reside at the fort since it was home to as many as 20 slaves at a time in the decades before the Civil
War.
"At a time when there were very few jobs available to African-American men, joining the military
was an opportunity for them to have a career," said Matt Cassady, program development specialist
for the Minnesota Historical Society.
Although many of the Buffalo Soldiers had been born into slavery, they lived and worked at Fort
Snelling alongside the all -white 4th Light Artillery — unthinkable just two decades earlier.
The 25th was transferred in spring 1888 to posts in Montana, where it took part in what were then
known as the Indian Wars in the West.
TwinCities.com St. Paul Pioneer Press 1 35
H
A world at war
Fort Snelling served in WWI and WWII,
as training school, hospital and `country club of the Army
Maneuvers at Fort Snelling, circa 1918.
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MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Above: A soldier blows his bugle into large megaphone at Fort Snel-
ling in 1941. Right: A soldier at the fort throws a pitch in a baseball
game in 1943, while another umpires from behind the mound.
BY NICK WOLTMAN
Hundreds of thousands of soldiers passed through Fort Snel-
ling on their way overseas during World War I and World War
H.
After a decade spent under threat of closure by a War Depart-
ment determined to shutter underused military posts, the fort
found new relevance in these turbulent times.
When the United States entered the Great War in spring 1917,
Fort Snelling served as an induction center and officer training
school. The school turned out 2,500 officers by the time the war
ended, according to the 1932 book "Minnesota in the War with
Germany.,'
Shortly before the armistice was signed in November 1918, the
fort's focus shifted to caringfor the wounded with the opening of
TwinCities.com St. Paul Pioneer Press 1 37
U.S. General Hospital No.
29 at the Upper Post.
During the lull in activity
between the two world
wars, the troops stationed
at Fort Snelling entertained
the public with horse
shows, mock battles and
sporting events at the post.
These diversions, com-
bined with the fort's polo
grounds, 18 -hole golf
course, movie theater and
swimming pool, earned it a
reputation as the "country
club of the Army."
After Germany invaded
Poland in 1939, President
Franklin D. Roosevelt
began beefing up the U.S.
military in preparation for
what would become World
War H.
Volunteers from across
the Midwest began trick-
ling into Fort Snelling for
induction in late 1940,
writes Dave Kenny in his
2005 book "Minnesota Goes
to War." .
That trickle quickly
became a flood after Japa-
nese airplanes bombed
Pearl Harbor in December
1941, drawing the U.S. into
the war.
Fort Snelling's efficient
reception center could pro-
cess 800 inductees a day, an
assembly line of physical
exams, fingerprinting, out-
fitting and swearing-in.
Over the course of the war,
300,000 recruits were pro-
cessed through the fort.
But as the war drew to a
close in 1945, the military
began to trim its ranks.
Fort Snelling fell victim to
this downsizing and was
decommissioned in Octo-
ber 1946.
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MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Soldiers at the fort practice maneuvers on skis and snowshoes in 1942.
A soldier and his horse
Lt. William Hazelrigg and Whiskey in about 1934.
BY NICK WOLTMAN
Whiskey and Lt. William Hazelrigg both arrived at Fort Snelling in
1921.
Hazelrigg, a cavalry officer, and the chestnut brown horse, named
For one of Prohibition's forbidden beverages, entertained the public
at the many lighthearted events the fort held during the early 1920s,
according to a 2009 article in "Minnesota History" by Marilyn Slo-
vak.
Whiskey's unwillingness to follow orders made him a poor fit for
the Army, but Hazelrigg saw promise in him. The two quickly devel-
oped a close bond as Hazeh~igg trained Whiskey into a first-rate polo
and trick horse.
The pair wowed crowds with inventive stunts, such as jumping
wagons, people and other obstacles.
When Whiskey tripped on the hindquarters of a mule during a
jump in 1924, he landed on his back with Hazelrigg underneath.
MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Whiskey was uninjured, but Hazelrigg was knocked unconscious.
His first question when he came to was, "Is Whiskey hurt?"
After Hazelrigg was transferred in 1926, he tried several times to
buy Whiskey from the Army but was always rebuffed. He visited the
fort several times over the next couple of decades for joyful reunions
with his old friend, who always recognized him and greeted him
affectionately.
They saw each other for the last time in 1943.
"The attachment between the two had not lessened with the pass-
ing years," Slovak writes. "When Whiskey caught sight of his friend,
he walked a few steps and then charged across the remaining dis-
tance as fast as his ancient legs would carry him."
The lone occupant of the fort's stables after the Army abandoned
horses for automobiles, Whiskey died Jan. 1, 1944. His grave is
marked by a white stone within a picket fence near the Historic Fort
Snelling visitors center.
TwinCities.com St. Paul Pioneer Press 1 39
Aiding a secret
war effort
Even while many of their families were in internment camps,
Japanese American recruits trained at Fort Snelling during World War II
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i
,xf
MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
group photo of Japanese -American soldiers and officers of the Military Intelligence Service Language School at Fort Snelling during World War II.
BY NICK WOLTMAN
Joe Ohno graduated from high school in 1943, behind the
barbed-wire fencing of an Idaho internment camp for Japa-
nese Americans.
The next day, he joined the same Army that had put him
there.
Ohno enrolled in the U.S.Military Intelligence Service Lan-
guage School, a secret program that trained Japanese -Ameri-
can soldiers at Fort Snelling to interrogate enemy prisoners
and translate captured documents in the Pacific Theater dur-
ing World War II.
Maj. Gen. Charles Willoughby, who then served as head of
military intelligence, estimated the work done by the school's
6,000 graduates shortened the war in the Pacific by two years
and saved 1 million American lives.
"At a time when their families were in concentration camps,
this was a way to prove that they were as American as any-
body else," said Matt Cassady, who oversees program develop-
ment at Fort Snelling.
But for Ohno, who died in 2002, enrolling in MISLS meant
freedom, said his sister, Sally Sudo, who now lives in Bloom-
ington.
"It was not so much out of patriotism," Sudo said. "He knew
it was a way out of the camp."
BIRTH OF THE PROGRAM
By the time Japanese airplanes bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec.
7, 1941, the Military Intelligence Service Language School had
been operating for more than a month in a converted airplane
hangar at the Presidio in San Francisco, according to a short
TwinCities.com St. Paul Pioneer Press 1 41
history in the MISLS yearbook.
A handful of prescient Army officers who
had served in Japan noted the strained rela-
tions between the two countries and recog-
nized the need for such a program.
The school's first 60 students were recruited
from the ranks of existing military personnel.
Nearly all were Japanese Americans.
The attack on Pearl Harbor not only imbued
the students with a new sense of purpose, but
also set off a wave of anti-Japanese sentiment
on the West Coast.
By the time MISLS held its first graduation
ceremony in spring 1942, it was clear to the
school's leadership that it would have to be
moved to a different part of the country.
"There were a good many members of the
general public in California at the time who
were enormously antagonistic to all persons of
Japanese ancestry, even those in the uniform
of the United States Military Service," MISLS
director John Aiso wrote in 1975.
MISLS commandant Kai Rasmussen
approached Minnesota Gov. Harold Stassen
about moving the school to a former Civilian
Conservation Corps camp in Savage on the
southern outskirts of Minneapolis, Stassen
approved.
Rasmussen later said Minnesota "not only
had room physically but also had room in the
people's hearts" for the school.
CAMP SAVAGE
While MISLS was orchestrating its move to
Minnesota, Japanese Americans living on the
West Coast were rounded up and moved inland
to prison camps under Executive Order 9066,
which President Franklin D. Roosevelt had
signed in the wake of Pearl Harbor.
Ohno, Sudo and their family were among the
120,000 people forced to leave their homes and
jobs and report to one of 10 prison camps in
the interior of the country. Like Ohno and
Sudo, two-thirds of those imprisoned had been
born in the United States.
"Because of their .ancestry, they were incar-
cerated," Cassady said. "They were citizens."
_These second -generation Japanese Ameri-
cans were exactly who the military targeted
for recruitment into the MISLS program,
writes Masaharu Ano in a 1977 article in Min-
nesota History magazine. This rubbed many of
their families the wrong way.
"Here we were, put in these prison camps,"
Sudo said. "Then all of the sudden, they're ask-
ing these guys to serve."
But many did. When MISLS began its first
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PIONEER PRESS FILE
Japanese -American translators at the Military Intelligence Service Language School in the 1940s.
term at Camp Savage in June 1942, 200 stu-
dents had enrolled.
By the time Obno arrived at Camp Savage in
late 1943, the school was outgrowing its facili-
ties. It was relocated to Fort Snelling in August
1944.
FORT SNELLING
Classes at Fort Snelling were held in the spa-
cious yellow -brick barracks along Taylor Ave-
nue, an improvement over the cramped class-
rooms at Camp Savage.
Less luxurious was the "turkey farm," several
rows of tar -paper huts occupied by new stu-
dents and heated in the winter with potbelly
stoves.
The students' schedule was rigorous, Ano
writes. They spent nine hours a day in the
classroom, five days a week. Lights -out was at
11 p.m., but it wasn't uncommon to find stu-
dents in the bathrooms, studying by flashlight.
After examinations on Saturday mornings,
the students' weekends were their own. They
spent their leisure time on the post playing
baseball and football or going to the movies at
the post theater. On Saturday nights, they
would often take the streetcar up to Hennepin
Avenue in Minneapolis.
When Germany surrendered in May 1945,
the U.S. turned its full attention to winning the
war in the Pacific. Work at MISLS ramped up.
In October 1945, the school's enrollment peaked
at 1,836 students.
Ohno graduated in 1944 and served in the
Philippines until Japan surrendered in Sep-
tember 1945, when he was sent to Japan to aid
occupation forces. He remained there for two
years, Sudo said.
Over the course of the war, MISLS students
translated 20 million pages of documents and
interrogated thousands of prisoners.
The school was folded into the Defense Lan-
guage Institute in California when Fort Snel-
ling was decommissioned in 1946.
anslators at Fort Snelling celebrate on V -J Day in August 1945.
LEGACY
Following the end of WWII, many Japanese
Americans who had graduated from MISLS
returned to Minnesota with their families.
The U.S. census found only 51 people of Japa-
nese ancestry living in Minnesota in 1940. By
1950, that number had climbed to 1,049 people.
Ohno's family was among them. Like many
Japanese Americans during WWII, his father
had lost his job when he was imprisoned.
"My dad didn't want to go back to Seattle, so
we were trying to decide where to go," Sudo
said. "Three members of our family were
already here."
While he was a student at MISLS, Ohno had
arranged for housing and employment in the
Twin Cities for two of his nine siblings to get
them out of the camp.
Despite MISLS students' contributions to the
U.S. war effort, few Americans were aware of
them until the 1970s because the program had
remained classified.
As a member of the Twin Cities chapter of the
Japanese American Citizens League, Sudo has
worked to raise awareness of the contributions
MISLS students made to the war effort. Her
group has worked with the Minnesota Histori-
cal Society, which is developing programming
related to WSLS as part of its 2020 revitaliza-
tion.
"I definitely hope the revitalization plan will
include a permanent exhibit that shows the
heroics of some of these guys," she said.
MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
SOURCES:
•"Loyal Linguists: Nisei
of World War II learned
Japanese in Minnesota"
by Masaharu Ano
•'John Aiso and the
MIS: Japanese -
American Soldiers in the
Military Intelligence
Service" by Tad
Ichinokuchi
•MISLS Album
TwinCities.com St. Paul Pioneer Press 1 43
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16 things you may not know about Fort Snelling National Cemetery
PHOTOS AND STORY BY ANDY RATHBUN
1. Fort Snelling National Cemetery is the fourth -busiest national
cemetery. The U.S. has 134 such cemeteries in 40 states.
2. The cemetery covers 436 acres; 342 of them are developed. At
the current interment rates and types, the cemetery is expected to
have space available through 2060.
3. After World War I, citizens in the Twin Cities petitioned for a
national cemetery, and in 1937 Congress authorized land at Fort
Snelling Military Reservation to be used for that purpose.
4. The remains of 680 military members who served from 1820 to
1939 and were buried at Fort Snelling were reinterred at the national
cemetery shortly after it opened. They can be found in Section A,
Block 23, and some have marble headstones that say, "Unknown."
The oldest grave at the fort's old cemetery dates to 1826.
5. Fort Snelling National Cemetery was added to the National
Register of Historic Places this year.
46 1 Premium Section June 2016
w
Hockey coach John Mariucci is buried at Fort Snelling National
Cemetery.
Thomas Burnett, Jr., a passenger who intervened in the hijacking of United Airlines Flight 93 on
Sept. 11, 2001, is buried at Fort Snelling National Cemetery.
6. The cemetery's visible American flags are lowered to half-staff
30 minutes before the first burial of the day and remain until 30
minutes after the last burial. The cemetery has about 20 burials
on a typical day.
7. You might hear gunfire while walking among the gravestones.
The cemetery is home to the first all -volunteer Memorial Rifle
Squad in the National Cemetery Administration. It was formed in
1979 and can be heard firing three rifle volleys during services.
8. Fort Snelling National Cemetery's first burial was Capt. George
Mallon on July 5,1939. Mallon won the Medal of Honor for
heroism in World War I after he helped capture about 100
soldiers, 11 machine guns, four howitzers and an anti-aircraft gun.
Mallon died in 1934 and was reinterred at the cemetery five years
later.
9. Along with'Capt. George Mallon, seven other Medal of Honor
winners are buried in the cemetery: Pfc. Richard E. Kraus, Pfc.
James D. LaBelle, Machinist Mate 1st Class Oscar F. Nelson, Capt.
Arlo Olson, Staff Sgt. Robert J. Pruden, 2nd Lt. Donald E.
Rudolph Sr., and 1st Lt. Richard Keith Sorenson. Another
recipient, Capt. Richard E. Fleming, is memorialized there.
10. Driving around the park, you'll find many of the roads are
named for distinguished members .of the military who are buried
or memorialized at the cemetery-
11.
emetery.
11.Other notable people interred at the cemetery include Thomas
Burnett Jr., a passenger who helped intervene in the hijacking of
United Airlines Flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001; sportscaster Halsey
Hall; hockey coach John Mariucci; and Charles Lindberg, who
raised the first American flag at Iwo Jima, Japan, in World War II.
12. There are about 219,000 people interred at the cemetery. The
total number of gravesites is fewer, about 169,000, as some of
those interred share graves with spouses or children.
13. Burial in national cemeteries is available to members of the
military who were not dishonorably discharged and have met a
minimum active -duty service requirement. In some instances,
members of the reserve components can be eligible, as well.
Burial is also open to veterans' spouses and minor dependent
children, and eligibility may extend to unmarried adult children
with disabilities.
14. The marble headstones that dominate the cemetery weigh
240 pounds each and are a type of gravestone introduced in 1922
for World War I soldiers. Caretakers are in a constant battle with
gravity and the elements to keep the stones properly aligned.
15. Emblems on the headstones were originally limited to the
Latin cross or Star of David. After World War II, more emblems
representing different belief systems were added.
16. A plastic grave marker has been tested at the cemetery since
the 1990s as an alternative to the predominant marble headstone.
See if you can spot it in Section Bl.
TwinCities.com St. Paul Pioneer Press 1 47
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