Listen Here
The Story
Last week, we left you on a bluff above the Missouri River. November 1819. A Nebraska winter is closing in. Something is about to go very, very wrong.
In Part 2 of our Fort Atkinson series, we hear the story from the inside. Through the journal entries of our soldier stationed at the fort in the winter of 1819–1820, we follow the crisis as it unfolds and what would take 157 men before spring arrived.
The details are real. They come straight from the historical record.
We also look at what came next, how the soldiers who survived that winter went on to become the first large-scale farmers west of the Missouri River, and why Fort Atkinson is a place worth standing on.
Right: Engineer Cantonment, Feb 1820 Watercolor by Titian Ramsay Peale
When Stephen Long and fellow scientists set out on their expedition (1819-1820), this was the first party to include naturalists and artists to record new species of plants, insects and animals. Long called the land the ‘Great American Desert’.
Below: Plan of Fort Atkinson, 1819 Drawn by Andrew Talcott
They learned a lot that first winter and needed to adapt quickly before the next winter arrived.
For photos, maps, and a behind the scenes look at what we’re getting into this summer, follow @rootedintheplains on Instagram.
Plan Your Visit
Fort Atkinson's next living history weekend is June 6th and 7th, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Fort Atkinson State Historical Park, Fort Calhoun, Nebraska. Free with a Nebraska State Park entry permit.
Fort Atkinson State Historical Park — Nebraska Game & Parks
Friends of Fort Atkinson — fortatkinsononline.org
Want to Learn More
Diary of James Kennerly, 1823–1826. Missouri Historical Society Collections Vol. VI, No. 1 (1928).
Johnson, Sally A. “The Sixth’s Elysian Fields: Fort Atkinson on the Council Bluffs.” Nebraska History 40 (1959): 1–38.
Levine, Victor E. “Scurvy in Nebraska: The Epidemic of Scurvy at Cantonment Missouri, Nebraska, 1819–1820.” Journal of Nutrition, January 1955.
Nichols, Roger L. “Soldiers as Farmers: Army Agriculture in the Missouri Valley, 1818–1827.”
Reals, William J. “Scurvy at Fort Atkinson, 1819–1820.” Nebraska History.
Wesley, Edgar Bruce. “Life at a Frontier Post: Fort Atkinson, 1823–1826.” Journal of the American Military Institute Vol. 3, No. 4 (Winter 1939): 202–209.
Photo credits: 1819 Map, Library of Congress; Watercolor painting, American Philosophical Society; Medical Journal pages, Library of Congress