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I was at the National Archives Wednesday night, originally to test the concept of photographing displays from a microfilm viewer with a digital camera, when I had the brainstorm that the KC NARA repository has jurisdiction over Federal documents in North Dakota and I wondered if they might have the Post Returns for Ft. Abraham Lincoln. I asked and, after delving through their stacks, they found it for me!

The first question I had was whether there was any references to target practice in the aforementioned returns. The answer is an unfortunate "No". That is not to say that there was not any target practice but that only it was not referenced in the Post Returns. I think that it will have to be pursued through the textual records of the Quartermaster Corps or perhaps the Department of Dakota to find the data in order to answer the question once and for all.

While browsing through the film, something did strike me and I want to run it by you all. One of the "myths" of the LBH and (James Earl Jones voice here) THE LAST STAND is that the 7th was defeated because a large percentage of their troopers were recruits. So, to get a feel for how true that was, I started looking in detail at the Post Returns for when the 7th was part of the garrison force. I arbitrarily started looking at the returns beginning in July, 1875 through May, 1875. The data, while incomplete (I did not have the companies residing at Fort Totten nor the South), is illuminating. A quick note about methodology. I looked at the section of the Post Return dealing with the 7th’s enlisted men labeled “Gains” with the subheadings showing the source of the gain, i.e., “From Recruiting Depot, Reenlistment, Transfer, etc.Here it is without commercial interruption.


Since the site does not support tables, I have put a rough HTML file of this same post along with monthly data at:

http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~familyinformation/Custer/recruits.html

When the regiment left for General Terry’s campaign, they had 348 men listed as accounted for. I did not, due to time constraints, list out how many were on detached duty, sick, etc. I will photograph that the next time I am over there and upload it.

For those who don't wish to go to the page and look at the monthly totals, here is a quick summary. For the entire calendar year preceding LBH, the companies stationed at Ft.Abraham Lincoln received 136 men, of which 4 men reenlisted. That leaves the remainder, 132, as the number of recruits who joined. The bulk of these recruits, 94, came into the regiment during October, 1875. So, in essence, 38% of the regiment and likely more can be accurately said to have had less than 1 year of service...again, with the caveat that some of these men may have had prior military backgrounds, and that of the 132, 42 (12% of total accounted for) had three months or less service and 90 (26% of total accounted for) had 7-8 months experience.

Does it mean anything? I am still mulling over that one but my first thought is that the 90 men with 7-8 months experience would not classify as raw recruits under any criteria. Perhaps neophytes to combat, but still, they would know how to ride, the drills, and be able to load and fire a carbine (how accurately is another story).

Sorry about being disjointed, been a long day at the "salt mines".


Notes:
Source: Post Returns of Ft. Abraham Lincoln
National Archives & Records Administration
M617 roll 628

(1) Enlisted directly into regiment
(2) 1 man from recruit depot, 4 men reenlisted
* No data available for that company
- Men were sent to the regiment for disbursement without defining which companies got the men. At the time this happened, companies A, C, D, F, & I were with the regiment.

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