Full Moon Fort Held at Fort Phil Kearny

The Full Moon Fort 2022 at Fort Phil Kearny was held on Oct. 7, with tours beginning at 6:30 and going until 9:30 p.m. The tours were held by moon and lantern light. The tour started at the interpretive center, and there were many scenes set up along the route and many of the Fort Phil Kearny Regulars were in authentic army dress, and portrayed soldiers and even Jim Bridger. To start the tour, the group entered at the fort’s gate, guarded by a soldier.

Tour guide Jenni Reed pointed out the silhouettes of Indian warriors on the ridge to the north of the fort and she asked the group if anyone knew why the fort had been built. The answer was Gold! Gold in Montana, Colorado, Nevada and Wyoming.

But to get to the gold, miners had to cross the Indian’s sacred hunting ground and no white man was allowed. At first there was a treaty to keep out the white man, but then gold was discovered. John Bozeman’s route, The Bozeman trail, brought people into the region and forts, garrisoned with soldiers, needed to be built for protection of the travelers along the trail.

Life in the area of hostile Indians could be dangerous. One station the tour stopped at was a tent, lit from the inside with the shadow of a man showing thought the canvas sides. Reed explained.

A solider outside the tent was building a coffin, because, as Reed said, there must be a back-up plan.

At another station along the trail was a desk and two women. At the fort were officers’ wives and children, and women on the wagon trains.

“Women were highly encouraged if not, well, actually commanded, to keep a journal.” Reed said. People back in the east wanted to know what it was like, they wanted to read about the exciting adventures on the frontier.

Many of the journals were published, and some are still available today in book form. They show the day-to-day activities at the forts as they happened.

Jim Bridger was at one station; he was a part of Fort Phil Kearny as a scout. He talked about how he came West about 40 years ago, and what he did at the fort. He said the army hired him, and it was kind of his last big adventure. Bridger was in his 60s at the time. He was not a fan of Fetterman and Grummond.

Bridger added that this area was the Indian’s hunting grounds and winter camp. “I’d be fighting too if I was them,” he said.

After talking with Bridger, the group moved on and Reed pointed to an area that was once the fort’s front entrance, where the wagon trains would have come through, and a marker where there was once a platform for the sentry. The gate that is recreated today is actually the back gate to the fort.

At one point Reed asked the group to be very quiet and listen, and if the interstate hadn’t been within three miles of the fort, there would have been nothing except night sounds, and back then they would often hear wolves howling. She talked about the wolves would come near the fort, looking for food in the winter, and for a time the sentries shot them, until Carrington, worried about the ammunition supplies, ordered them to stop shooting the wolves. The Indians, seeing this, then wore wolf pelts as camouflage, slipped in close to the fort and began killing the soldiers.

The group traveled over to a campfire, where more tales were told. Reed talked about the Fetterman fight, and the extreme cold weather at the time of the fight. Many of the bodies were so mutilated and the body parts were scattered, that they often didn’t know which body part went with which body.

Reed mentioned one soldier was bald but had a full beard. Native American’s do not have a great deal of facial hair, so the beard confused the warriors. They scalped his beard and put it on his bald head. They named him, “The man with the upside-down head.”

At her last stop, Reed pointed out some interesting facts about the fort, and about the Fetterman battle.

That is why the Indians call the Fetterman Fight the Battle of the Hundred-in-the-Hands.

The night was clear and warm for October, and the full moon provided a soft ghostly light over the fort and created enough light to see fairly well. The tours were completely sold out for both Friday and Saturday nights.