[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Page 16342]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            FORT ABERCROMBIE

 Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, one of North Dakota's oldest 
communities celebrates its anniversary this week. Abercrombie and the 
nearby fort after which it is named date their origins back 150 years.
  Fort Abercrombie is famous for having been the site of one of the 
most prolonged battles in the American West between Native Americans 
and U.S. soldiers. Fresh from their triumphs in a Minnesota uprising, 
Dakota warriors quickly moved to secure their gains by attacking the 
last military post between the decimated, burning white settlements and 
the wide open Great Plains.
  The defenders of the fort were in a desperate pinch. The fort had no 
protective palisade and little else in the way of defense, it was 
several hundred miles from the nearest help, and, worst of all, rifle 
ammunition was critically low.
  For a month the soldiers, and the citizens who had rushed to the 
protection of the fort, held off Little Crow's warriors. What saved 
them was the discovery that the metal balls with which the fort's 
cannon shells were packed were identical to what their rifles required 
for ammunition.
  Fort Abercrombie has a storied history. Military trails radiated out 
to Fort Wadsworth, Fort Ransom, and Fort Totten. It was here that wagon 
trains embarked for Montana's gold fields, that the 1870 peace treaty 
between 900 Dakota and Chippewa delegates was signed, that oxcart 
caravans from Canada to the Twin Cities overnighted.
  Fort Abercrombie is quiet now but houses a handsome State park and 
historical center. The adjacent community, however, continues to hum. 
In 1936, an observer called it ``an enterprising, live, wide-awake 
community.'' That is still an honest description, especially this 
weekend.
  A street dance, military ball, school reunion, parades, wagon train, 
history tours, and a multitude of other events will fill the days. 
Although I expect the activity will be as intensive as it was in 1862, 
it will not be as desperate. Instead, it will be a classic festival of 
small town America--one of remembrance and homecoming, of neighbors and 
family, of heritage and pride. I send its citizens birthday greetings 
and a salute for its proud and singular history.

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