Information Sheet

 

 

R         Bennett, L. G. (Lyman G.).

274                  Collection, 1857‑1865.

                                    Ten folders.

 

 

 

These are diaries and topographic maps of a civil engineer, member of the 36th Illinois In­fan­try, and civilian employee of the U. S. Army.  The materials concern homesteading in Minne­sota in 1857; campaigning in Missouri and Arkansas with the Army of Southwest Missouri, 1861‑1862; map­ping in Kansas and Colorado in 1865; and the Powder River Indian Expedition in Nebraska and Wyo­ming in 1865.

 

Lyman Gibson Bennett was born in 1832 in Schuyler County, New York.  He was reared and edu­cated there until 1849, when his family removed to Oswego in Kendall County, Illinois.  Ben­nett taught school for five years, and then trained as a surveyor and civil engineer.  He worked as a railroad sur­veyor and later served as the county surveyor of Kendall County.  Ben­nett spent most of 1857 in Min­nesota in an unrewarding attempt to homestead, first near Wi­nona, then in the Fari­bault District near Ash­land.  He supported himself by selling maps through subscription and by employment as a member of the surveying team for the proposed Transit Railroad.  He termi­nated his unsatisfactory experience in Minnesota by returning to Illinois late in 1857 to resume teaching school.

 

When the Civil War broke out, Bennett enlisted as a corporal in Co. E of the 36th Illinois In­fantry, a three‑year unit known as the “Fox River Regiment.”  Military authorities took advan­tage of his skills, assigning him to engineering duties at Rolla and St. Louis.

 

His detached duty, which included map‑making and work on fortifications, ended in time for Ben­nett to join his regiment at the Battle of Pea Ridge.  He was detached after the battle to serve on the engineering staff of Brig. Gen. Samuel R. Curtis.  He sketched the battlefield and was the cartogra­pher of the Army of the Southwest as it marched across Missouri to Helena, Ar­kansas.  In 1863, Bennett took a commission as major of the 4th Arkansas Cavalry (U.S.), which he helped raise and organize.  He resigned and was discharged in August 1864.  As a civilian, Ben­nett again joined the engineering department of Gen. Samuel R. Curtis, then commanding the De­partment of Kansas.  He mapped the 1864 battlefields of Price’s Missouri raid, and was sent to inspect the army’s installations along the stage line to Denver.  Later in 1865 Bennett served as engineering officer with the Powder River In­dian Ex­pedition.  Bennett left the army’s employ in 1866 to return to Illinois.  He moved to Spring­field, Missouri, in 1880, purchasing a farm on the west edge of the city.  He continued to work as an engi­neer and sur­veyor, platting additions to the City of Spring­field, and surveying railroad lines in Mis­souri and Okla­homa.  He died in Springfield in 1904.

 

The Bennett collection consists of diaries and a series of topo­graphic maps.  Original mate­ri­als, photocopies and typescripts are included in the collection.  All of the material is indexed. Chronol­o­gies and/or itineraries compiled from the diaries also are available.  With the exception of the diary for 1857, which pertains to homestead­ing in Minnesota, all of the materials concern Ben­nett’s Civil War service and subsequent employment by the army.  The diaries for 1861-­1862 cover Bennett’s sur­veying at Fort Wyman in Rolla, Missouri, his assignment to army headquar­ters in St. Louis, sickness and hospitali­zation in that city, participation in the Battle of Pea Ridge, Ar­kansas, and the movements of the army fol­lowing that battle.  The diaries feature several pen and ink sketches including the regimental camp and Ft. Wyman at Rolla, the camp at Spring­field, the Battle of Wilson’s Creek, and “Bob’s Knob,” an un­usual topographic feature in McDonald County, Missouri.  Some of the information from the diaries for 1861‑1862 was later incorporated into the History of the 36th Regiment Illinois Volunteers (1876), which Bennett co‑authored with the regiment’s chaplain, William M. Haigh.

 

The topographic maps are entitled “Route of the Army of the South­west,” 1862.  They be­gin with the positions of the Union and Confederate armies at the Battle of Pea Ridge, March 6‑8, 1862. Sub­sequent maps show the Union army’s march southeast along the White River, ulti­mately to Helena, Arkansas, in July 1862.  Many of the maps also feature notes on distances marched, camps and towns.  There are plats of the towns of Cassville, Cape Fair, Galena, For­syth, and West Plains, Missouri; and Sa­lem, Batesville, Sulphur Rock, Elizabeth, Moro, and He­lena, Arkansas.

 

Bennett’s late‑war diary of service as a civilian employee con­sists of entries for Janu­ary‑April and July‑October 1865.  The first period includes Bennett’s work as a surveyor for the Depart­ment of Kan­sas.  The entries describe field work on the battle­fields at the Big Blue River, the Marmiton River, and Westport, Missouri, and at Mine Creek, Kansas.  Bennett’s maps of these loca­tions were later published in the Official Military Atlas of the Civil War, plate 66, numbers 3‑4.  Ben­nett was then ordered on an in­spection trip to Fort Scott, Olathe, and Ft. Leav­enworth, Kansas, in which he ex­amined and re­ported on fortifications in those areas.  There fol­lowed a similar in­spection of defenses along the stage line to Denver, Colorado, and at Fort Laramie, Wyoming.  The first segment of the diary ends with entries on Bennett’s visit to the gold mining camps west of Den­ver.

 

The last portion of the diary concerns the Powder River Indian Ex­pedition, a three‑pronged offen­sive against Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians in Wyoming and Montana.  Bennett ac­compa­nied the eastern column, commanded by Col. Nelson Cole of the 2nd Missouri Light Artil­lery. The col­umn left Omaha in July 1865 bound for Wyoming and a rendez­vous with similar col­umns from Salt Lake City and Fort Laramie.  The ex­pedition terminated in failure in Septem­ber 1865, beset with se­vere lo­gistical problems, the early onset of winter, and attacks by Indians.  Cole’s eastern column was par­ticularly hard‑pressed.  It was near col­lapse when it reached the supply depot at Fort Connor (later known as Fort Reno), Wyoming.  The entries in Bennett’s di­ary re­cord the arduous march through Ne­braska, South Dakota and Wyoming.  There are vivid de­scrip­tions of incidents along the march, skir­mishing with Indians, and the effects of exposure and starvation on the men and animals in the col­umn.  After the eastern column reached Fort Con­nor, Bennett was ordered to Fort Laramie to begin map­ping the operations of the Powder River Expe­dition.  The final entry in the diary is that for Octo­ber 4, 1865, in which Bennett noted meeting famed mountain man Jim Bridger at Fort Laramie.

 

The Bennett collection includes another diary of the Powder River Indian Expedition.  Its author is unknown and its provenance with the Bennett material is unexplained.  The author ac­compa­nied the western column of the expedition, but he does not appear to have been a soldier. Perhaps, like Ben­nett, he was a civilian employee of the army.  He usually traveled with the wagon train, but was privi­leged enough to ride away from the main body on brief excursions.  He was on familiar terms with many of the officers of the expedition.

 

The western column originated at Salt Lake City and reached the Powder River country via Fort Laramie.  The column marched with the commander of the expedition, Brig. Gen. Patrick E. Connor, and its guide, Jim Bridger.  The diary entries begin on July 29, when the com­mand left Fort Laramie.  Subsequent entries include descriptions of the march and the expedition’s leaders, the con­struction of Fort Con­nor on the Powder River, the activities of the Army’s Pawnee scouts, and the Bat­tle of Tongue River.  The last diary entry, on September 14, 1865, describes attempts to establish com­muni­cations with the missing eastern column.  The volume concludes with an un­dated discus­sion of the Indian troubles of the 1860s which suggests that agi­tation by rebel em­is­saries to the west had a con­sid­erable influence on the behavior of the tribes.

 

The collapse of the Powder River Indian expedition under logistical duress led to the re­moval of Gen. Connor from his large command.  His final report was destroyed in a hotel fire in Salt Lake City in 1865.  Lyman Bennett’s diary and the unidentified author’s account are useful addi­tions to the sources.  The handiest compilation of Powder River materials is that by LeRoy R. and Ann W. Hafen, Powder River Campaigns and Sawyers Expedition 1865 (Glendale, Calif., 1961).  Ben­nett’s diary may be compared with the reports of Col. Nelson Cole and Capt. Henry Palmer of the eastern column.  The anonymous account of Gen. Connor’s column can be used in tandem with the diary of Capt. B. F. Rockafellow.

 

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