The Carlisle Indian Industrial School opened on the grounds of the old Carlisle Army Barracks in October 1879. Even General William T. Sherman had supported the move, as he had noted that the Carlisle Barracks had “long since ceased to be a military point in the U.S.” US Army Captain Richard Henry Pratt, who had lobbied key politicians like Secretary of Interior Carl Schurz and Secretary of War George McCrary, was appointed as the first Superintendent. Pratt traveled to a number of Indian reservations in the western United States to recruit students for the school. Four months after the first students arrived in Carlisle, the school’s enrollment was close to 150 students. Twenty years later the school would be home to about 1,000 students each year. Pratt’s overall objective with the Indian School was to assimilate Native American students into American culture. Students had to attend English classes and learn skills that were supposed to help them find jobs after graduation. Photographs in the slideshow below show students at work inside a print shop and a tin shop. Yet as historian Jon Reyhner point out, the graduates “were sent home to their reservations where there were few jobs.” Pratt remained in Carlisle until his public criticism of President Theodore Roosevelt’s Bureau of Indian Affairs policy lead to the War Department forcing him to resign in 1904. One student later explained that while Pratt was a “rigid disciplinarian,” he was also “a kind and fair man with a great human warmth.” Other students, however, reflected on the hardships that they endured while in Carlisle. “Never had I experienced such homesickness as I did then,” as a grand nephew of Sitting Bull noted.
Captain William A. Mercer, who had served with the 7th United States Cavalry, replaced Pratt as superintendent. Several other US Army officers also lead the school before the War Department decided to shut the Indian School in 1918 and open General Hospital No. 31 at the barracks. This hospital, which functioned as a rehabilitation center, remained open for two years before the War Department replaced it with the Medical Field Service School. Today the Carlisle Barracks is home to the US Army War College. Check their website for important information if you plan on visiting. You can find digital photograph collections on the Carlisle Indian school at the U.S. Army Military History Institute and the Library of Congress. In addition, you can visit the Cumberland County Historical Society to see their exhibit on the school.
You can learn more about the Carlisle Indian School in Richard Henry Pratt’s Battlefield and Classroom: Four Decades with the American Indian, 1867-1904, Robert M. Utley, ed. (1964), Michael C. Coleman’s American Indian Children at School, 1850-1930 (1993), David Wallace Adams’ Education for Extinction. American Indians and the Boarding School Experience, 1875-1928 (1995), Genevieve Bell’s Telling Stories out of School: Remembering the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, 1879-1918 (1998), and Jon Allan Reyhner’s American Indian Education: A History (2004).
Frederick Douglass gave a speech in Carlisle, Pennsylvania on March 2, 1872 about his work relating to Santo Domingo. In 1871 President Ulysses S. Grant had appointed Douglass to the Commission of Inquiry for the annexation of Santo Domingo to the United States of America. Douglass delivered his speech at Rheem’s Hall, which was located behind the Old Court House in Carlisle. Today that location is a parking lot. Reports about the speech did not appear in any national newspapers, but his visit created a local controversy. George Z. Bentz, who was the manager of the Bentz House and a Republican, refused to let Douglass eat his dinner in the hotel dining room with the white guests. (The Bentz House stood on what is today the former Wellington Hotel on East High Street). The American Volunteer used the incident to characterize Republicans as hypocritical. “We have in this circumstance positive evidence that the Radicals are just as loath to recognize negro-equality as the Democrats,” as the American Volunteer observed. While the Herald “[found] no fault with” the manager’s decision, the editors argued that policies which denied African Americans entry into a hotel “[were] simply silly and wicked.” In addition, Historic Carlisle recently added a Wayside Maker for Douglass’ visit.
David L. Smith also discusses Douglass’ visit in his essay “Fredrick Douglass in Carlisle” (2005). Smith provides transcripts of the newspaper articles cited in this blog post.
David L. Smith, “Fredrick Douglass in Carlisle,” Cumberland County History 22 (2005): 48-60.
Location: Bentz House stood on what is today the former Wellington Hotel on East High Street ; Rheem’s Hall, which is a parking lot today, was located behind the Old Court House
This essay has been posted online with permission from the Cumberland County Historical Society.
G. A. R. Parade - Washington DC, 1892
Jacob M. Goodyear, The GAR Posts of Cumberland County (Carlisle, PA: Hamilton Library Association, 1951).
After the Civil War, many Union veterans joined the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) and established posts in their communities. Seven posts were set up in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania between 1880 and 1890 and Jacob M. Goodyear provides a short history for each one. Each post, as Goodyear explains, had “its own life story.”
This essay has been posted online with permission from the Cumberland County Historical Society.
The Soldiers Monument in Carlisle, Pennsylvania was created in a post war effort to honor the Cumberland County soldiers who died as a result of the Civil War. The efforts to build the monument were initiated by the Soldiers Monument Association in early January 1867, which included General Lemuel Todd as Chair, General Robert Miller Henderson as President, and Colonel Erkuries Beatty as Corresponding Secretary. The minutes of the Soldiers Monument Association are available for reference at the Cumberland County Historical Society in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Fundraising continued into early 1871 until the Monument Association obtained the five thousand dollars needed to erect the monument. The extra money financed the dedication ceremonies as well as the fence that enclosed the monument. A Carlisle mechanic, Richard Owens, was responsible for contracting and designing the monument, which contained a “Roll of Honor” that provided the names of the three hundred and forty-four Cumberland County officers and soldiers that died in combat or during their term of service in the army during the Civil War. The official unveiling of the thirty foot tall Soldiers Monument took place on the Public Square near the Carlisle Courthouse on August 19, 1871 with Lemuel Todd as Chief Marshall of the ceremonies and Major General Heintzelman as the presenter of the unveiled monument. Available on Google Books, Carlisle, Old and New gives a brief description of the monument as well as some of the other historical features in Carlisle.
Fitzhugh Lee
D. W. Thompson, Fitzhugh Lee Returns, and Returns (Carlisle, PA: Hamilton Library Association, 1963).
D. W. Thompson’s essay discusses Confederate General Fitzhugh Lee’s connection with Carlisle, Pennsylvania. General Lee was stationed at Carlisle Barracks before the Civil War, returned as a Confederate general who shelled the town in the summer of 1863, and came back again in 1896 to speak at the Carlisle Indian School. As Thompson explains, Superintendent Richard Henry Pratt invited Lee and Union General Oliver Otis Howard “to show that North and South were united with East and West in a common life, hope, and allegiance.” Yet some Carlisle residents believed that Pratt should not have invited Lee. As an editorial in the Carlisle Herald argued, “it was a mistake not because [Lee] was a rebel but because he did a disgraceful and unsoldierly thing that can not be justified.” This essay also has several related documents, including transcripts of two letters that Lee wrote and excerpts from newspaper articles.
This essay has been posted online with permission from the Cumberland County Historical Society.
