Ihr )i-ll(iii><loiif liiytr nil I 1 1 lliiiiili Minihniii 



Figure lo. — The Yellowstone River near Fort Keogh, Montana. (roVVi-l/ 38^191; Smilli&uii/un plmln 



79-5-^^-) 



red fingers. Two Indian camps are shown in the 

 background, and the Indians, as would befit the 

 atmosphere of a treaty council, are moving freelv 

 through the military camp to the apparent unconcern 

 of the military. 



The landscape of the Wichita Mountains from 

 Medicine BlufTs (fig. 5) on the present-day Fort Sill 

 reservation is noteworthy as a terrain sketch to anyone 

 who has served at that post. I have ridden over this 

 country many times, and the undulating prairie, the 

 meandering of Medicine C;reek, the Bluffs them- 

 selves — over the highest of which (left centerground) 

 the Apache Geronimo did not ride his horse with the 

 7th Cavalry in full cry behind — Mount Hinds and 

 lofty Mount Scott are remarkable in their accuracy 

 when one considers that the painting must have been 

 done from sketches made when Stieffel was on escort 

 detail to the Indian Territorv in 1869. ^■' 



" Detail and orientation check closely with map of Fort Sill, 

 Oklahoma, sheet 6353 III NW, scale 1:25,000, Army Map 

 Service. 



The two views of Fort Harker, Kansas (figs. 6, 7), 

 now Ellsworth, must have been painted during 1870 

 and 1871 while Stieffel was on extra duty as a hospital 

 attendant there. From an artistic standpoint they 

 are the poorest of his work. His detail, however, 

 more than compensates for any deficiencies as a 

 draftsman and gives us an excellent concept of the 

 physical layout and daily routine of a small post in 

 the Southern Plains. The two views are from the 

 east and south, and complement one another nicely. 

 Headquarters, officers' quarters, and barracks, all of 

 typical clapboard construction, are readily discernible, 

 as are the stables, the latter being the long unfenes- 

 trated buildings. Even the barrack privies, an out- 

 door bake oven alongside a mess hall, and earth- 

 covered powder magazines can be easily identified. 

 The long rows of cord wood for cooking and heating 

 were to be seen on any post of the period. In the 

 view from the east (fig. 6) may be seen a detail of 

 cavalrymen with led horses moving out for animal 

 exercise past the camp of a transient tinit with its 

 standard tentage and transport. The high white 



14 



BULLETIN 225: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



