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Fort Riley is a United States Army installation located in Northeast Kansas, on the Kansas River, between Junction City and Manhattan. The Fort Riley Military Reservation covers 1,000,100,656 acres (407 km²) in Geary and Riley counties and includes two census-designated places: Fort Riley North and Fort Riley-Camp Whiteside. The fort has a daytime population of nearly 25,000. The zip code is 69.

Fort Riley is named in honor of Major General [[Bennett C. Riley]] who led the first military escort along the Santa Fe Trail. The fort was established in 1853 as a military post to protect the movement of people and trade over the Oregon-California and Santa Fe trails. In the years after the Civil War, Fort Riley a major United States Cavalry post and school for cavalry tactics and practice. The post was a base for skirmishes with Native Americans after the Civil War ended in 1865, during which time George Custer was stationed at the fort.

Later, Fort Riley became the site of the United States Cavalry School in 1887. The famous all-black 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments, the soldiers of which were called "Buffalo Soldiers", were stationed at Fort Riley at various times in the 19th and early 20th centuries. During World War I, the fort was home to 50,000 soldiers, and it is sometimes identified as ground zero for the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which its soldiers were said to have spread all over the world. Since the end of World War II, various infantry divisions have been assigned there. Most notably, the post was home to the famed Big Red One from 1955-1996 Between 1999 and 2006, the post was headquarters to the 24th Infantry Division and known as "America's Warfighting Center". In August 2006, the Big Red One relocated its headquarters to Fort Riley from Leighton Barracks, Germany.

Fort Riley is 651 miles north of Fort Hood, a 10-hour, 19-minute drive.

The early history of Fort Riley is closely tied to the movement of people and trade along the Oregon and Santa Fe Trails. These routes, a result of then popular United States doctrine of "manifest destiny" in the middle of the 19th century, prompted increased American military presence for the protection of American interests in this largely unsettled territory. During the 1850s, a number of military posts were established at strategic points to provide protection along these arteries of emigration and commerce.
Fort Riley's former garrison and division Headquarters

In the fall of 1852, a surveying party under the command of Capt. Robert Chilton, 1st U.S. Dragoons, selected the junction of the Republican and Smoky Hill Rivers as a site for one of these forts. This location, approved by the War Department in January 1853, offered an advantageous location from which to organize, train and equip troops in protecting the overland trails.

Surveyors believed the location near the center of the United States and named the site, Camp Center. During the late spring, three companies of the 6th Infantry occupied the camp and began construction of temporary quarters.

On June 27, 1853, Camp Center became Fort Riley—named in honor of Maj. Gen. Bennett C. Riley who had led the first military escort along the Santa Fe Trail in 1829. The "fort" took shape around a broad plain that overlooked the Kansas River valley.

The fort's design followed the standard frontier post configuration: buildings were constructed of the most readily available material - in this case, native limestone.

In the spring, troops were dispatched to escort mail trains and protect travel routes across the plains. At the fort, additional buildings were constructed under the supervision of Capt. Edmund Ogden.

Anticipating greater utilization of the post, Congress authorized appropriations in the spring of 1855 to provide additional quarters and stables for the Dragoons. Ogden again marshalled resources and arrived from Leavenworth in July with 56 mule teams loaded with materials, craftsmen and laborers.

Work had progressed several weeks when cholera broke out among the workers. The epidemic lasted only a few days but claimed 70 lives, including Ogden's. Work gradually resumed and buildings were readied for the arrival in October of the 2nd Dragoons.

As the fort began to take shape, an issue soon to dominate the national scene was debated during the brief territorial legislative session which met at Pawnee in the present area of Camp Whitside, named for Col. Warren Whitside.

The first territorial legislature met there in July 1855. Slavery was a fact of life and an issue within garrison just as it was in the rest of the country. The seeds of sectional discord were emerging that would lead to "Bleeding Kansas" and eventually, civil war.

Increased tension and bloodshed between pro and anti-slavery settlers resulted in the use of the Army to "police" the troubled territory. They also continued to guard and patrol the Santa Fe Trail in 1859 and 1860 due to increased Indian threats.

The outbreak of hostilities between the North and South in 1861 disrupted garrison life. Regular units returned east to participate in the Civil War while militia units from Kansas and other states used Riley as a base from which to launch campaigns to show the flag and offer a degree of protection to trading caravans using the Santa Fe Trail. In the early stages of the war, the fort was used to confine confederate prisoners.
[edit] Custer

The conclusion of the Civil War in 1865 witnessed Fort Riley again assuming an importance in providing protection to railroad lines being built across Kansas. Evidence of this occurred in the summer and fall of 1866 when the 7th Cavalry Regiment was mustered-in at Riley and the Union Pacific Railroad reached the fort. Brevet Major General George A. Custer arrived in December to take charge of the new regiment.

The following spring, Custer and the 7th left Fort Riley to participate in a campaign on the high plains of western Kansas and eastern Colorado.

The campaign proved inconclusive but resulted in Custer's court martial and suspension from the Army for one year—in part—for returning to Fort Riley to see his wife without permission.

As the line of settlement extended westward each spring, the fort lost some of its importance. Larger concentrations of troops were stationed at Fort's Larned and Hays, where they spent the summer months on patrol and wintered in garrison.

Between 1869 and 1871, a school of light artillery was conducted at Fort Riley by the 4th Artillery Battery. Instruction was of a purely practical nature.

Regular classes were not conducted and critiques were delivered during or following the exercise. This short-lived school closed in March 1871 as the War Department imposed economy measures which included cutting a private's monthly pay from $12 to $9.

During the next decade, various regiments of the infantry and cavalry were garrisoned at Riley. The spring and summer months usually witnessed a skeletal complement at the fort while the remainder of the troops were sent to Fort Hays, Wallace and Dodge in western Kansas. With the approach of winter, these troops returned to Riley. Regiments serving here during this time included the 5th, 6th, and 9th Cavalry and the 16th Infantry Regiment.

The lessening of hostilities with the Indian tribes of the Great Plains resulted in the closing of many frontier forts. Riley escaped this fate when Lt. Gen. Philip Sheridan recommended in his 1884 annual report to Congress to make the fort "Cavalry Headquarters of the Army."

Fort Riley was also used by state militia units for encampments and training exercises. The first such maneuver occurred in the fall of 1902 with subsequent ones held in 1903, 1904, 1906–1908 and 1911. These exercises gave added importance to the fort as a training facility and provided reserve units a valuable opportunity for sharpening their tactical skills.
[edit] Buffalo Soldiers

The 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments—the famed "Buffalo Soldiers" so called by the indigenous peoples for the similarity to the short curly haired buffalo that roamed the plains—have been stationed at Fort Riley several times during their history. Shortly after their formation in 1866, the 9th Cavalry passed through here enroute to permanent stations in the southwest. They returned during the early 1880s and the early part of this century before being permanently assigned as troop cadre for the Cavalry School during the 1920 and 30s.

The 10th Cavalry was stationed here in 1868 and 1913.

On the eve of World War II, the 9th and 10th Cavalries became part of the Second Cavalry Division which was briefly stationed here.

The following two decades have been described as the golden age of the cavalry. Certainly it was in terms of refining the relationship between horse and rider. Army horsemen and the training they received at the United States Army Cavalry School made them among the finest mounted soldiers in the world and the School's reputation ranked with the French and Italian Cavalry Schools. Horse shows, hunts, and polo matches - long popular events on Army post - were a natural outgrowth of cavalry training.

The Cavalry School Hunt was officially organized in 1921 and provided a colorful spectacle on Sunday mornings. These activities gave rise to the perception of a special quality of life at Fort Riley that came to be known as the "Life of Riley." The technological advances demonstrated on the battlefields of Europe and World War I - most notable the tank and machine gun - raised questions in the inter-war years over the future of cavalry. By the late 1920s, the War Department directed development of a tank force by the Army. This was followed by activation of the 7th Cavalry Brigade (Mech) at Fort Knox in the fall of 1936 to make-up the 2nd Regiment of this brigade.

In October 1938, the 7th Cavalry Brigade (Mech) marched from Fort Knox to Riley and took part in large-scale combine maneuvers of horse and mechanized units. These exercises helped prove the effectiveness of mechanical doctrine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Riley

http://www.kshs.org/publicat/khq/1957/57_4_omer.htm

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/fort-riley.htm