On Dec. 27, 1856, a howling blizzard greeted the famed 2nd Cavalry upon its arrival at Fort Belknap, and by morning many of the horse soldiers’ mounts had frozen to death in the subzero weather.
Fort Belknap was established six summers earlier, as the northern link in the chain of frontier defense extending from the Rio Grande to the Red River. William Goldsmith Belknap, the brevet brigadier genera…
