Note 42 — Chapter XIX · FORT BENTON.

In this sketch of Fort Benton I have drawn somewhat, for the period after 1843, from the notes of Lieutenant James H. Bradley, as published in vol. iii. Proceedings Mont. Hist. Soc. The notes were taken by dictation from Alexander Culbertson. Unfortunately, as in most cases of personal narrative, this one abounds in errors, and is controlled throughout by the desire of the narrator to magnify his own importance in the events he describes. The notes possess, however, great intrinsic value, and are an important contribution to the history of the West. Their preservation is due to the zealous forethought of an army officer who recognized the importance of collecting original data on the history of the West before its principal actors should have passed away. He did not live to prepare these notes for publication himself. They found their way to the Montana Historical Society, which, with the intelligent zeal that has always characterized that body, has given them to the public in a well-gotten-up volume of the society’s proceedings.

Lieutenant James H. Bradley was born in Sandusky, O., May 25, 1844; enlisted as a private in the 14th Ohio Volunteers, April, 1861; re-enlisted in the 45th Ohio Volunteers, June, 1862; mustered out as Sergeant, July, 1865; appointed Second Lieutenant 18th U. S. Infantry, February 23, 1866; promoted to First Lieutenant, July 9, 1866, transferred to 7th Infantry, November 28, 1871; killed in the Battle of the Big Hole by the Nez Percé Indians, August 9, 1877.