Fort McPherson

The man the fort was renamed for was an engineer before he was a general. James B. McPherson, born in Clyde, Ohio, on November 14, 1828, graduated first in West Point's class of 1853, with Philip Sheridan and John Bell Hood among his classmates. Before the Civil War he oversaw the defenses of Alcatraz Island. He took command of the Army of the Tennessee on March 12, 1864, and was shot by Confederate skirmishers early in the Battle of Atlanta on July 22, 1864, the second-highest-ranking Union officer killed in action. Sherman openly wept.

What the plaque says

Fort McPherson The fort near here was established on the Oregon Trail on the south side of the Platte River in October 1863, on the eve of intensified Indian raids on the Plains. Built next to the well-known Cottonwood Springs and McDonald ranche, it com- manded a strategic north-south Indian trail across the Platte valley. First known as Cantonment McKean and then Fort Cottonwood, the fort in February 1866 was named for Major-General James B. McPherson. It served to protect the important Platte valley line of travel and communication and was the base for innumerable scouting parties and for field campaigns in 1865, 1866 and 1869. General Carr's campaign in 1869 broke the power of the Cheyenne and cleared the surrounding area from more than temporary Indian threats. The Russian Grand Duke Alexis prepared here for his famous buffalo hunt in 1872. General Custer, Buffalo Bill, the North Brothers and their Pawnee scouts were often at the Fort. The fort was abandoned in 1880, but a portion of the military reservation is now the Fort McPherson National Cemetery where rest soldiers from McPherson and other frontier forts, as well as those who served in more recent wars. Buffalo Bill Corral of Westerners Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Buffalo Bill Ranch State Historical Park — 0.3 mi
  Scout's Rest, the North Platte ranch house and barn of William F. Cody, in the town where his Old Glory Blowout of July 4, 1882 became the first act of the Wild West.
• Golden Spike Tower and Bailey Yard — 2.3 mi
  A tower with seventh- and eighth-floor decks over Union Pacific's Bailey Yard in North Platte, the world's largest railroad classification yard, in a town the railroad laid out and fed troops from.

More markers nearby

• Scout's Rest — 0.4 mi
• Sioux Lookout — 2.2 mi
• Fort McPherson — 14 mi
• The Great Platte River Road — 16 mi