The Fort Robinson Cemetery

One grave here held a murdered scout. Moses Embree Milner, California Joe, was born in Stanford, Kentucky, in 1829. Custer made him chief of scouts and demoted him soon after for drinking, but after the Washita he and Jack Corbin rode about a hundred miles in two days to carry the news to Sheridan. On October 29, 1876, scouting for Crook's 5th Cavalry, he was shot in the back here by Thomas Newcomb after a quarrel whose cause the accounts give differently. He was buried with full military honors and now lies at Fort McPherson.

What the plaque says

The Fort Robinson Cemetery The first recorded interment in the Fort Robinson Cemetery was James Brogan, July 2, 1875; the last was Fred Lester, June 13, 1945. Among the 258 interments listed in the cemetery records are two officers, Markland Williamson and James A. Swift; two army scouts, Moses "California Joe" Milner (Custer's favorite scout) and Baptiste "Little Bat" Garnier; ten men killed in the January 1879 Cheyenne Outbreak; two Medal of Honor recipients, Emanuel Stance and George Jordan; and about 140 women and children, dependents of service personnel. Its location at the confluence of Soldier Creek and the White River made the Fort Robinson Cemetery subject to frequent flooding. In 1926 E. A. Brininstool, chronicler of the West, was shocked to find the cemetery overrun with weeds and underbrush. Later, caretakers were appointed, and the cemetery was well maintained until the post closed. Shortly before the army abandoned Fort Robinson in 1948, most of the remaining graves, 23 listed as unknown, were moved to Fort McPherson National Cemetery near Maxwell, Nebraska. Crawford Historical Society Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Robinson State Park — 0.5 mi
  The army post beside the Red Cloud Agency where Crazy Horse was bayoneted in 1877 and Morning Star's Northern Cheyenne broke out into the January cold of 1879.
• Toadstool Geologic Park — 15 mi
  A pocket of badlands in the Oglala National Grassland where sandstone caps balance on clay stems, ancient tracks cross the rock, and a trail leads on to a 10,000-year-old bison bone bed.
• Agate Fossil Beds National Monument — 21 mi
  A fossil quarry on the Niobrara that also keeps the gifts Red Cloud and other Lakota and Cheyenne visitors gave the ranching family who were their friends for thirty-five years.

More markers nearby

• The Flight of the Cheyennes — 0.2 mi
• Sea Level Bench Mark — 0.2 mi
• Fort Robinson — 0.3 mi
• Officers' Row, 1874-1875 — 0.4 mi