JAMES WILLIAM ABERT
1820-1897

James William Abert,  army officer and explorer, was born on November 18, 1820, in  Mount Holly, New Jersey, the son of Maj. John James Abert, the Chief of the Bureau of Topographical Engineers. In his teens he  attended Princeton University, where he graduated, probably from its academy, in 1838; he entered the United States Military Academy at  West Point in September of that year. In 1842 he was assigned to  the Fifth United States Infantry. After an uneventful year of garrison  duty in Detroit, Abert was transferred to the Corps of Topographical  Engineers in May 1843. His first assignment in the corps was that of  assistant topographical engineer in an extensive survey of the northern  lakes, 1843-44. During that time he married Jane Stone, and they  had a son.

 In the summer of 1845 Abert was attached to the third expedition of  John Charles Frémont, whose assignment was "to make  reconnaissance southward and eastward along the Canadian River  through the country of Kiowa and Comanche." Frémont, however,  chose to take his main party on to California, and gave command of  the Canadian River mission to Abert, with an assistant, Lt. William  G. Peck. The legendary mountain man Thomas Fitzpatrick was  employed as a guide, and Bent employees John L. Hatcher and  Caleb Greenwood were hired temporarily as hunters. Except for the  two young officers, the entire party of thirty-three was composed of  civilians.

 The expedition struck the headwaters of the Canadian and followed  it through the breaks in eastern New Mexico and into the Texas  Panhandle. Continuing along the north bank of the Canadian, Abert  noted many Panhandle landmarks, including Atascosa Creek and  the Alibates Flint Quarries, which he labeled Agate Bluffs. The  expedition arrived at Bent's trading house in what is now Hutchinson  County on September 14, rested there for a day, and exchanged gifts  with a party of Kiowas and Comancheros. Three Kiowas had  briefly joined the expedition to help keep the peace. On September  16, after Hatcher and Greenwood had left to return to Bent's Fort,  the remainder of Abert's party crossed the Canadian and turned  toward the southeast. Near the site of present Laketon, in Gray  County, the party struck the North Fork of the Red River, which  they mistook for the Washita and followed for a while, then turned  back northeast toward the Canadian. They crossed the present  Oklahoma boundary before reaching the Canadian, which they  followed to its confluence with the Arkansas. At Fort Gibson, in  eastern Indian Territory, the expedition was disbanded, and Abert  and Peck went on to St. Louis.

 In his report Abert described in detail the geology, flora, and fauna  of the Canadian valley. His maps of the region were the most  accurate of the time, and later explorers found them quite useful,  especially for finding campsites and watering places. The abundance  of wild game in the valley had kept the expedition well supplied with  food. Abert's description of the habits and customs of the Kiowa  and Comanche Indians proved valuable to the federal government  later. Along with his maps and written accounts, Abert made several  sketches and watercolors of activities at Bent's Fort, native animals,  and outstanding Indian personalities, including the Kiowa chief  Dohäsan, whose village the expedition had visited on September  17.

 In the summer of 1846 Abert and Peck accompanied Gen. Stephen  W. Kearny's Army of the West to New Mexico. Abert came down  with a fever in July and had to remain behind at Bent's Fort to  recuperate. While he was sick he continued his studies in natural  science and ethnology and compiled a tribal dictionary. Afterward he  joined Peck in Santa Fe, and the two lieutenants conducted a  thorough survey of New Mexico as far south as Socorro. They  visited each of the Rio Grande pueblos and, as before, took note of  the geology and wildlife of the new American territory, as well as of  the habits and customs of its native residents. Abert then went to  Washington to submit his report to Congress.    From 1848 to 1850 he served on the faculty at West Point, where he  taught drawing. He was promoted to first lieutenant in 1853 and to  captain in 1856. After the death of his first wife he married Lucy  Taylor, with whom he had several children. In 1860, after serving  two years in Florida, he traveled in Europe to study military affairs  and visit various forts and arsenals. When the Civil War broke out  Abert served in the Shenandoah valley from June 1861 to  September 1862. 

 D. H. Strother, a well-known writer for Harpers Gazette, was on Abert's staff.  He tells this story of his boss: "As night advanced the rain became heavier, and no baggage train. The chiefs spread their shawls and blankets beneath the apple-trees, and prepared to pass the night en bivouac. My Captain, who was an old Rocky Mountain campaigner, made it a rule “never to go hungry if he could get a meal, and never to sleep in the rain if he could find a dry spot.” So we bethought ourselves of a deserted log-house which stood, like an eyeless skull, in an adjoining field. Leaving our horses picketed up to their bellies in oats, we shouldered our saddles and took possession of our discovery. There were neither doors nor windows, but the roof and flooring were sound, and we soon had a fire roaring in the mouldy chimney."

 On March 3, 1863, when the Corps of Topographical Engineers and the Corps of Engineers were reunited, he was promoted to major. He was  later severely injured by a fall from his horse, and in 1864 he resigned  from the army. He had been brevetted lieutenant colonel for his  "faithful and meritorious service." During the next five years, Abert  and his family engaged in the mercantile business in

 Cincinnati, Ohio.  From 1869 to 1871 he served as examiner of patents in Washington.  He taught English literature at the University of Missouri from 1877  to 1879 and afterward was president of the Examining Board of  Teachers of Public Schools in Kentucky. Abert was reappointed a  major in the United States Army on January 14, 1895, and retired  almost immediately. He died at his home in Newport, Kentucky, on  August 10, 1897.

 Despite the value of Abert's western frontier journals, they lay  almost forgotten in government files until 1941, when H. Bailey Carroll first published the 1845 report in the Panhandle-Plains  Historical Review. William A. Keleher published Abert's New  Mexico report in 1962. In 1967 and 1970 special publications of the  Abert journals were edited under the title Through the Country of  the Comanche Indians in the Fall of the Year 1845 by John Galvin,  a California historian. They featured illustrations of Abert's  watercolors, many of which were obtained from his descendants. A  species of finch that Abert discovered was named Pipilo aberti in  his honor.

 BIBLIOGRAPHY: W. H. Goetzmann, Army Exploration in the  American West, 1803-1863 (New Haven: Yale University Press,  1959; 2d ed., Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979; rpt.,  Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1991). Frederick W.  Rathjen, The Texas Panhandle Frontier (Austin: University of Texas  Press, 1973).Biography adapted from H. Allen Anderson, The Handbook of Texas.  Images courtesy of US Army Military History Institute and the US Military Academy at West Point.