Carlisle Barracks - Postbellum Era

Postbellum Era

After the Civil War ended, the Barracks returned to its pre-war mission of receiving, training and forwarding cavalry recruits destined for the Indian wars on the western frontier. But, as Army operations moved west, the War Department moved this function to the St. Louis Arsenal in Missouri. There it had access to transportation on the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. On April 20, 1871, Carlisle Barracks was officially "discontinued as a sub-Depot for the Mounted Recruit Service." The installation was available for new uses.

In 1879, the War Department passed control of the post to the Department of the Interior. The US Congress had authorized the Bureau of Indian Affairs(BIA) to found the first Indian boarding school for the education of Native American children. With the Indian Wars at an end, the government sought a way to integrate the children into the life of the European-American culture. The Carlisle Indian Industrial School operated until 1918. Commanding General of the Army William T. Sherman had acceded to the petitions of Richard Henry Pratt to use the barracks for a model Indian School. The goal was for children to learn English and European-American ways, to gain an education apart from the reservations, and live among European-American men and women. Pratt believed Native Americans needed such education to be able to protect their lands and societies. He became the school's founder and first superintendent. He based the school's program on his experience since 1875 in supervising and educating Indian prisoners-of-war at Fort Marion in St. Augustine, Florida. Twenty young Indian men gained further education at Hampton Institute, a historically black college, and private schools in New York.