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THB[CIVIL WAR] Booth & Cloth Pocket, Excavated at Ft. Pembina, North Dakota
![[CIVIL WAR] Booth & Cloth Pocket, Excavated at Ft. Pembina, North Dakota](https://s1.img.bidsquare.com/item/xl/3296/32964819.jpeg?t=1V3Bku)
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About Auction
LiveNov 22, 2025
This exclusive catalog presents a select offering from the personal collection of Alejandro "Alex" de Quesada Jr., renowned historian, author, and collector. The catalog features exceptionally rare swords, historically significant belt buckles and military insignia, original Civil War flags, and a wide range of ephemera representing pivotal moments in military history. Fleischer's Auctions info@fleischersauctions.com
View Full Catalog (254)
- Lot Description
A PAIR OF PULL-ON LEATHER BOOTS, TOGETHER WITH A TIE-ON CLOTH POCKET (WAIST POUCH), EXCAVATED AT FORT PEMBINA, NORTH DAKOTA
United States, Civil War to post–Civil War frontier period, circa 1860–1880. Boots: Approx. 10 in. x 4 in. x 13 in. Cloth pocket: 12 1/4 in.
Blackened leather boots of civilian/quartermaster pattern, each with soft pull-on shafts, rear tabs, pegged leather soles and stacked leather heels; accompanied by a hand-sewn undyed cotton tie-on pocket consisting of a small rectangular pouch attached to a narrow strap, intended to be knotted at the waist beneath the trousers and used for coins or small personal effects.
The boots are of the plain, serviceable pull-on type widely worn by enlisted men and civilians on the northern plains- supple, unlined shafts without side seams, pegged outsoles, and multiple leather lifts to the heels. The associated cloth pocket, rare in any field context, reflects the everyday, personal kit of the garrison and speaks to informal carriage of money, needles, or other small necessities when regulation haversacks were not at hand.
Fort Pembina’s far‑northern location, long winters, deep frost, and cold, relatively anaerobic ground conditions created an exceptional micro‑environment that retarded the decay of organic materials. Excavated leather and cloth material from field context almost never survive; most period examples encountered archaeologically are fragmentary singles.
Fort Pembina (1870–1895) was set in the Red River Valley of what is now Pembina County, North Dakota, only a few miles from the Canadian border, Fort Pembina was established in March 1870 and occupied until 1895. Earlier activity at the site centered on the fur trade; the first U.S. military presence was a temporary post garrisoned by Minnesota troops in 1863–64 following the Dakota (Sioux) Uprising of 1862. The permanent post was built south of the Pembina River and roughly 200 yards west of the Red River; completed in July 1870, it was initially named for Gen. George H. Thomas and redesignated Fort Pembina in September. The first garrison, two companies of the 20th U.S. Infantry, wore and carried the typical mix of the early Indian Wars: Civil War surplus, private‑purchase items, and later regulation patterns as they became available.
The fort’s stated purpose was to protect settlers concerned about Sioux parties returning from Canada, but its soldiers chiefly escorted international boundary surveys along the 49th parallel and helped deter Fenian raiding attempts into Canada. The reservation contained enlisted men’s barracks and officers’ quarters, a guardhouse, ordnance storehouse, company kitchens, a root house, laundresses’ quarters, housing for civilian employees, a hospital with a servants’ house and a barn for the “hospital cow,” as well as quartermaster and commissary offices and storehouses, stables, and a wagon shed. Strength peaked at about 200 troops in 1878, with an average of roughly 125 enlisted men and 8 officers. An October 1885 return lists 97 men, 2 field pieces, 1 mountain howitzer, 100 rifles, 19 pistols, 23 mules, and 9 wagons. By 1890 only 23 soldiers remained, and after a fire in 1895 destroyed nineteen buildings the Army elected to close rather than rebuild; the last detachment departed in September. The reservation passed to the Department of the Interior and was sold in 1902. Recent, owner‑authorized excavations on private land at the site have yielded artifacts of exceptional preservation, owing to the region’s cold, protective soils, of which the present pair of brogans is a rare survivor.
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