Muster Roll For Hospital At Grand River Agency, DT- 17th Infantry 1871 – SOLD

Description

This muster roll, dated June 30, 1871 was filled out at the Grand River Agency, in Dakota Territory then commanded by Capt. Henry L. Clayton.  Also signed by the surgeon in charge William Barbour, act, asst. surgeon, usa.  The document shows payment to 2 hospital stewards, 2 matrons, and 2 privates from Company A, 17th Infantry.  Four of the payees have signed the roll, and witnessed by Surgeon Barbour.

The document is intact, but has some issued at the junction of one fold were it has opened up causing some loss of paper. Small area however.

Henry Clayton was commissioned on Sept. 27, 1861, as a 1st Lieutenant into Co. “B,” of the Maryland Purnell Legion, and mustered out on Oct. 26, 1864. He returned to the military in 1866 with a captain’s commission in the 19th U.S. Infantry in July of 1866. He was unassigned during the reorganization of the Army in 1869, then reassigned to the 17th Infantry in Dec. of 1872.  Confusion comes here as he commands the Grand River Agency in June of 1871, so he must have been informed that his official assignment was to follow.

In 1882, Clayton is promoted to major in the Paymaster Department, where he remains until his death, on Dec. 26, 1888.

He was born in Delaware.

The Grand River Agency, then what will become, South Dakota was established in 1869. It was responsible for many of the bands of the Sioux Nation. The location moved from the Grand River and Missouri River to a new location 50 miles north on the Missouri in 1873. This new location became the Standing Rock Agency.  So the Grand River Agency was active for only a brief time, and making this a scarcer piece.