Kinzie Bates papers

The collection contains 32 items by or related to United States army office Kinzie Bates (died 1884), including his 1877 diary written during his field assignments to various Dakota Territory camps near the Black Hills during army campaigns against the Sioux. The collection contains typed transcripts of all the correspondence by Kinzie Bates and his diary. Elizabeth Chumley Bates' 134 page diary, which contains mostly blank pages, includes a three-page chronology of Kinzie Bates' life.

The majority of correspondence in the collection was written by Bates to his wife, Elizabeth Chumley Bates, in 1874 and 1875, during three thirty-day field assignments to various Dakota Territory camps along the Niobrara River south of the Black Hills. His diary, made up of 48 letters written to his wife, was written in 1877 during the army's search for Sitting Bull and Lame Deer. The letters and journal entries record the U. S. Army campaigns during the war with the Sioux. Bates' letters tell in great detail the everyday hardships of military life including the separation from his wife. He also gives opinions regarding fellow officers, including Colonel Nelson A. Miles, General William Hazen, and his commanding officer Major Henry Lazelle. Bates gives detailed descriptions of the scenery, game and people he encountered on his marches, as well as his experience with several groups of Indians including the Yankton Sioux and the Brul Indians. Bates often mentions Sitting Bull's current location and the army's newest strategy to catch him.

The collection also contains a photograph of Kinzie Bates from late in his military career, and his obituary from the Detroit Free Press.