Fort Assinniboine Telegrams Received, 1881

Fort Assinniboine was established by the United States Army during the summer of 1879 in Hill County, Montana Territory, near present day Havre, Montana. A huge complex of brick buildings, Assinniboine was the largest military post in Montana Territory. Among the military companies garrisoned at the fort was the 10th Cavalry Buffalo Soldiers. During the early 1880s, soldiers at Assinniboine were called on to monitor the movements of Sitting Bull's band of Hunkpapa Lakota and to continually escort members of the Cree and other Canadian First Nations back across the border. The fort was actively used until 1911. Today, the site is part of the Northern Agriculture Research Center, operated by Montana State University, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Louden Minugh was a New Jersey fisherman who enlisted in the U.S. Army at New York City on August 23, 1879. Twenty-two year old Minugh was assigned to Company C, Eighteenth Infantry and posted to Fort Assinniboine that fall. He remained at the post for his entire enlistment term, mustering out as a sergeant with an "excellent character" rating on August 22, 1884. Minugh later became a rancher and storekeeper in Harlem, Montana. It is unknown how Minugh came into possession of the 1881 telegrams from Fort Assinniboine. The documents were eventually inherited by his granddaughter, Jeanne Minugh Irving.