CONSOLIDATED MORNING REPORT OF FORT JONES CALIFORNIA, COMMANDED BY HENRY M. JUDAH CAPTAIN 4th INFANTRY

Register of men from a California outpost headed by a rather notorious Captain. Ledger sheets. 38 cm. 2pp., and 2pp. of fragments, blue paper, a hand-drawn table in brown ink, removed from a ledger book. The manuscript chart for Nov. 25 - Dec. 3 spans two facing pages, contains a report by day of the numbers of men in companies D and E, by rank. on duty, sick, on extra duty, confined, or absent, with and without leave. The number on duty per day was about 136 between the two companies. Each day's entry is accompanied by brief notes under "remarks," signed by H.M. Judah, Capt., 4th Inf. Commanding, for example: "Private Camper E Co. released. Private Sullivan E Co. off sick report;" "Private McKeaver E Co. absent with leave;" "Privates Rourke and Regan D Co. on sick report. 2 Non Com. offrs and 18 Privates D Co. joined from Det service;" [etc]. The versos of these pages contain fragments of reports for the same two companies: for Dec. 4 - 12, the number of officers and enlisted men present, on duty, sick, etc. [one page]; and the number and remarks regarding absentees for what is likely Nov. 16 - 24 [one page]. Information entered in a neat hand. Fort Jones, California was established in October 1852 to offer protection to miners and settlers in the area of Siskiyou County in mountainous northern California, and garrisoned with the 4th Infantry. By 1853, Capt. Henry M. Judah (1821-1866), a veteran of the Mexican American War, was in charge of the post. Second Lt. George Crook (1828-1890) was posted to the Fort in late 1853. According to Robert Utley in his book "The Commanders: Civil War Generals Who Shaped the American West," [Univ. of Oklahoma Press: 2018], Judah quickly drew Crook's enmity: "Judah tended toward tyranny, indecisiveness, mood swings, and selfishness. His overriding flaw, however, was severe alcoholism. In January 1854 Judah led the two companies of the Fourth Infantry and a contingent of volunteers up the Klamath River to avenge the reported killing of a citizen. The command, mounted on mules, made its way through a swirling blizzard and deep drifts of snow. The first day out, Judah got almost helplessly drunk and suffered through four days of delirium tremens." In another incident in 1857, during the Pitt River expedition, Judah "drunk most of the time, led his troops in one futile operation after another." He finally relinquished his command to Crook. Henry Judah, a classmate of Ulysses S. Grant at West Point, went on to serve in the Union Army attaining the rank of Brigadier General. He survived the war by only a year, dying in Plattsburg, New York in February 1866.…