In the preceding pages an attempt has been made to gather together from all sources the references which bear upon each particular phase of the process. In most cases they are few, not because the military men were not concerned with them, but because at every post in the Mississippi Valley conditions were practically the same and the public, being acquainted with these routine duties, was more interested in the picturesque Indian legends or in the duels between the officers. Of these latter incidents the pages of the history of Fort Snelling are full and in this respect it was typical of the American army post. But it is also an example of that which is of more importance--the contribution of the army to the transformation of the Mississippi Valley. In many ways Fort Snelling is unique in the list of American forts. The British flag was borne in triumph to wave from the flagstaff of Fort Ticonderoga after it had been evacuated by the colonial patriots during the dark days of 1777; but never was a foreign flag borne into Fort Snelling except to be burned in the sight of awestruck Indians. The guns of Fort Sumter announced the opening of the Civil War; never were the cannon at Fort Snelling fired at a foe. Mackinac was successively garrisoned by French, English, and American soldiers; whenever occupied by troops Fort Snelling flew the stars and stripes. The stockades at Boonesborough and Harrodstown were besieged by hundreds of savages who fought to gain entrance and obtain the scalps of the pioneer men and women there gathered for safety; no hostile demonstration was ever staged near Fort Snelling. Its history was not made by the rifles and sabers of the soldiers; the axe and the plow of the pioneer who worked in safety beneath its potential protection have left their history upon the landscape of the great Northwest. NOTES AND REFERENCES CHAPTER I [1] Carver's _Travels through the Interior Parts of North-America_, pp. vii, viii. [2] To the region lying on the upper waters of three great river systems--the Mississippi, the St. Lawrence, and the Red River of the North--the writer has applied the name "Upper Northwest" to distinguish it from the "Old Northwest" and the "Pacific Northwest". [3] For a summary of the French explorations see Folwell's _Minnesota_, pp. 1-29. Thwaites's _France in America_, p. 74, contains an excellent map of the French operations in the West.