After General Alfred Sully's troops fought the Battle of Whitestone Hill near Ellendale, North Dakota, against Indians in the fall of 1863, they marched back here to winter and established Fort Sully. Companies E and L of the 6th Iowa Cavalry did most of the building. The fort was 270 feet square, with east and west walls formed by barracks, a south wall containing the gate, hospital, guardhouse, and quarters, and a north wall of palisade with officers' quarters and a warehouse inside; bastions stood in the northwest and southeast corners. Outside along the south wall were cabins owned by Divet, an Indian dance hall, the post sutler, and the post interpreter, with Narcelle's trade store to the southwest and Brughiers to the southeast. Colonel E. M. Bartlett of the 30th Wisconsin Infantry was the first commander, and the post was first named for him in 1863-64 before being renamed Fort Sully that spring. In the winter of 1864-65, after another campaign, it was garrisoned by Companies B, H, and K of the 6th Iowa under Major House, and that fall it was the scene of a great Treaty Council with Teton and Yanktonaise Sioux. Lieutenant Colonel John Patee of the 7th Iowa Cavalry commanded in the winter of 1865-66, and Lieutenant Colonel Andrews, the last commander, left the post on July 26, 1866, to march to New Fort Sully 36 miles upriver. While troops occupied the fort, the American Fur Company had a trade post on the river bank opposite Farm Island.