Richard Irving Dodge

Richard Irving Dodge
Richard Irving Dodge
Born	(1827-05-19)May 19, 1827 Huntsville, North Carolina
Died	June 16, 1895(1895-06-16) (aged 68) Sacketts Harbor, New York
Buried at	Arlington National Cemetery
Allegiance	United States
Service/branch	United States Army
Years of service	1848–1891
Rank	Colonel
Commands held	11th U.S. Infantry
Battles/wars	American Civil War Indian Wars

Richard Irving Dodge (1827 – June 16, 1895) was a colonel in the United States Army. Dodge was born in North Carolina and died after a long and successful career in the U.S. Army. He began as a cadet in 1844 and retired as a Colonel May 19, 1891.

Dodge was Aide-De-Camp to General William Tecumseh Sherman from 1881–1882. In the second publishing of his memoirs General Sherman wrote, "... the vacancy made by Colonel McCook was filled by Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Irving Dodge, Twenty-third Infantry then serving at a cantonment on the Upper Canadian—an officer who had performed cheerfully and well a full measure of frontier service, was a capital sportsman, and of a perfect war record. He also remained with me until his promotion as Colonel of the Eleventh Infantry, 26 January 1882."

Dodge married into a distinguished military and political family on March 3, 1858 in New York City. His wife, Julia Rhinelander Paulding, was the granddaughter of General William Paulding of the War of 1812 and one time Mayor of New York City, and the great-granddaughter of General William Paulding of the American Revolution and one of the first members of the Provincial Congress. The author and Secretary of the Navy under president Van Buren, James Kirke Paulding, was Julia's great uncle. John Paulding, a captor of the British spy John André, was a cousin of her grandfather.

To protect settlers traveling to the American west the army set up camps and forts along the favored routes. In Kansas in 1851 on the Santa Fe Trail a Colonel I. Dodge established Fort Dodge which lasted a short time. In 1864, General Grenville M. Dodge established a large fort in the same area on the north bank of the Arkansas River. The site was selected by Col. James Hobart Ford for whom the county was later named, and the fort was named Fort Dodge in the General's honor. "Fort Dodge was one of the most important forts on the Western frontier." Commanders at the fort included George Custer and Col. William H. Lewis. In July 1872, Richard Irving Dodge was in command at Fort Dodge and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway needed a station on the Arkansas River. A site was selected five miles west of the fort and a town company organized by Dodge and his officers, R.M. Wright was elected president, and the quartermaster, Major E. B. Kirk, was secretary and treasurer. The town was named Dodge City after Fort Dodge Fort Dodge (US Army Post). Dodge City later became famous for its wildness, its Boot Hill cemetery, and gunslinging lawmen like Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson.