Abram Wood
Captain Abram Epperson Wood was an officer in the United States Army between 1872 and 1894, and the first acting Military Superintendent of Yosemite National Park. Biography. Civil War. Wood was born in Iowa and served as a volunteer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He enlisted in the 13th Iowa Volunteer Infantry Regiment on September 17, 1861, and was appointed a corporal in Company F the following month. Following the Battle of Shiloh, in which he was wounded, he was promoted to sergeant, and later participated in the battles of Corinth, Jackson and Meridian  in Mississippi. He reenlisted on January 1, 1864, and was made a first sergeant, and campaigned in Georgia and the Carolinas in 1864-65. Wood mustered out at Louisville, Kentucky, on July 21, 1865, as second lieutenant of Company F. Regular Army. Wood entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, on July 1, 1868, graduating 14th in order of merit in a class of 57 on June 14, 1872. He was appointed a second lieutenant of the 4th Cavalry and sent west to serve on the Texas frontier between 1872 and 1875. He was posted successively  at Fort Richardson (September 24 to December 21, 1872), Fort Concho (January 4 to May 23, 1873), Fort Clark (June 8, 1873, to August 6, 1874), and at Fort Richardson again until March 14, 1875. While at Fort Clark, he participated with the 4th Cavalry on extended campaigning in the field between June 1873 and May 1874 seeking to stop Kickapoo and Apache incursions into Texas from Mexico. In August and December 1874, during the expedition to subdue the Southern Plains tribes, Wood's company was with a battalion that repelled an attack on their camp on September 26 by  Comanche Indians at Tule Canyon on the Staked Plain. Following the successful conclusion of the campaign at the Battle of Palo Duro Canyon two days later, Wood was with his company stationed at Fort Sill; the Cheyenne Agency, Dakota Territory; and Fort Reno until October 11, 1876. On October 18, 1876, Wood was assigned to the faculty at West Point as Assistant Instructor of Cavalry Tactics, where he was promoted to first lieutenant on November 25, 1876. In August 1878 he returned to Fort Reno shortly before the break-out resulting in the Northern Cheyenne Exodus. Wood was assigned command  of a small detachment of Company G, 4th Cavalry and marched north to join the pursuit. His detachment of 20 troopers joined a mixed force of soldiers and cowboys searching for the Cheyenne. On September 21, 1878, at Little Sandy Creek near present-day Ashland, Kansas, Wood led his company in a mounted charge to rescue two wounded cowboys ambushed and trapped in a small canyon. His company became part of a mixed command of cavalry and infantry under Lieut. Col. William Lewis of the 19th Infantry that pursued and caught the Cheyenne in another canyon at Punished Woman's  Fork, near present-day Scott City. Lewis attacked on the late afternoon of September 27, 1878, using dismounted cavalry including Wood's company in skirmish lines, and temporarily succeeded in pinning down the Cheyenne in the canyon. Lewis was mortally wounded by a sharpshooter during the engagement and the Cheyenne escaped after dark. For these engagements Wood was brevetted for gallantry in action in 1891. He returned with the detachment to Fort Reno in December 1878 and served with Company G until June 28, 1879. From July 9, 1879, to February 1, 1880, Wood served as regimental quartermaster at Fort  Clark. The regiment relocated to Fort Garland, Colorado, in October 1879 in response to the "Meeker Massacre" bu Ute Indians, and in March 1880 returned to Fort Reno. In May, 1881, Wood's company was part of an expedition that moved the Uncompaghre Utes to the new Ouray Agency in Utah, and then continued to Arizona to quell an outbreak of hostilities with Apaches, before being posted to Fort Stanton, New Mexico, on November 17. He remained there until March 10, 1883, when he went on leave of absence. For the next ten months Wood traveled to Europe, where he  observed maneuvers of the French Army, and was promoted to captain on June 30, 1883, while in France. He returned to Fort Stanton on January 22, 1884. In May his troop marched to Fort Huachuca, Arizona, where Wood served as post commander and operated in the field against the Chiricahua Apaches. On July 31, 1886, he was posted to Fort Bowie, Arizona, with frequent duty in the field, until September 29, 1887. His troop returned to Fort Huachuca, where it was stationed until May 1890, with Wood taking extended leave for illness for four months in 1888. In the autumn  of 1889 the entire regiment assembled at Fort Grant for a camp of instruction and field maneuvers. In May 1890 Wood's battalion of the 4th Cavalry transferred to the Department of California, stationed at the Presidio of San Francisco. Yosemite National Park. On October 1, 1890, President Benjamin Harrison signed into law the legislation creating Yosemite National Park. The act did not provide for management or protection of the park from trespassers, in particular game poachers and lumbermen. However a precedent for detailing Army troops to meet these concerns had been established when Congress had authorized the use of  troops to protect Yellowstone National Park in 1883. United States Secretary of the Interior John W. Noble requested Harrison to provide troops "to prevent timber cutting, sheep herding, trespassing, or spoliation in particular." On April 6, 1891, the commanding general of the Department of California detailed Troop I, 4th Cavalry to protect the park. The nature of Yosemite meant that the duties and problems of the 4th Cavalry would be different from those encountered in Yellowstone. Big game animals were not present in numbers to attract poachers, nor were there geysers or other fragile formations that careless tourists might "spoil