Biography:

John Rutter Brooke was born in 1838 in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. He attended Ursinus College, and began his military career soon after graduation. He enlisted in the 4th Pennsylvania Infantry division in April 1861, but that division was dissolved early in the war. Brooke reenlisted, and was granted the rank of colonel at the age of 23, when he served as the commanding officer for the 53rd Pennsylvania volunteer regiment. Brooke’s regiment participated in many of the major battles of the Civil War, including Gettysburg and Antietam. Brooke suffered several injuries during the Civil War, but continued his military career in the post-bellum period. He served briefly in New Orleans, Louisiana, commanded the 3rd Infantry division during the westward campaign that drove American Indian people onto reservations, and was later moved to command the Department of the Platte in Omaha, Nebraska.
Under the direction of General Miles, Brooke led the 7th Cavalry in its “Sioux Campaign” in 1890. This military campaign was spurred by the rise of the Ghost Dance religion on the Dakota/Lakota reservations at Standing Rock and Pine Ridge in the spring of 1890. Settlers were threatened by what they perceived to be a preparation for war, and the United States military responded by building up forces around the reservations. Military officials began to pursue numerous tribal leaders, and attempted to force an end to the Ghost Dance religion, which prophesied that the damaged land would rejuvenate, the buffalo would return to the plains, the white settlers would leave Indian lands, and ancestors would return if the followers danced in the prescribed manner. When it became clear that the dancers would not surrender, the 7th Cavalry centered its forces along Wounded Knee Creek, where Lakota families had been camped. Most of the Lakota men had been disarmed, but on December 29, 1890, after an escalation of force, the cavalry killed several hundred men, women, and children in what would become known as the Wounded Knee massacre. Brooke stood behind the actions of the 7th Cavalry at Wounded Knee, and continued to rise in the military ranks. After several more years at the Platte, Brooke was promoted to command the 1st Corps of the Army during the Spanish-American War, when he was appointed military governor of Puerto Rico and, later, Cuba in 1898-1899. Upon his return to Washington, Brooke was made the commanding officer of the Department of the East on Governor’s Island, New York, at the rank of brigadier general, the post from which he retired in 1902. Brooke lived in Philadelphia until his death in 1926.