USA > Minnesota > Douglas County > History of Douglas and Grant counties, Minnesota : their people, industries, and institutions, Volume I > Part 14
USA > Minnesota > Grant County > History of Douglas and Grant counties, Minnesota : their people, industries, and institutions, Volume I > Part 14
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CHAPTER V.
THE SIOUX OUTBREAK AND THE OLD STOCKADE.
"There have been many theories advanced to account for the Sioux out- break of 1862, but they are for the most part superficial and erroneous," declares the Rev. Edward Duffield Neill in his comprehensive "History of Minnesota." Little Crow, in his written communications to Colonel Sibley, explaining the causes which had provoked hostilities on the part of the Indians, makes no allusion to the treaties, but stated that his people had been driven to acts of violence by the suffering brought upon them by the delay in the payment of their annuities, and by the bad treatment they had received from the traders. In fact, nothing has transpired to justify the conclusion that when the bands first assembled at the agency, there was anything more than the usual chronic discontent among them, superinduced by the failure of the government, or its agents, faithfully to carry out the stipulations of the different treaties. During the trial of the prisoners before the military commission every effort was. made to elicit evidence bearing upon the out- break and the motives which actuated the leaders in inaugurating the bloody work. The only inference that can be drawn from all these sources of infor- mation is, that the movement was not deliberate and predetermined, but was the result of various concurrent causes, such as the long delay in the payment of the annuities after the Indians were assembled, and an insufficient supply of food in the interim; dissatisfaction with the traders; alleged encroach- ment of settlers upon the Indian reservation; ill-feeling of the pagan Indians against the missionaries and their converts and the predictions of the medicine-men that the Sioux would defeat the white men in battle and then reoccupy the whole country after clearing it of the whites. Add to these the facts, well known to the Indians, that thousands of young and able- bodied men had been dispatched to aid in suppressing the Southern rebellion and that but a meager force remained to garrison Ft. Ridgely and Ft. Aber- crombie, the only military posts in proximity to their country, and it will be perceived that, to savages who held fast to their traditional attachment to the British crown, and were therefore not friendly to the Americans, the temptation to regain their lost possessions must have been strong. It was
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fresh in their minds, also, and a frequent subject of comment on their part, that the government had taken no steps to punish Ink-pah-du-tah and his small band, who had committed so many murders and other outrages upon citizens at Spirit Lake in 1857.
APPLICATION OF THE TORCH TO THE MAGAZINE.
It is, however, by no means certain that all of these considerations combined would have resulted in open hostilities, save for an occurrence which proved to be the application of the torch to the magazine. Five or six young warriors, wearied of the inaction of a stationary camp life, accord- ing to Neill, made an excursion along the outer line of the Big Woods in a northern direction, with the avowed intention of securing the scalp of a Chippewa, if practicable. Being unsuccessful in their search, they retraced their steps to Acton, a small settlement in Meeker county, on August 17, 1862, and through some means they obtained whisky and drank freely. They ' made a demand for more liquor from a man named Jones and were refused, whereupon the infuriated savages fired upon and killed not only Jones, but two other men, Webster and Baker, and an elderly woman and a young girl. Terrified at their own violence and fearful of the punishment due to their crimes, these savages made their way back to the camp at the Lower Agency, confessed their guilt to their friends and implored protection from the venge- ance of the outraged laws. They all belonged to influential and powerful families and when the whole affair had been discussed in solemn conclave in the "Soldiers Lodge" it was determined that the bands should make common cause with the criminals, and the following morning was fixed upon for the extermination of the unsuspecting whites at the agencies and of all the white settlers within reach.
According to Holcombe's history of the outbreak it was about August 12 that twenty Lower Indians went over into the big woods of Meeker and McLeod counties to hunt. Half a dozen of the Rice Creek band were of the party. One of Shakopee's band, named Island Cloud, had business with Capt. George C. Whitcomb, of Forest City, later commander of the stockade at Alexandria, concerning a wagon which the Indian had left with the captain. Reaching the hunting grounds in the southern part of Meeker county, the party divided, Island Cloud and four others proceeding to Forest City and the remainder continuing in the township of Acton. On the morning of August 17 four Rice Creek Indians were passing along the Henderson and Pembina road, in the central part of Acton township. Their names in Eng-
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lish were Brown Wing, Breaks Up and Scatters, Ghost That Kills and Crawls Against and none was more than thirty years of age. As these Indians were passing the house and premises of Robinson Jones, four miles south of the present site of Grove City, one of them found some hen's eggs in a fence corner and proceeded to appropriate them. One of his comrades remonstrated against the taking of the eggs, because they belonged to a white man, and a discussion amounting to a quarrel resulted. The Ghost Killer and his three companions went to the Jones house and, according to the statement that Jones presently made to his family, demanded whisky which he declined to give them. Alarmed at their menacing attitude, Jones fled from his house to that of his stepson, Howard Baker, living half a mile north, whither his wife had gone a day or two before and where at the time was staying a young couple, Viranus Webster and wife, Wisconsin folk, who were seeking a homestead in Minnesota. Upon leaving his home Jones left his foster children, Clara D. Wilson, a girl of fifteen, and the latter's baby brother. Walking leisurely, the Indians followed Jones to the Baker house and there, after some apparently friendly parley, shot and killed Jones, Baker, Webster and Mrs. Jones, after which they returned to the Jones house and shot Clara Wilson through the heart, but did not molest the infant. Mrs. Baker and Mrs. Webster made their way to the home of the nearest settler and the neighborhood was aroused, the word of the murders being passed on to all the adjoining settlements.
THE HISTORIAN'S CONCLUSION.
Holcombe concludes that "all of the attendant circumstances prove that the murder of the five persons at Acton was not concocted by any other Indians than the four that did the deed, and that they had no accessories before or after the fact. It was not perpetrated because of dissatisfaction at the delay in the payment, nor because there were to be soldiers at the pay table: it was not occasioned by the sale of the ten-mile strip of the reserva- tion, nor because so many white men had left Minnesota and gone into the Union army. It was not the result of the councils of the soldiers' lodge, nor of any other Indian plot. The twenty or more Indians who left Rice Creek on August 12 for the hunt did not intend to kill white people; if they had so intended, Island Cloud and all the rest would have been present at and have participated in the murders at Baker's and Jones', and carried off much portable property, including horses. The trouble started as has been stated-from finding a few eggs in a white man's fence corner."
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About six o'clock on the morning of the next day, August 18, 1862, according to Neill's account, a large number of Sioux warriors, armed and in their war paint, assembled about the buildings at the Lower Agency. It had been rumored purposely in advance that a war-party was to take the field against the Chippewas, but no sooner had the Indians assumed their several positions, according to the program, than an onslaught was made indiscrim- inately upon the whites, and with the exception of two or three men who concealed themselves, and a few of the women and children who were kept as captives, no whites escaped destruction but George H. Spencer, who although twice seriously wounded, was saved from instant death by the heroic intervention of his Indian comrade, Wak-ke-an-da-tah, or "Red Lightning." A number of persons also were slain at the Upper Agency, but through the agency of "Other Day," a Christian Indian, the missionaries, the Rev. Stephen R. Riggs and the Rev. Dr. Thomas Williamson and their families and others, numbering in all about sixty persons, were saved, the party being conducted safely through the Indian country to the white settlements.
EVERY FRONTIER DWELLING A CHARNEL HOUSE.
The massacre of the people, the pillage of stores and dwellings, and the destruction of the buildings having been consummated, parties were dis- patched to fall upon the settlers on farms and in villages along the entire frontier, extending nearly two hundred miles. The scenes of horror con- sequent upon the general onslaught can better be imagined than described. Fortunate, comparatively speaking, was the lot of those who were doomed to instant death, and thus spared the agonies of lingering tortures and the superadded anguish of witnessing outrages upon the persons of those near- est and dearest to them. The fiends of hell could not invent more fearful atrocities than were perpetrated by the savages upon their victims. The bullet, the tomahawk and the scalping-knife spared neither age nor sex, the only prisoners taken being the young and comely women, to minister to the brutal lusts of their captors, and a few children. In the short space of thirty-six hours, as nearly as could be computed, eight hundred whites were cruelly slain. Almost every dwelling house along the extreme frontier was a charnel house, containing the dying or the dead. In many cases the torch was applied and maimed and crippled sufferers, unable to escape, were con- sumed with their habitations. The alarm was communicated by refugees to the adjacent settlements, and soon the roads leading east and to the pro-
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tected centers were crowded by thousands of men, women and children, in the wild confusion of sudden flight.
After accomplishing their mission of death the savages assembled in force and attempt to take Ft. Ridgely by a coup de main. In this they were foiled by the vigilance and determination of the garrison, aided by volunteers who had escaped from the surrounding settlements. The attack was continued for several days, but without success. The town of New Ulm also was assailed by a strong force of the savages, but was gallantly defended by volunteers from the neighboring counties, under the command of Col. C. H. Flandrau. Captain Dodd, an old and prominent citizen of St. Peter, was among the killed at this latter point. Ft. Abercrombie, on the Red river, also suffered a long and tedious siege by the bands of Sioux from the Lac qui Parle country, until relieved by a force dispatched by Governor Ramsey from St. Paul.
SUPPRESSION OF THE SIOUX.
The first advices of the outbreak reached the state capital on the day succeeding the massacre at the Lower Agency: Instant preparations were made by Governor Ramsey to arrest the progress of the savages. At his personal solicitation, Henry H. Sibley, a resident of Mendota, whose long and intimate acquaintance with Indian character and habits was supposed to render him peculiarly fitted for the position, consented to take charge of military operations. He accordingly was commissioned by the governor, colonel commanding, and upon him in person devolved the conduct of the campaign.
Unfortunately, the state of Minnesota was lamentably deficient in the means and appliances requisite to carry on successfully a war of the formid- able character which this threatened to assume. The Sioux allied bands could bring into the field from eight hundred to one thousand warriors, and they might be indefinitely reinforced by the powerful divisions of the prairie Sioux. Those actually engaged in hostilities were good marksmen, splen- didly armed, and abundantly supplied with ammunition. They had been victorious in several encounters with detachments of troops, and had over- whelming confidence in their own skill. On the other hand, the state had already dispatched five thousand, more or less, of her choicest young men to the South, her arsenal was stripped of all the arms that were effective, and there was little ammunition on hand, and no rations. There was no government transportation to be had and the prospect was not by any means favorable. Goveror Ramsey, notwithstanding, acted with promptness and
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OLD STOCKADE AT ALEXANDRIA. FROM A CRAYON DRAWING MADE IN 1862. DURING THE DAYS OF MILITARY ACTIVITY THERE.
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LAND.OFFICE
U. S. LAND OFFICE-KNUTE NELSON IN DOORWAY.
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vigor. He telegraphed for arms and ammunition to the war department and to the governors of adjoining states. He authorized also the appropriation for the public use of the teams belonging to individual citizens, and adopted such other measures as the emergency demanded.
There were at Ft. Snelling, happily, the nuclei of regiments that had been called into service. Colonel Sibley left Ft. Snelling with four hundred men of the Sixth Regiment, Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, early on the morning of August 20. Upon an inspection of the arms and cartridges furnished, it was found that the former comprised worthless Austrian rifles, and the ammunition was for guns of a larger and different calibre. The command was detained several days at St. Peter, engaged in swedging the balls so as to fit the arms and in preparing canister-shot for the six-pounders. Meantime arms of a better quality were received, reinforcements of troops arrived and the column took up the line of march for Ft. Ridgley, which was reached without interruption, and the troops went into camp a short distance from the post, to await the reception of rations and to make the final prepara- tions for an advance upon the hostile Indians, who had drawn in their detached parties and were concentrating for a decisive battle.
BATTLES OF BIRCH COOLIE AND WOOD LAKE.
Scouts were dispatched to ascertain the location of the main Indian camp, and upon their return they reported no Indians below Yellow Medicine river. A burial party of twenty men, under the escort of one company of infantry and the available mounted force, in all about two hundred men, under the command of Major J. R. Brown, was detailed to proceed and inter the remains of the slain at the Lower Agency and at other points in the vicinity. The duty was performed, fifty-four bodies buried, and the detachment was en route to the settlements on Beaver river and had encamped for the night near Birch Coolie, a long and wooded ravine debouching into the Minnesota river, when, about dawn the following morning, the camp was attacked by a large force of Indians, twenty-five men killed or mortally wounded and nearly all the horses, ninety in number, shot down. Provi- dentially, the volleys of musketry were heard at the main camp, although eighteen miles distant, and Colonel Sibley marched to the relief of the beleaguered detachment, drove off the Indians, buried the dead, and the weary column then retraced its steps to the camp.
The period spent in awaiting necessary supplies of provisions was made (10)
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useful in drilling the men and bringing them under discipline. So soon as ten days' rations had been accumulated, Colonel Sibley marched in search of the savages, and on September 23, 1862, was fought the severe and decisive battle of Wood Lake. The action was commenced by the Indians and was bravely contested by them for more than two hours, when they gave way at all points and sent in a flag of truce, asking permission to remove their dead and wounded, which was refused. A message was sent back to Little Crow, the leader of the hostile Indians, to the effect that if any of the white pris- oners held by him received injury at the hands of the savages, no mercy would be shown the latter, but that they would be pursued and destroyed without regard to age or sex.
The success at Wood Lake was not achieved without serious loss. Two officers were severely wounded and nearly forty non-commissioned officers and privates were killed or wounded. The loss of the enemy was much greater, a half-breed prisoner stating it at thirty killed and a larger number wounded. Lieutenant-Colonel Marshall and Major Bradley, of the Seventh Regiment, distinguished themselves, the former leading a charge of five com- panies of his own and two companies of the Sixth Regiment, which cleared a ravine of the enemy, where they had obtained shelter. Lieutenant-Colonel Averill and Major McLaren, of the Sixth Regiment, also performed signal service, as did all the officers and men of both regiments. The Third Regi- ment, composed of fractions of six companies, fought gallantly, having for a time, in conjunction with the Renville Rangers, borne the brunt of the fight, and their loss was great in proportion.
PITIFUL SCENES AT CAMP RELEASE.
One of the main objects of the campaign, the deliverance of the white captives, was yet to be accomplished, and required the exercise of much judg- ment and caution. There was good reason to fear that, in the exasperation of defeat, the helpless prisoners might fall victims to the savages. Colonel Sibley, therefore, delayed his march towards the great Indian camp until the second day after the battle, to allow time to the friendly element to strengthen itself and to avoid driving the hostile Indians into desperate mcas- ures against their prisoners. On the 25th of September, the column, with drums beating and colors flying, filed past the Indian encampment and formed camp within a few hundred yards of it, on the heights overlooking the junc- tion of the Chippewa and the Minnesota rivers, at a point about two miles southwest of the present city of Montevideo. Colonel Sibley, with his staff
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and field officers, then proceeded to the lodges of the Indians and directed that all the captives should be delivered up to him, which was forthwith done; a sight thus being presented that sufficed to suffuse the eyes of strong men with tears. Young and beautiful women, who had for weeks endured the extremity of outrage from their brutal captors, followed by a crowd of chil- dren of all ages, came forth from the lodges, hardly realizing that the day of their deliverance had arrived. Convulsive sobbing was heard on every side and the poor creatures clung to the men who had come to their relief, as if they feared that some savage would drag them away. They were all escorted tenderly to the tents prepared for their reception and made as com- fortable as circumstances would admit. The number of pure whites thus released amounted to about one hundred and fifty, including one man only, George H. Spencer, whose preservation by "Red Lightning" has been noted above. Mr. Spencer expressed his gratitude to Colonel Sibley that the latter had not made a forced march upon the camp after the battle, stating emphatic- ally that if such a course had been pursued, it was the determination of the hostile Indians to cut the throats of the captives and then disperse to the prairies. There were delivered also nearly two hundred and fifty half-breeds, who had been held as prisoners.
PUNISHMENT OF THE GUILTY.
Two of the principal objects of the campaign, the defeat of the savages and the release of the captives, having thus been consummated, there remained but to punish the guilty. Many of these, with Little Crow, had made their escape and could not be overtaken, but some of the small camps of refugees were surrounded and their inmates brought back. The locality where these events transpired was appropriately called Camp Release and the spot has been marked by a grateful state by the erection of a beautiful granite shaft, suitably inscribed, commemorating the deeds of Colonel Sibley's relief expedi- tion and the release of the captives.
At the proper time the Indian camp was surrounded by a cordon of troops and four hundred of the warriors were arrested, chained together in pairs, and placed in an enclosure of logs made by the troops, under strong guard. Others who were known to be innocent were not interfered with. Colonel Sibley constituted a military commission, with Colonel Crooks, com- manding the Sixth Regiment, as president, for the trial of the prisoners. A fair and impartial hearing was accorded to each and the result was the find- ing of three hundred and three guilty of participation in the murder of the
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whites, and the sentence of death by hanging was passed upon them. Others were convicted of robbery and pillage and condemned to various terms of imprisonment, and a few were acquitted. The witnesses were composed of the released captives, including mixed bloods, and of Christian Indians, who had refused to join Little Crow in the war.
The preparations for the execution of the guilty Indians were brought to a summary close by an order from President Lincoln prohibiting the hang- ing of any of the convicted men without his previous sanction, sentimental persons in the East having demanded of the President a review of the pro- ceeding of the military court. The people of the state were highly indig- nant at this suspension and an energetic protest was made by their senators and representatives in Washington. Finally, after much delay, Colonel Sibley was directed to carry out the sentence of the commission in certain cases specified, and on December 26, 1862, thirty-eight of the criminals were executed accordingly at Mankato, on the same scaffold, under the direction of Colonel Miller, commanding that post. The remainder of the condemned were sent to Davenport, Iowa, early in the spring, where they were kept in confinement for more than a year, a large number dying of disease in the meantime. Those that remained eventually were dispatched to a reservation on the Upper Missouri, where the large number of prisoners taken by Colonel Sibley, principally women and children, had already been placed.
EFFECT OF THE UPRISING IN DOUGLAS COUNTY.
When the stage brought the news to the Alexandria settlement during those fateful days in August, 1862, that the Indians were collecting and putting on the war paint at the Yellow Medicine agency, much alarm was created in the hamlet and throughout the county, for trouble had been feared for some time, and the settlers were warned to flee if they desired safety. When the stage driver brought the news of the uprising all the settlers in the vicinity of Alexandria congregated on the town site and. held a "council of war." After some discussion of the news it was decided that the alarm must be a hoax and the farmers were advised to return to their fields, which they did. Four days later a messenger from Governor Ramsey reached this part of the state, driving post haste, distributing arms and ammunition and commanding the settlers to gather together, or rendezvous, and arm them- selves for safety. At Alexandria a few muskets and some ammunition were left with J. H. Van Dyke for distribution and all the settlers that could be reached were notified to arm or prepare for flight. On that same day prac-
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tically all the settlers in the community assembled at Alexandria and it was then and there decided that the women and children should at once be taken to Sauk Center or St. Cloud for safety, and the party lost no time in setting out, all save their most valuable personal possessions being left behind. At the same time the settlers in the several vicinities of Holmes City, Chippewa (Brandon) and Evansville and the few who had gathered in the vicinity of Osakis-who had not already gone, got together and all left, most of them going to Sauk Center or St. Cloud, while others scattered in various direc- tions, it being said that but two of the settlers remained in the county, Andreas Darling and N. P. Barnes. They conveyed their families to places of safety, but returned straightway and remained on their farms, undisturbed.
When the first squad of refugees from this section arrived at Sauk Center a consultation was held and it was decided that the men should return to their farms and attend to their crops. Accordingly, within a few days, they were on their way back, most of them being armed with some kind of a weapon, among those who returned at that time being recalled the names of Messrs Dicken, Barr, Redman, Darling, Barnes, Shotwell, Cowing, Can- field, Thompson, Ridley, Gager, Austin, Lewis, Rogers and several young men. Upon their arrival at Alexandria the party found everything just as it had been left, even the tables set as they were when the affrighted settlers had fled.
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