History of Freeborn County, including explorers and pioneers of Minnesota, and outline history of the state of Minnesota, Part 34

Author: Neill, Edward D. (Edward Duffield), 1823-1893. Explorers and pioneers of Minnesota. 1882; Neill, Edward D. (Edward Duffield), 1823-1893. Outline history of the state of Minnesota. 1882; Bryant, Charles S., 1808-1885. Sioux massacre of 1862. 1882; Bryant, Charles S., 1808-1885. State education. 1882; Minnesota Historical Company
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Minneapolis : Minnesota Historical Co.
Number of Pages: 576

USA > Minnesota > Freeborn County > History of Freeborn County, including explorers and pioneers of Minnesota, and outline history of the state of Minnesota > Part 34

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"The soldiers, now recovered from their panic, came gallantly to our aid, entered the warehouse and took possession. The Indians all stood around with their guns loaded, cocked and leveled. I spoke to them, and they consented to a talk. The result was, that they agreed, if I would give them plenty of pork and flour, and issue to them the annuity goods the next day, they would go away. I told them to go away with enough to eat for two

days, and to send the chiefs and head men for a council the next day, unarmed and peaceably and I would answer them. They assented and went to their camp. In the meantime I had sent for Captain Marsh, the commandant of Fort Ridgely, who promptly arrived early in the morning of the next day.

"I laid the whole case before him, and stated my plan. He agreed with me, and, in the after- noon, the Indians, unarmed, and apparently peaceably disposed, came in, and we had a 'talk,' and, in the presence of Captain Marsh, Rev. Mr. Riggs and others, I agreed to issue the annuity goods and a fixed amount of provisions, provided the Indians would go home and watch their corn, and wait for the payment until they were sent for. They assented. I made, on the 6th, 7th and 8th of August the issues as agreed upon, assisted by Captain Marsh, and, on the 9th of August the In- dians were all gone, and on the 12th I had defi- nite information that the Sissetons, who had started on the 7th, had all arrived at Big Stone Lake, and that the men were preparing to go on a buffalo hunt, and that the women and children were to stay and guard the erops. Thus this threatening and disagreeable event passed off, but, as usual, without the punishment of a single Indian who had been engaged in the attack on the warehouse. They should have been punished, but they were not, and simply because we had not the power to punish them. And hence we had to adopt the same 'sugar-plum' policy which had been so often adopted before with the Indians, and especially at the time of the Spirit Lake massacre, in 1857."

On the 12th day of Angust, thirty men enlisted at Yellow Medicine; and, on the 13th, accompa- nied by the agent, proceeded to the Lower Agency, where, on the 14th, they were joined by twenty more, making about fifty in all. On the afternoon of the 15th they proceeded to Fort Ridgely, where they remained until the morning of the 17th, when, having been furnished by Captain Marsh with transportation, accompanied by Lientenant N. K. Culver, Sergeant McGrew, and four men of Company B, Fifth Minnesota Volunteers, they started for Fort Snelling by the way of New Ulm and St. Peter, little dreaming of the terrible mes- sage, the news of which would reach them at the latter place next day, and turn them back to the defense of that post and the border.

On Monday morning, the 18th, at about 8 o'clock, they left New Ulm, and reached St. Peter

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at about 4 o'clock P. M. About 6 o'clock, Mr. J. C. Diekinson arrived from the Lower Agency, bringing the startling news that the Indians had broken out, and, before he left, had commenced murdering the whites.

They at onee set about making preparations to return. There were in St. Peter some fifty old Harper's Ferry muskets; these they obtained, and, procuring ammunition, set about preparing eart- ridges, at which many of them worked all night, and, at sunrise on Tuesday morning were on their way back, with heavy hearts and dark forebodings, toward the scene of trouble.

In the night Sergeant Sturgis, of Captain Marsh's company, had arrived, on his way to St. Paul, with dispatches to Governor Ramsey, from Lieutenant Thomas Gere, then in command of Fort Ridgely, bringing the sad news of the des- truetion of Captain Marsh and the most of his command at the ferry, at the Lower Agency, on Monday afternoon. They had but a slender chance of reaching the fort in safety, and still less of saving it from destruction, for they knew that there were not over twenty-five men left in it, Lieutenant Sheehan, with his company, having left for Fort Ripley on the 17th, at the same time that the "Renville Rangers" (the company from the Agencies) left for Fort Snelling. Their friends, too, were in the very heart of the Indian country. Some of them had left their wives and little ones at Yellow Medieine, midway between the Lower Agency and the wild bands of the Sissetons and Yanktonais, who made the attack upon the warc- house at that Agency only two weeks before. Their hearts almost died within them as they thought of the dreadful fate awaiting them at the hands of those savage and blood-thirsty monsters. But they turned their faces toward the West, de- termined, if Fort Ridgely was yet untaken, to enter it, or die in the attempt, and at abont sundown entered the fort, and found all within it as yet safe.

A messenger had been sent to Lieutenant Shee- han, who immediately turned back and had enter- ed the fort a few hours before them. There were in the fort, on their arrival, over two hundred and fifty refugees, principally women and children, and they continued to come in, until there were nearly three hundred.

Here they remained on duty, night and day, until the morning of the 28th, when reinforce-

ments, under Colonel McPhail and Captain Anson Northrup and R. H. Chittenden arrived.

The annuity money by Superintendent Thomp- son had been dispatched to the Agency in charge of his clerk, accompanied by E. A. C. Hatch, J. C. Ramsey, M. A. Daily, and two or three others.

On their arrival at the fort, on Tuesday night, Major Galbraith found these gentlemen there, they having arrived at the post Monday noon, the very day of the outbreak. Had they been one day sooner they would have been at the Lower Ageney, and their names would have been added, in all probability, to the long roll of the victims, at that devoted point of Indian barbarity, and about $10,000 in gold would have fallen into the hands of the savages.

Theso gentlemen were in the fort during the siege which followed, and were among the bravest of its brave defenders. Major Hatch, afterwards of "Hatch's Battalion" (cavalry), was particu- lary conspicuous for his cool courage and undaunt- ed bravery.

Thus it will be seen how utterly false was the information which the Indians said they had re- ceived that they were to get no money.

And notwithstanding all that has been said as to the cause of the outbreak, it may be remarked that the removal of the agent from Yellow Medi- cine, with the troops raised by him for the South- ern Rebellion, at the critical period when the In- dians were exasperated and excited, and ready at any moment to arm for warfare upon the whites, was one of the causes acting directly upon the In- dians to precipitate the blow that afterwards fell upon the border settlements of Minnesota on the 18th of August, 1862. Had he remained with his family at Yellow Medicine, as did the Winnebago agent, with his family, at the agency, the strong probability is that the attack at Yellow Medicine might have been delayed, if not entirely pre- vented.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

MURDER AT ACTON-MASSACRE AT THE LOWER AGENCY-CAPTURE OF MATTIE WILLIAMS, MARY ANDERSON AND MARY SCHWANDT-MURDER OF GEORGE GLEASON-CAPTURE OF MRS. WAKEFIELD AND CHILDREN.

We come now to the massacre itself, the terrible blow which fell, like a thunderbolt from a clear sky, with such appalling force and suddenness,

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upon the unarmed and defenceless border, crim- soning its fair fields with the blood of its murdered people, and lighting up the midnight sky with the lurid blaze of burning dwellings, by the light of which the affrighted survivors fled from the nameless terrors that beset their path, before the advancing gleam of the uplifted tomahawk, many of them only to fall victims to the Indian bullet, while vainly sceking a place of security.

The first blow fell upon the town of Acton, thirty-five miles north-east of the Lower Sioux agency, in the county of Meeker. . On Sunday, August 17, 1862, at 1 o'clock P. M., six Sioux In- dians, said to be of Shakopee's band of Lower An - nuity Sioux, came to the house of Jones and de- manded food. It was refused them, as Mrs. Jones was away from home, at the house of Mr. Howard Baker, a son-in-law, three fourths of a mile dis- tant. They became angry and boisterous, and fearing violence at their hands, Mr. Jones took his children, a boy and a girl, and went himself to Baker's, leaving at the liouse a girl from fourteen to sixteen years of age, and a boy of twelve- brother and sister-who lived with him. The In- dians soon followed on to Baker's. At Howard Baker's were a Mr. Webster and his wife, Baker and wife and infant child, and Jones and his wife and two children.

Soon after reaching the house, the Indians pro- posed to the three men to join them in target- shooting. They consented, and all discharged their guns at the target. Mr. Baker then traded guns with an Indian, the savage giving him $3 as the difference in the value of the guns. Then all commenced loading again. The Indians got the charges into their guns first, and immediately turned and shot Jones. Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Baker were standing in the door. When one of the savages leveled his gun at Mrs. Baker, her husband saw the movement, and sprang between them, receiving the bullet intended for his wife in his own body. At the same time they shot Webster and Mrs. Jones. Mrs. Baker, who had lier infant in her arms, seeing her husband fall, fainted, and fell backward into the cellar (a trap- door being open), and thus escaped. Mrs. Web- ster was lying in their wagon, from which the goods were not yet unloaded, and escaped unhurt. The children of Mr. Jones were in the house, and were not molested. They then returned to the house of Mr. Jones, aud killed and scalped the girl. The boy was lying on the bed and was undiscov-

ered, but was a silent witness of the tragic fate of his sister.

After killing the girl the savages left without disturbing anything, and going directly to the house of a settler, took from his stable a span of horses already in the harness, and while the fan- ily was at dinner, hitched them to a wagon stand- ing near, and without molesting any one, drove off' in the direction of Beaver Creek settlement and the Lower Agency, leaving Acton at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon. This span of horses, har- ness and wagon were the only property taken from the neighborhood by them.

The boy at Jones's who escaped massacre at their hands, and who was at the house during the entire time that they were there, avers that they obtained no liquor there that day, but even that when they came back and murdered his sister, the bottles upon the shelf were untouched by them. They had obtained none on their first visit before going over to Baker's. It would seem, therefore, that the very general belief that these first mur- ders at Acton, on the 17th, were the result of drunkenness, is a mistake.

Mrs. Baker, who was unhurt by the fall, re- mained in the cellar until after the Indians were gone, when, taking the children, she started for a neighboring settlement, to give the alarm. Before she left, an Irishman, calling himself Cox, came to the house, whom she asked to go with her, and carry her child. Cox laughed, saying, "the men were not dead, but drunk, and that, falling down, they had hurt their noses and made them bleed," and refusing to go with Mrs. Baker, went off in the direction taken by the Indians. This man Cox had frequently been seen at the Lower Agen- cy, and was generally supposed to be an insane man, wandering friendless over the country. It has been supposed by many that he was in league with the Indians. We have only to say, if he was, he counterfeited insanity remarkably well.

Mrs. Baker reached the settlement in safety, and on the next day '(Monday) a company of citizens of Forest City, the county seat of Meeker county, went out to Acton to bury the dead. Forest City is twelve miles north of that place. The party who went out on Monday saw Indians on horse- back, and chased them, but failed to get near enough to get a shot, and they escaped.

As related in a preceding chapter, a council was held at Rice Creek on Sunday, at which it was de- cided that the fearful tragedy should commence

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HISTORY OF THE SIOUX MASSACRE.

on the next morning. It is doubtful whether the Acton murders were then known to these con- spirators, as this council assembled in the after- noon, and the savages who committed those mur- ders had some forty miles to travel, after 3 o'clock in the afternoon, to reach the place of this coun- cil. It would seem, therefore, that those murders could have had no influence in precipitating this council, as they could not, at that time, have been known to Little Crow and his conspirators.

The final decision of these fiends must have been made as early as sundown; for by carly dawn al- most the entire force of warriors, of the Lower tribes, were ready for the work of slaughter. They were already armed and painted, and dispersed through the scattered settlements, over a region at least forty miles in extent, and were rapidly gath- ering in the vicinity of the Lower Agency, until some 250 were collected at that point, and sur- rounded the houses and stores of the traders, while yet the inmates were at their morning meal, or asleep in their beds in fancied security, all un- conscious of the dreadful fate that awaited them. The action was concerted, and the time fixed. The blow was unexpected, and unparalleled! In the language af Adjutent-General Malmros:

"Since the formation of our general Govern- ment, no State or Territory of the Republic has received so severe a blow at the hands of the sar- ages, or witnessed within its borders a parallel scene of murder, butchery, and rapine."

Philander Prescott, the aged Government In- terpreter at that Agency, who had resided among the Sioux for forty-five years, having a wife and children allied to them by ties of blood, and who knew their language and spoke it better than any man of their own race, and who seemed to under- stand every Indian impulse, had not the slightest intimation or conception of such a catastrophe as was about to fall upon the country. The Rev. S. R. Riggs, in a letter to a St. Paul paper, under date of August 13, writes that "all is quiet and orderly at the place of the forthcoming payment." This gentleman had been a missionary among these people for over a quarter of a century. His. intimate acquaintance with their character and language were of such a nature as to enable him to know and detect the first symptoms of any in- tention of committing any depredations upon the whites, and had not the greatest secrecy been ob- served by them, the knowledge of their designs would undoubtedly have been communicated to

either Mr. Prescott, Mr. Riggs, or Dr. Williamson, who had also been among them almost thirty years. Such was the position of these gentlemen that, had they discovered or suspected any Jurking signs of a conspiracy, such as after developments satisfy us actually existed, and had failed to com- municate it to the authorities and the people, they would have laid themselves open to the horrible charge of complicity with the murderers. But whatever may be the public judgement upon the course afterward pursued by the two last-named gentlemen, in their efforts to shield the guilty wretches from that punishment their awful crimes so justly merited, no one who knows them would for a moment harbor a belief that they had any suspicion of the coming storm until it burst upon them.

A still stronger proof of the feeling of security of these upon the reservation, and the belief that the recent demonstrations were only such as werd of yearly occurrence, and that all danger was passed, is to be found in the fact that, as late au, the 13th of August, the substance of a dispatch was published in the daily papers of St. Paul, from Major Galbraith, agreeing fully with thu views of Mr. Riggs, as to the quiet and orderly conduct of the Indians. This opinion is accom. panied by the very highest evidence of human sincerity. Under the belief of their peaceabla disposition, he had, on the 16th day of August, sent his wife and children from Fort Ridgely to Yellow Medicine, where they arrived on Sunday, the 17th, the very day of the murder at Acton, and on the very day, also, that the conucil at Rice Creek had decided that the white suce in Minne- sota must either perish or be driven back east of the Mississippi. But early on this fatal Monday morning Mr. Prescott and Res. J. D. Hinmay learned from Little Crow that the storm of savage wrath was gathering, and about to break upos their devoted heads, and that their only safety was in instant flight.

The first crack of the Indiaz. guns that fell az. his ear, a moment afterward, round Prescott and Hinman, and his household freeing for their lives,

"While on the billowy bosom of the air Rolled the dread notes of anguish and despair."

Mrs. Hinman was, fortunately, then at Fari- bault. All the other members of the family es- caped with Mr. Hinman co Fort Ridgely. The slaughter at the Agency now commenced. John Lamb, a teamster, was shot down, near the house

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of Mr. Hinman, just as that gentleman and his family were starting on their perilous journey of escape. At the same time some Indians entered the stable, and were taking theretrom the horses belonging to the Government. Mr. A. H. Wag- ner, Superintendent of Farms at that Agency, en- tered the stable to prevent them, and was, by order of Little Crow, instantly shot down. Mr. Hin- man waited to see and hear no more, but fled toward the ferry, and soon put the Minnesota river between himself and the terrible tragedy euact- ing behind him.

At about the same time, Mr. J. C. Dickinson, who kept the Government boarding-house, with all his family, including several girls who were working for him, also succeeded in crossing the river with a span of horses and a wagon; these, with some others, mostly women and children, who had reached the ferry, escaped to the fort.

Very soon after, Dr. Philander P. Humphrey, physician to the Lower Sioux, with his sick wife, and three children, also succeeded in crossing the river, but never reached the fort. All but one, the eldest, a boy of about twelve years of age, were killed upon the road. They had gone about four miles, when Mrs. Humphrey became so much exhausted as to be unable to pro- ceed further, and they went into the house of a Mr. Magner, deserted by its inmates. Mrs. Hum- phrey was placed on the bed; the son was sent to the spring for water for his mother. * The boy heard the wild war-whoop of the savage break upon the stillness of the air, and, in the next moment, the ominous crack of their guns, which told the fate of his family, and left him its sole survivor. Fleeing hastily toward Fort Ridge- ly, about eight miles distant, he met the com- mand of Captain Marsh on their way toward the Agency. The young hero turned back with them to the ferry. As they passed Magner's house, they saw the Doctor lying near the door, dead, but the house itself was a heap of smouldering ruins; and this brave boy was thus compelled to look upon the funeral pyre of his mother, and his little brother and sister. A burial party afterward found their charred remains amid the blackened ruins, and gave them Christian sepulture. In the charred hands of the little girl was found her china doll, with which she refused to part even in death. The boy went on to the ferry, and in that disas- trous conflict escaped unharmed, and finally made his way into the fort

In the meau time the work of death went on. The whites, taken by surprise, were utterly de- fenseless, and so great had been the feeling of se- curity, that many of them were actually unarmed, although living in the very midst of the savages. At the store of Nathan Myrick, Hon. James W. Lynd, formerly a member of the State Senate, Andrew J. Myrick, and G. W. Divoll were among the first victims. * * * In the store of Wil- liam H. Forbes were some five or six persons, among them Mr. George H. Spencer, jr. Hearing the yelling of the savages outside, these men ran to the door to ascertain its cause, when they were instantly fired upon, killing four of their number, and severely wounding Mr. Spencer. Spencer and his uninjured companion hastily sought a tempo- rary place of safety in the chamber of the build- ing.

Mr. Spencer, in giving an account of this open- ing scene of the awful tragedy, says:

" When I reached the foot of the stairs, I turned and beheld the store filling with Indians. One had followed me nearly to the stairs, when he took deliberate aim at my body, but, providentially, both barrels of his gun missed fire, and I succeeded in getting above without further injury. Not ex- pecting to live a great while, I threw myself upou a bed, and, while lying there, could hear them opening cases of goods, and carrying them out, and threatening to burn the building. I did not relish the idea of being burned to death very well, so I arose very quietly, aud taking a bed-cord, I made fast one end to the bed-post, and carried the other to a window, which I raised. I intended, in case they fired the building, to let myself down from the window, and take the chances of being shot again, rather than to remain where I was and burn. The man who went up-stairs with me, see- ing a good opportunity to escape, rushed down through the crowd and ran for life; he was fired upon, and two charges of buckshot struck him, but he succeeded in making his escape. I had been up-stairs probably an hour, when I heard the voice of an Indian inquiring for me. I recognized his voice, and felt that I was safe. Upon being told that I was up-stairs, he rushed up, followed by ten or a dozen others, and approaching my bed, asked if I was mortally wounded. I told him that I did not know, but that I was badly hurt. Some of the others came up and took me by the hand, and appeared to be sorry that I had been hurt. ! They then asked me where the guns were. I

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pointed to them, when my comrade assisted me in getting down stairs.

" The name of this Indian is Wakinyatawa, or, in English, 'His Thunder.' He was, up to the time of the outbreak, the head soldier of Little Crow, and, some four or five years ago, went to Washı- ington with that chief to see their Great Father. He is a fine-looking Indian, and has always been noted for his bravery in fighting the Chippewas. When we reached the foot of the stairs, some of the Indians cried out, 'Kill him!' 'Spare no Americans!' 'Show mercy to none!' My friend, who was unarmed, seized a hateliet that was lying near by, and declared that he would ent down the first one that should attempt to do me any further harm. Said he, 'If you had killed him before I saw him, it would have been all right; but we have been friends and comrades for ten years, and now that I have seen him, I will protect him or die with him.' They then made way for us, and we passed out; he procured a wagon, and gave me over to a couple of squaws to take me to his lodge. On the way we were stopped two or three times by armed Indians on horseback, who inquired of the squaws ' What that meant?' Upon being answered that " This is Wakinyatawa's friend, and he has saved his life,' they suffered us to pass on. His lodge was about four miles above the Agency, at Little Crow's village. My friend soon came home and washed me, and dressed my wounds with roots. Some few white men succeeded in making their escape to the fort. There were no other white men taken prisoners."

The relation of "comrade," which existed be- tween Mr. Spencer and this Indian, is a species of Freemasonry which is in existence among the Sioux, and is probably also common to other In- dian tribes.

The store of Louis Robert was, in like manner, attacked. Patrick McClellan, one of the clerks in charge of the store, was killed, There were at the store several other persons; some of them were killed and some made their eseape. Mr. John Nairn, the Government carpenter at the Lower Sioux Agency, seeing the attack upon the stores and other places, seized his children, four in num- ber, and, with his wife, started out on the prairie, making their way toward the fort. They were accompanied by Mr. Alexander Hunter, an at- tached personal friend, and his young wife. Mr. Nairn had been among them in the employ of the Government, some eight years, and bad, by his

urbane manners and strict attention to their in- terests, seeured the personal friendship of many of the tribe. Mr. Nairn and his family reached the fort in safety that afternoon. Mr. Hunter had, some years before, frozen his feet so badly as to loso the toes, and, being lame, walked with great difficulty. When near an Indian village below the Agency, they were met by an Indian, who urged Hunter to go to the village, promising to get them a horse and wagon with which to make their es- cape. Mr. Hunter and his wife went to the Indian village, believing their Indian friend would re- deem his promises, but from inability, or some other reason, he did not do so. They went to the woods, where they remained all night, and in the morning started for Fort Ridgely on foot. They had gone but a short distance, however, when they met an Indian, who, without a word of warning, shot poor Hunter dead, and led his distracted young wife away into captivity.

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