History of Houston County, Including Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota, Part 44

Author: Edward D. Neill
Publication date: 1882
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 547

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Minnesota, thus situated, thus lovely in her virgin youth, had one dark spot resting on the horizon of her otherwise cloudless sky. The dusky savage, as we have seen, dwelt in the land. And, when all was peace, without a note of warning, that one dark spot, moved by the winds of savage hate, suddenly obscured the whole sky, and poured out, to the bitter dregs, the vials of its wrath, without mixture of mercy. The blow fell like a storm of thunderbolts from the clear, bright heavens. The storm of fierce, savage murder, in its most horrid and frightful forms, rolled on. Day passed and night came;

"Down sank the sun, nor ceased the carnage there- Tumultuous horrors rent the midnight air,"

until the sad catalogue reached the fearful number of two thousand human victims, from the gray- haired sire to the helpless infant of a day, who lay mangled and dead on the ensanguined field! The dead were left to bury the dead; for

"The dead reigned there alone."

In two days the whole work of murder was done, with here and there exceptional cases in differ- ent settlements. And during these two days a population of thirty thousand, scattered over some eighteen counties, on the western border of the state, on foot, on horseback, with teams of oxen and horses, under the momentum of the panic thus

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HISTORY OF THE SIOUX MASSACRE.

created, were rushing wildly and frantically over the prairies to places of safety, either to Fort Ridgely or to the yet remaining towns on the Min- nesota and Mississippi rivers. Flight from an in- vading army of civilized foes is awful; but flight from the uplifted tomahawk, in the hands of sav- age fiends in pursuit of unarmed men, women and children, is a scene too horrible for the stoutest heart. The unarmed men of the settlements offer- ed no defense, and could offer none, but fled before the savage horde, each in his own way, to such places as the dictates of self preservation gave the slightest hope of safety. Some sought the protec- tion of the nearest slough; others crawled into the tall grass, hiding, in many instances, in sight of the lurking foe. Children of tender years, hacked and beaten and bleeding, fled from their natural protectors, now dead or disabled, and, by the aid of some trail of blood, or by the instincts of our common nature, fled away from fields of slaughter, cautiously crawling by night from the line of fire and smoke in the rear, either toward Fort Ridgely. . or to some distant town on the Minnesota or the Mississippi. Over the entire border of the State, and even near the populous towns on the river, an eye looking down from above could have seen a human avalanche of thirty thousand, of all ages, and in all possible plight, the rear ranks maimed and bleeding, and faint from starvation and the loss of blood, continually falling into the hands of inhuman savages, keen and fierce, on the trail of the white man. An eye thus situated, if human, could not endure a scene so terrible. And angels from the realms of peace, if ever touched with human woe, over such a scene might have shed tears of blood; and, passing the empyreal sphere into the Eternal presence, we might see . * * "God lament, And draw a cloud of mourning round his throne."

Who will say, looking on this picture, that the human imagination can color it at all equal to the sad reality ? Reality here has outdone the highest flights to which fancy ever goes! The sober- minded Governor Sibley, not unused to the most horrible phases of savage life, seeing only a tithe of the wide field of ruin, giving utterance to his thoughts in official form, says: "Unless some crushing blow can be dealt at once upon these too successful murderers, the state is ruined, and some of its fairest portions will revert, for years, into the possession of these miserable wretches, who, of all devils in human shape, are among the most cruel

and ferocious. To appreciate this, one must see, as I have, the mutilated bodies of their victims. My heart is steeled against them, and if I have the means, and can catch them, I will sweep them with the besom of death." Again, alluding to the narrations of those who have escaped from the scenes of the brutal carnage, he says: "Don't think there is an exaggeration in the horrible pictures given by individuals-they fall far short of the dreadful reality."

The Adjutant-General of the state, in an official document, has attempted, by words of carefully- measured meaning, to draw a picture of the scenes we are feebly attempting to present on paper. But this picture is cold and stately com- pared with the vivid coloring of living reality. "During the time that this force was being mar- shaled and engaged in the march to this point (St. Peter), the greater portion of the country above was being laid waste by murder, fire and robbery. The inhabitants that could make their escape were fleeing like affrighted deer before the advancing gleam of the tomahawk. Towns were deserted by the residents, and their places gladly taken by those who had fled from more sparsely- settled portions of the regions. A stream of fugitives, far outnumbering the army that was marching to their relief, came pouring down the valley. The arrivals from more distant points communicated terror to the settlements, and the inhabitants there fled to points still further in the interior, to communicate in turn the alarm to others still further removed from the scene of hos- tilities. This rushing tide of humanity, on foot, on horse, and in all manner of vehicles, came meet- ing the advancing columns of our army. Even this sign of protection failed to arrest their pro- gress. On they came, spreading panic in their course, and many never halted till they had reached the capital city of the state; while others again felt no security even here, and hurriedly and rashly sacrificed their property, and fled from the state of their adoption to seek an asylum of safety in some of our sister states further removed from the sound of the war-whoop."

Thirty thousand panic-stricken inhabitants at once desert their homes in the midst of an indis- criminate slaughter of men, women and children. All this distracted multitude, from the wide area of eighteen counties, are on the highways and byways, hiding now in the sloughs, and now in the grass of the open prairie; some famishing for

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THE COUNTRY DEPOPULATED.

water, and some dying for want of food; some barefooted, some in torn garments, and some en- tirely denuded of clothing; some, by reason of wounds, crawling on their hands, and dragging their torn limbs after them, were all making their way over a country in which no white man could offer succor or administer consolation. The varied emotions that struggled for utterance in that frag- mentary mass of humanity cannot be even faintly set forth in words. The imagination, faint and aghast, turns from the picture in dismay and hor- ror! What indelible images are burned in upon the tablets of the souls of thousands of mothers bereft of their children by savage barbarity! What unavailing tears fall unseen to the ground from the scattered army of almost helpless in- fancy, now reduced by cruel hands to a life of cheerless orphanage! How many yet linger around the homes they loved, hiding from the keen-eyed savage, awaiting the return of father, mother, brother, or friend, who can never come again to their relief! We leave the reader to his own contemplations, standing in view of this mournful picture, the narration of which the heart sickens to pursue, and turns away with more be- coming silence!

The scene of the panic extended to other coun- ties and portions of the State remote from all ac- tual danger. The Territory of Dakota was de- populated, except in a few towns on the western border. Eastward from the Minnesota river to the Mississippi, the inhabitants fled from their homes to the towns of Red Wing, Hastings, Wabasha, and Winona; and thousands again from these places to Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and some to distant New England friends.

Thirty thousand human beings, suddenly forced from their homes, destitute of all the necessaries of life, coming suddenly upon the towns in the Minnesota Valley, can easily be supposed to have been a burden of onerous and crushing weight. It came like an Alpine avalanche, sweeping down, in the wildness of its fury, upon the plain. No wisdom could direct it; no force could resist it. No power of description is equal to the task of presenting it in fitting words. It was horribly "grand, gloomy, and peculiar." One faint picture must here suffice.

St. Peter, on the morning of the 19th of August, 1862, manifested some unwonted commotion. Couriers arrived before the dawn of that day, an- nouncing the alarming news that the neighboring

town of New Ulm was on fire, and its inhabitants were being massacred by the savages, led by Lit- tle Crow. At the same time, or a little previous, came the tidings that Fort Ridgely was in immi- nent danger; that Captain Marsh had been killed, and his command almost, if not entirely, cut off, in attempting to give succor to the Lower Agency, which had been attacked on the morning of the 18th, the day previous, and was then in ashes. By nine o'clock the news of these events began to meet a response from the surrounding country. Horsemen and footmen, from different parts of Nicollet and Le Sueur counties, came hurrying into town, some with guns and ammunition, but more without arms. Men were hurrying through the streets in search of guns and ammunition; some were running bullets, while others were fit- ting up teams, horses, and provisions. Busiest among the agitated mass were Hon. Charles E. Flandrau and Captain William B. Dodd, giving directions for a hasty organization for the purpose of defending New Ulm, or, if that was impossible, to hold the savages in check, outside of St. Peter, sufficiently long to give the men, women, and children some chance to save their lives by hasty flight, if necessary. Every man, woman, and child seemed to catch the spirit of the alarming moment. Now, at about ten o'clock, Judge Flan- drau, as captain, with quick words of command, aided by proper subalterns in rank, with one hun- dred and thirty-five men, armed as best they could be, with shot-guns, muskets, rifles, swords, and re volvers, took up the line of march for New Ulm. At an earlier hour, fifty volunteers, known as the Renville Rangers, on their way to Fort Snelling, had turned their course toward Fort Ridgely, taking with them all the Government arms at St. Peter.

With the departure of these noble bands went not only the wishes and prayers of wives, mothers, brothers, sisters, and children for success, but with them all, or nearly all, the able-bodied citizens capable of bearing arms, together with all the guns and ammunition St. Peter could muster. For one moment we follow these little bands of soldiers, the hope of the Minnesota Valley. Their march is rapid. To one of these parties thirty weary miles intervened between them and the burning town of New Ulm. Expecting to meet the savage foe on their route, flushed with their successful massacre at New Ulm, the skirmishers-a few men on horseback-were kept in advance of the hurry-

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ing footmen. Before dark, the entire force des- tined for New Ulm reached the crossing of the Minnesota at the Red Stone Ferry. Here, for a moment, a halt was ordered; the field of ruin lay in full view before them. The smoke of the burn- ing buildings was seen ascending over the town. No signs of life were visible. Some might yet be alive. There was no wavering in that little army of relief. The ferry was manned, the river was crossed, and soon New Ulm was frantic with the mingled shouts of the delivered and their deliv- erers. An account of the hard-fought battle which terminated the siege is to be found in another chapter of this work. Such expedition has seldom, if ever, been chronicled, as was exhib- ited by the deliverers of New Ulm. Thirty miles had been made in a little over half a day, travel- ing all the time in the face of a motley crowd of panic-stricken refugees, pouring in through every avenue toward St. Peter.

The other party, by dusk, had reached Fort Ridgely, traveling about forty-five miles, crossing the ravine near the fort at the precise point where one hundred and fifty Indians had lain in ambush awaiting their approach until a few moments be- fore they came up, and had only retired for the night; and, when too late to intercept them, the disappointed savages saw the Renville Rangers enter the fort.

But let us now return to St. Peter. What a night and a day have brought forth! The quiet village of a thousand inhabitants thus increased by thousands, had become full to overflowing. Every private house, every public house, every church, school-house, warehouse, shed, or saloon, and every vacant structure is full. The crowd throng the public highways; a line of cooking- stoves smoke along the streets; the vacant lots are occupied, for there is no room in the houses. All is clatter, rattle, and din. Wagons, ponies, mules, oxen, cows and calves are promiscuously distrib- uted among groups of men, women and children. The live stock from thousands of deserted farms surround the outskirts of the town; the lowing of strange cattle, the neighing of restless horses, the crying of lost and hungry children, the tales of horror, the tomahawk wounds undressed, the bleeding feet, the cries for food, and the loud wailing for missing friends, all combine to burn into the soul the dreadful reality that some ter- rible calamity was upon the country.

But the news of the rapid approach of the

savages, the bodies of the recently-murdered, the burning of houses, the admitted danger of a sudden attack upon St. Peter, agitated and moved that vast multitude as if some volcano was ready to engulf them. The overflowing streets were crowded into the already overflowing houses. The stone buildings were barricaded, and the women and children were huddled into every conceivable place of safety. Between hope and fear, and prayer for succor, several weary days and nights passed away, when, on the 22d day of August, the force under Colonel Sibley, fourteen hundred strong, arrived at St. Peter.

Now, as the dread of immediate massacre was past, they were siezed with a fear of a character en- tirely different. How shall this multitude be fed, clothed and nursed? The grain was unthreshed in the field, and the flour in the only mill left standing on the Minnesota, above Belle Plaine, was almost gone. The flouring-mill at Mankato, twelve miles above, in the midst of the panic, had been burned, and fears were entertained that the mill at St. Peter would share the same fate. Nor had this multitude any means within themselves to support life a single day. Every scheme known to human ingenuity was canvassed. Every device was suggested, and every expedient tried. The multitude was fearfully clamoring for food, rai- ment, and shelter. The sick and wounded were in need of medicine and skillful attention. Between six and seven thousand persons, besides the citi- zens of the place, were already crowding the town; and some thousand or fifteen hundred more daily expected, as a proper quota from the two thousand now compelled to abandon New Ulm. The gath- ering troops, regular and irregular, were moving, in large numbers, upon St. Peter, now a frontier town of the State, bordering on the country under the full dominion of the Annuity Sioux Indians, with torch and tomahawk, burning and murdering in their train.

A committee, aided by expert clerks, opened an office for the distribution of such articles of food, clothing and medical stores as the town could furnish, on their orders, trusting to the State or General Government for pay at some fu- ture day. So great was the crowd pressing for relief, that much of the exhausting labor was per- formed while bayonets guarded the entrance to the building in which the office of distribution was held. A bakery was established, furnishing two thousand loaves of bread per day, while many pri-

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REFUGEES AT ST. PETER.

vate houses were put under requisition for the same purpose, and, aided by individual benevo- lence throughout the town, the hungry began to be scantily fed. A butcher-shop was pressed into the needed service, capable of supplying ten thou- sand rations a day over and above the citizens' ordinary demand. Still, there was a vast moving class, single persons, women, and children, not yet. reached by these well-directed efforts. The com- mittee, feeling every impulse of the citizens, to satisfy the demand for food fitted up a capacious soup-house, where as high as twelve hundred meals were supplied daily. This institution was a great success, and met the entire approval of the citizens, while it suited the conditions of the pe- culiar population better than any other mode in which relief could be administered. Soup was al- ways ready; and its quality was superior. The aged and the young could here find relief, singly or in families; the well relished it, and the sick found it a grateful beverage. In this way the committee, aided by the extreme efforts of private charity, ever active and vigilant, continued for weeks to feed the refugees at St. Peter, taxing every energy of body and mind from twelve to sixteen hours per day. The census of the population was never taken; but it is believed that, after the arri- val of the refugees from New Ulm, and a portion of the inhabitants from Le Sueur county, east of the town, excluding the fourteen hundred troops under Colonel H. H. Sibley, who were here a part of the time, the population of St. Peter was at least nine thousand. This was an estimate made by the committee of supplies, who issued eight thousand rations of beef each day to refugees alone, estimating one ration to a person. The ra- tion was from a half-pound to a pound, varied to meet the condition of persons and families.

But the task of feeding the living did not stop with the human element. The live stock, horses and oxen, with an innumerable herd of cattle from a thousand prairies, ruly and unruly, furious from fright, so determined on food that in a few days not a green spot could be protected from their vo- racions demands. Fences offered no obstruction. Some bold leader laid waste the field or garden, and total destruction followed, until St. Peter was as barren of herbage, with scarce an exception, as the Great American desert. The committee could not meet successfully this new demand. The sixty tons of hay cut by their order was only an aggravation to the teams of the Government and

the necessary demands of the gathering cavalry. Some military power seemed needed to regulate the collection and distribution of food in this de- partment. This soon came in an official order from Col. H. H. Sibley to a member of the com- mittee, assigning him to the separate duty of col- lecting food for Government use at St. Peter. A wider range of country was now brought under contribution, and such of the live stock as was re- quired for constant use was amply supplied. The cattle not required by the butchers were forced to a still wider extent of country.

Not only food, such as the mill, the bakery, the butcher-shop, and the soup-house could furnish was required among this heterogeneous multitude, but the infirm, the aged and the sick needed other articles, which the merchant and druggist alone could furnish. Tea, coffee, sugar, salt, soap, can- dles, wine, brandy, and apothecaries' drugs, as well as shoes, boots, hats, and wear for men, women and children, and articles of bedding and hospital stores, were demanded as being abso- lutely necessary. The merchants and druggists of the town honored the orders of the committee, and this demand was partially supplied. In all these efforts of the town to meet the wants of the refugees, it was discovered that the limit of sup- ply would soon be reached. But the demand still continued inexorable. The fearful crisis was ap- proaching! Public exertion had found its limit; private benevolence was exhausted; the requisite stores of the merchant and the druggist were well- nigh expended. It was not yet safe to send the multitude to their homes in the country. The fierce savage was yet in the land, thirsting for blood. What shall be done? Shall this vast crowd be sent to other towns, to St. Paul, or still further, to other states, to seek relief from public charity ? or shall they be suffered to perish here, when all means of relief shall have failed ?

On the 13th of September, 1862, after a month had nearly expired, a relief committee, consisting of Rev. A. H. Kerr and F. Lange, issued an ap- peal, approved by M. B. Stone, Provost Marshal of St. Peter, from which we make a few extracts, showing the condition of things at the time it bears date. Previous to this, however, a vast number had left for other places, principally for St. Paul, crowding the steamboats on the Minnesota river to their utmost capacity. The appeal says:

"FRIENDS! BRETHREN! In behalf of the suf- fering, the destitute, and homeless-in behalf of

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. the widow, the fatherless, and the houseless, we make this appeal for help. A terrible blow has fallen upon this frontier, by the uprising of the Sioux or Dakota Indians. All the horrors of an Indian war; the massacre of families, the aged and the young; the burning of houses and the wanton destruction of property; all, indeed that makes an Indian war so fearful and terribly appalling, are upon the settlements immediately west and north- west of us.

"In some cases the whole family have been mur- dered; in others the husband has fallen; in others the wife and children have been taken captive; in others only one child has escaped to tell the sad story. Stealthily the Indians came upon the set- tlements, or overtook families flying for refuge. Unprotected, alarm and terror siezed the people, and to escape with life was the great struggle. Mothers clasped their little ones in their arms and fled; if any lagged behind they were overtaken by a shot or the hatchet. Many, many thus left their homes, taking neither food nor clothing with them. The Indians immediately commenced the work of pillaging, taking clothing and bedding, and, in many instances giving the house and all it con- tained to the flames. Some have lost their all, and many, from comparative comfort, are left ut- terly destitute. A great number of cattle have been driven back into the Indian country, and where a few weeks ago plenty abounded, desolation * * * now reigns. * * *

"Friends of humanity -- Christians, brethren, in your homes of safety, can you do something for the destitute and homeless? We ask for cast-off clothing for men, women and children-for shoes and stockings; caps for boys, anything for the lit- tle girls and infants; woolen underclothing, blankets, comfortables; anything, indeed, to alle- viate their sufferings. Can not a church or town collect such articles, fill a box and send it to the committee? It should be done speedily."

Circulars, containing the appeal from which we have made the above quotations, were sent to churches in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and throughout the towns and cities of New England. And similar appeals, from other places, were made, and met with universal re- sponse, worthy of men and women who honor the Christian profession. By these efforts, the refugees throughout the state were greatly relieved. In reply to these circulars about $20,000

were received, to which was added $25,000 by the state, for general distribution.

Other places on the frontier, such as Henderson, Chaska, Carver, and even Belle Plaine, Shakopee, and St. Paul, felt, more or less, the crushing weight of the army of refugees, as they poured across the country and down the Minnesota Val- ley; but no place felt this burden so heavily as the frontier town of St. Peter.

One reflection should here be made. Had New Ulm and Fort Ridgely fallen on the first attack, Mankato and St. Peter would have been taken be- fore the state troops could have offered the proper assistance. Had New Ulm fallen on the 19th, when it was attacked, and Fort Ridgely on the 20th, when the attack was made on that place, Mankato and St. Peter could easily have been reached by the 21st, when the state troops were below, on their way to St. Peter. The successful defense of these places, New Ulm and Fort Ridge- ly, was accomplished by the volunteer citizens of Nicollet, Le Sueur, and Blue Earth counties, who reached New Ulm by the 19th of August, and the Renville Rangers, who timely succored Fort Ridge- ly, by a forced march-of forty-five miles in one day, reaching the fort previous to the attack on that post. Whatever credit is due to the state troops, for the successful defense of the frontier and the rescue of the white captives, should be gratefully acknowledged by the citizens of Min- nesota. Such acts are worthy of lasting honor to all who were participants in those glorious deeds. But to the brave men who first advanced to the defense of New Ulm and Fort Ridgely, higher honor and a more lasting debt of gratitude are due from the inhabitants of the valley of the Min- nesota. Let their names be honored among men. Let them stand side by side with the heroes of other days. Let them rank with veteran brethren who, on Southern battle-fields, have fought nobly for constitutional freedom and the perpetuity of the Union of these states. These are all of them worthy men, who like

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History of Houston County, Including Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota, Part 44

Author: Edward D. Neill Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Number of Pages: 547

Author: Edward D. Neill
Publication date: 1882
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 547