History of Dakota Territory, volume I, Part 53

Author: Kingsbury, George Washington, 1837-; Smith, George Martin, 1847-1920
Publication date: 1915
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : S.J. Clarke Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1198

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The officers and men under my command are not only entitled to my thanks, but the confidence of their country for their bravery, efficiency and promptness on this occasion. Not a man in any capacity flinched a particle. My special thanks are due to Adjt. Henry M. Atkinson, Regimental Quartermaster J. S. McCormick and Commissary Lieut. J. Q. Goss for valuable services rendered ine immediately preceding and during the engagement. All of which is respectfully submitted. R. W. FURNAS,

Colonel Second Nebraska Cavalry.

CAPT. JOHN H. PEEL,

Adjutant General Indian Expedition.

HON. CHARLES H. MCINTYRE Yankton, 1866

JOHN H. SHOBER Pioneer of Bon Homme, 185%

LABAN H. LITCHFIELD United States marshal, 1963 to 1575

CAPTAIN FRANK M. ZIEBACH Founder of the Weekly Dakotan 1×61. In command of militia at Yankton during the Indian War of 1562 and later.

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The report of Col. David S. Wilson, of the Sixth Iowa, adds very little to the details of the battle not mentioned in the report of Major House, also of the Sixth, already given. Colonel Wilson was engaged in the battle with the First Battalion of his regiment, the Second remaining at Brigade headquarters, and House having the Third. Arriving at the battlefield, Wilson says in his report :

I then proceeded to carry out your orders to surround the Indians and drive them in. On every side of the battlefield were straggling Indians endeavoring to escape. Immediately joining the flank of the First on the Second Battalion, and marching both in line, we suc- ceeded in driving a large portion of the Indians toward your headquarters down into a ravine. By the shifting and dressing of the line as it marched I became detached from the First and was thrown into the Third Battalion, The Indians, after having been quietly driven quite a distance into a common center, availed themselves of the darkness that was coming by suddenly firing upon us, which fire, though entirely unexpected, was immediately returned by us with terrible effect. We then commenced making preparations to fight on foot, when the darkness became so impenetrable that it was impossible to proceed further. It was at this fire of the enemy, when riding some little distance in advance of the battalion that my horse was shot with a slug, fatally wounding him. He lived long enough to carry me about thirty rods. After the darkness set in we went into camp immediately on the battlefield, corralled our horses and threw out pickets, while the command slept upon its arms. The night was excessively dark and cold, but the picket guard killed two Indians that were found straggling near our camp. At length the day appeared, when we found that the eneiny, availing themselves of the darkness, had suddenly decamped, but leaving the country strewed for miles around with their dried meats, provisions, packs, robes, tepees, goods and ponies.

We lost in this engagement one commissioned officer, Lient. T. J. Leavitt, of Company B, ten privates and had eleven wounded, one of them since dying.

Colonel Wilson then mentions Acting Maj. J. Gallagher, Capt. A. B. More- land, Lieut. W. A. Heath and Serg. R. Aubrey also Capt. J. Logan and Lieut. S. M. Parker and Capt. T. W. Burdick as entitled to the highest praise. Wilson also pays a deserved tribute to the Third Battalion and to their "brave Major House." Also to Lieut. George E. Dayton, of Company C, and Serg. Maj. Charles WV. Fogg for bravery during the night of the battle, and also going out in charge of a detail searching for wounded men upon the battle field. Wilson also speaks highly of the commanding general and his successful management of the cam- paign in the face of many discouragements and difficulties consequent upon the drouth and many unavoidable but serious impediments. In concluding his re- port Wilson says :

I herewith enclose a couple of letters that were found upon an Indian by some of my regiment. Inclosed in one were two gold dollars and some gold dust. They seem to cor- roborate the story that the Indians in July last surrounded a Mackinaw boat descending the Missouri River from the gold mines, and after fighting with the crew all day succeeded in killing the entire number.

Skirmish at White Stone Hill-Report of Lieutenant Hall, in command of scouting expedition sent out by General Sully, after Battle of White Stone Hills. September 5th .- Skirmish with Indians near White Stone Ifills.

Headquarters, Company F, Second Nebraska Cavalry, Camp No. 41, Dakota Territory, September, 1803.

Captain :- In compliance with orders from Brigadier General Sully, commanding Indian expedition, I proceeded, on the morning of September 5. 1863, with twelve men of the Second Nebraska Cavalry and fifteen men from the Sixth lowa Cavalry under my command. on a scout in search of Surgeon Bowen, Sergeant Newcombe and eight others missing from the Second Nebraska Cavalry after the battle of White Stone Hli on the 3d instant. 1 proceeded in a northeasterly direction from the battlefield, and when fifteen miles distant therefrom I was attacked by a party of some three hundred Indians, and seeing that I could not successfully resist their attacks, I retreated slowly, returning the enemy's fire until my command was so closely pressed by the enemy that the men increased the rapidity of their retreat, without orders. I attempted to halt them several times, but unsuccessfully. The enemy all the time pressed closely on my rear, and also endeavored to cut off my retreat to camp, from which I had started in the morning, and at which I had arrived with what remained of my command about 12.00 M. that day, the enemy pursuing to within four miles of the camp. The casualties on this scout were six men and four horses killed. Sergeant

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Blair, Company K. Second Nebraska Cavalry, Sergeant Rogers, Sgt. S. N. Smith and Sgt. Isaac L. Winget, of the Sixth Iowa Cavalry, assisted me in my efforts to control the men and check their hasty retreat.

The following is a list of the killed under my command. (In a footnote is stated, names omitted, list shows six killed.)

I discovered no trace of the missing of whom I was in search, who, however, returned to camp a short time after my return and on the same day. The men under my command succeeded while retreating in killing six Indians and four ponies and wounding many others, the number not known.

All of which is respectfully submitted.

CHARLES W. HALL,

First Lieutenant Company F, Second Nebraska Cavalry, Commanding Detachment. CAPT. JOHN H. PEEL,

Assistant Adjutant General.

CHAPTER XXVIII MINNESOTA INDIANS REMOVED TO DAKOTA

1863

FRIENDLY INDIANS FORCED TO LEAVE MINNESOTA-SANTEES AND WINNEBAGOES RE- MOVED TO CROW CREEK, DAKOTA-FORT TIIOMPSON BUILT-THIRTY-EIGHT SAN- TEES ON TIIE SCAFFOLD-CAUSES OF THE INDIAN WAR-ENCOURAGED BY TIIE CON- FLICT BETWEEN THE NORTH AND SOUTH-INDIANS NATURALLY UNFRIENDLY TO WHITE RACE-DEATH OF LITTLE CROW-THIE WEISMANN MASSACRE-DIRT LODGES ON JAMES RIVER-IIEART RIVER TRAGEDY-JACOBSON KILLED AT JAMES RIVER FERRY-APPOINTMENTS-PROCLAMATION BY ACTING GOVERNOR-NEWTON ED- MUNDS APPOINTED GOVERNOR OF DAKOTA.

The Indian massacres in Minnesota during August, 1862, had left such a deep-seated sentiment of animosity in the minds of the white people of that state as to demand the wholesale removal of all Indians beyond the borders of Minnesota. The sentiment was so intensely bitter that it awakened the anxiety of the authorities for the safety of the friendly Indians who had not been en- gaged in any act of hostility for a generation. The settlers had organized in the vicinity of the reservations with the avowed purpose of killing any Indian that should get within range of their guns. It was therefore determined to remove the Indians to Dakota, and the order for their removal and the execution were practically simultaneous, for while an agent was ascending the Missouri River to select a location for them, about one thousand five hundred of the exiled race of both sexes and all ages belonging to the Santee tribes were loaded on the steamboat Florence and started for their new homes not yet selected. The people removed were that portion of the tribe of Santee Sioux who had not been openly engaged in the Little Crow hostilities, and the Winnebagoes, who were known only as friendly Indians, not having been even suspected of a hostile act. The Winnebagoes, however, were sent overland.

Col. Clark W. Thompson, superintendent of Indian affairs for the Northern Superintendency of Minnesota, reached Yankton on the 15th of May, 1863. His mission was to select a reservation in Dakota for the Santees and Winnebagoes who had been banished from Minnesota. The Winnebagoes had quite recently sold their Minnesota reservation to the government and had been promised that another should be given to them in that state. But the recent massacres had engendered such bitterness of feeling on the part of the whites, that to settle them again within the state was deemed equivalent to a death sentence, and to secure their own safety their removal beyond the state's boundary was urgently de- manded. It was also believed that their settlement in Minnesota would prove a constant and serious barrier to immigration.

The exiled Santees were those who were found to have taken no part in the late Little Crow outbreak, including largely the aged squaws and the children, but they were under the ban of a deadly hatred and for their own security they were removed. Colonel Thompson proceeded up the Missouri expecting to find a suitable location within a short distance of the Yankton reservation, and not far above Fort Randall, on this side of the river. This he was unable to do. and discovered no country he was willing to accept until he reached the vicinity of

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Crow Creek. Although this Crow Creek country had been ceded, it was within the authority of the President of the United States to withdraw any portion of it from settlement and set it apart for reservation purposes. The superintendent made his selection at this point, marking out a reservation with a frontage on the Missouri River of thirty miles and extending back from the river over a fine body of tillable land to the highlands, embracing about one half million acres. Work was commenced without delay in making the improvements demanded for the care of the Indians. A detachment of sixty soldiers from Fort Randall had been detailed to erect the various buildings, and these were under the special direction of Colonel Thompson.

The agency stockade was laid out in a square 300 feet on each side, and around this area a ditch was dug three feet wide and three feet deep. In this ditch were set cedar posts or pickets fifteen feet long, which gave a wall twelve feet above the surface of the ground. Within the stockade there were two stores and a warehouse on the west side and close to the pickets. On the north was the schoolhouse for the Winnebagoes ; the interpreter's quarters, the agent's quarters and the doctor's rooms, and on the northeast corner, the soldiers' barracks. On the east side were the boarding house, blacksmith shop, wagon maker's and car- penter's shop. On the south were the Sioux Indian buildings- one surgeon's quarters, two agent's quarters, interpreter's quarters for three, and four school- houses, with barracks for soldiers in the southwest corner. On the northwest and southwest corners of the stockade, bastions were constructed, outside the pickets, on which cannon were stationed. Openings were made in the pickets of the stockade, eight feet from the ground, large enough to admit the barrel of a rifle, to be used in case of attack. Gates were provided in the north and south sides of the same material as the pickets. The stockade was located about one-half mile from the river, the intervening bottom being well timbered. The site of the fort was on an elevation, a very attractive spot, and near it outside the pickets was the sawmill in the edge of the forest. In addition to these structures, a large area of land was broken up in the vicinity of the agency where the Indians could carry on such farming operations as they were capable of conducting. Many of them had gained considerable knowledge of farming in Minnesota.

Two weeks later, on the 26th of May following Thompson's arrival, the steamer Florence halted at Yankton a few hours, having on board 1,400 Santee Sioux, largely families, and men, women and children, on their way to their new home. They had been hurried away from Minnesota to save their lives. Their appearance indicated suffering and it was the opinion of some Yankton visitors to the shore where the boat lay that there was not an Indian on board that could be said to be free from some malady.

[The reader will need to refer to this chapter after reading of the Crow Creek difficulties under President Cleveland's administration, 1885.]

They were dejected, despondent, broken-hearted and their appearance indi- cated all this with the added discomforts and deprivations to which they were necessarily subjected on the crowded boat, suggesting animals rather than human beings.

The Winnebagoes had not been subjected to this indignity but were permitted to move across the plains with their ponies and tepees and accomplished the journey leisurely and without mishap.

The military authorities captured a large number of the Santees who were suspected of taking part in the outbreak under Little Crow. These were tried by court martial for murder and ninety of them convicted and sentenced to be hanged. President Lincoln commuted the sentence of fifty-two of them, and the remaining thirty-eight were hanged all at the same time at Mankato, on Friday the 26th day of December, 1862, while a much larger number had been sentenced to imprisonment for various periods.

A description of the final tragedy in the lives of these condemned savages was given in a letter from Mankato, under date of December 29, 1862, only a

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portion of which is given here: "At half past seven Friday morning prepara- tions were begun for execution. The irons were knocked off from the con- demned men and their elbows were pinioned behind and their wrists in front, but about six inches apart. After this was done they stood up in a row around the room and sang a death song, after which they smoked. A priest then came in and religious services were held, which sensibly affected the Indians; some of them were weeping. White caps were then put on their heads, made of muslin taken from the Indians when captured, who had previously taken it from the stores of the traders they had killed. They were all now seated, and some of them gazed into the small looking glasses each one carried, evidently to take a last look and discover whether their faces betrayed any fear. At 10 o'clock they were marshaled in procession and marched through a file of soldiers to the gallows, which had been so constructed that all could be hanged at one time. They marched eagerly and even cheerfully to the fatal spot. As they ascended the scaffold they chanted a death song that was truly hideous, although it seemed to inspire them with new courage. One young fellow who had been given a cigar just before marching from their quarters, was smoking it on the gallows, puffing away very coolly during the intervals of the 'lu-gi-ye-hi-yi-yi,' and even after the cap was drawn over his face he managed to get the cap up over his mouth and smoke. Another one smoked a pipe. The noose having been promptly adjusted over the neck of each, all was ready for the fatal signal. The scene at this time was one of awful interest. A painful, breathless sus- pense held the vast crowd which had collected from all quarters to witness the execution. Three slow, measured and distinct beats of the drum, and the rope was cut and the scaffold fell, and 38 bodies were dangling at the end of as many ropes. One of the ropes gave away and the body of Rattling Runner fell to the ground. He showed little signs of life and his neck had probably been broken, but he was hanged again. For so many there was evidently but little suffering. The necks of all were probably dislocated, and there was little struggling. When the drum beat, numbers of them reached out and clasped the hands of their neighbors and continued to hold them vise-like until the bodies were cut down, which was done in twenty minutes after the scaffold fell. the surgeon pronouncing life extinct. The bodies were then cut down, placed in four army wagons and taken to the grave prepared for them among the willows on the sandbar in the Minnesota River, nearly in front of the town. They were all placed in one grave, thirty feet long by twelve feet wide and four feet deep, being laid on the bottom in two rows, their feet together, their heads on the outside. They were then covered with their blankets and the earth thrown over them. Some few squaws witnessed the execution, but no male Indian."

Major F. J. Dewitt was appointed by Acting Governor Hutchinson to the position of trader at the new agency, which was named Fort Thompson, as a compliment to its founder. By virtue of his office, the governor was superin- tendent of Indian affairs for Dakota and had the appointment of the agency traders. Hutchinson was now acting governor, William Jayne, former governor, having resigned March 4th, to take his seat as delegate in Congress from Dakota.

The immediate cause of the serious Indian trouble and Indian wars, begin- ning in August, 1862, with the "Little Crow Massacre" in Minnesota, was at- tributed to the alleged dishonesty and peculations that characterized the official conduct of Indian affairs in our neighboring state. At the time of the outbreak in the summer of 1862, and for some time after, circumstantial statements were published showing that gross frauds had been perpetrated in connection with the annuities furnished the Indians by the general Government, and it was claimed that these nefarious practices became so gross and heartless that the agency Indians were reduced to a condition of actual starvation, and that the outbreak was "the turning of the worm" who had been trodden upon until its life was

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nearly crushed out. The Indians engaged in the bloody work under Little Crow were regarded as a semi-civilized tribe, and as friendly to the white people as any of the Sioux nation. They were not professing Christians, but well ad- vanced in the way to become a civilized people. They had largely abandoned the nomad life and were in many cases settled in their own homes, raised horses and cattle, and cultivated the soil. They had, in great part, forsaken the blanket and put on apparel similar to the palefaces, and for many years had been accustomed to associate familiarly with the whites. Suddenly all this was changed. In a few brief weeks these apparently civilized Indians were trans- formed from a harmless and inoffensive people to hostile demons thirsting for the blood and the lives of their old neighbors, slaying without discrimination the old and young, men and women, with all the ferocity of savage beasts. It is difficult to realize that these monsters of cruelty could have ever been sin- cerely friendly to the whites. Had their deadly animosity been directed only toward the individuals whom they charged with robbing and wronging them, and when these were dispatched the outrages had ceased, it might well be claimed that their hatred did not extend to all white people, but such was not the case. Every person who wore the skin of the paleface was marked for slaughter, and above five hundred perished-put to death by the most cruel tortures the savage could devise. It must be remembered, too, that this Little Crow out- break was apparently the signal for hostilities over all the Northwest, from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains and as far south as Southern Kansas, and within a very brief period of time the Sioux, almost without exception, had changed their attitude from one of apparent friendship to that of implacable hostility. It would seem that the widespread revolution of sentiment was due to a cause that appealed alike to the Indian nature, regardless of location or local conditions.

For a great many years prior to the Minnesota, or Little Crow, outbreak, the Dakotah nation of Indians had manifested no unusual signs of hostility, with the exception of the Spirit Lake massacre in 1857, which was the act of a roving band of outlaws bent on rapine and not in retaliation for any particular grievance, nor was it openly counseled or approved by the tribe to which the outlaws belonged. Regarding this atrocity a brief historical sketch of the massacre, compiled under the auspices of the State Historical Society of Minne- sota, relates :

Among the Indians (Sioux) there was a single band under the leadership of Ink-pa- du-ta, or the Scarlet Point, of about fifteen lodges which had been for many years an independent band, and of a thieving, vagabondish character (really outlaws from the Sioux nation and not represented in the treaties of 1851) who had taken possession of a strip of land running on both sides of the boundary line of Iowa and Minnesota, and extending to the Missouri River. In March, 1857, a few of these Indians were hunting in the neighborhood of Rock River, and one of them was hitten by a dog belonging to a white man. The dog was killed by the Indian, and in return the owner of the dog made an assault upon the Indian, and afterward gathered his neighbors and they went to the Indian camp and disarmed them. The arms were afterwards returned to them, and tlie party moved northeast, arriving at the Spirit Lake Settlement about the 6th of March, where they massacred the men and took four women into captivity. Other settlements were attacked and altogether forty-two settlers were killed. Two of the women were afterwards rescued through the efforts of Hon. Charles E. Flandreau, then the Indian agent. An effort was made to punish this band of savages, but all escaped except the oldest son of Ink-pa-du-ta, who had ventured into the camp of other Sioux near the agency and was killed in an attempt to capture him.

This statement is sufficient to show that the Sioux generally were not in- clined to hostilities.

The Dakotahis were on a peace footing with the "Great Father." though at war with other nations, such as the Mandans, Gros Ventres and Rees. This hostility, however, was hereditary, and did not seriously interfere with the whites. So far as the Government was concerned, the attitude of the Dakotahs was one of peace and an apparent desire for a continuance of peaceful relations

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such as then existed. It is safe to believe, however, that this attitude was not one of unswerving loyalty or sincere friendship for the paleface people. It may be assumed that the Indians as a body had never entertained a sentiment of sincere and substantial friendship for the white people.

The important matters of intercourse between the races had not been of a char- acter that would cultivate such a feeling on the part of the great majority of Indians, but there had been several centuries of acquaintance and a sort of rela- tionship which would seem to indicate that the Indians looked upon the whites as their enemies, implacable in their animosity. Viewed from the Indian stand- point this belief was justified by all the important transactions between the races from the earliest white settlement on this continent to the present time. The white race had been the aggressor, unavoidably and providentially so as we justify it, and had taken from the Indians their country, deprived them of their homes and compelled them from time to time to relinquish their domain, give up their abodes, their life-long cherished valleys and streams and hunting grounds, abandon the · graves of their ancestors and all that a people, whether savage or civilized, held most dear and sacred, and cherished with a tenacity that is as enduring as life itself : and find solace for their great and unwilling sacrifice in a few paltry dol- lars, beads and blankets, that were a sorry exchange for the mines of wealth in furs and peltries, in plains and rivers and forests, yielded up by the native race. The history of the intercourse between the white and red races in America has been distinctly marked by might and wrong on the part of the whites as the Indians look upon it, and being so it could not be expected that the status of the Indian toward the pale face could be other than antagonistic.

That this has been the unavoidable result of a destiny which human forces could not have controlled, does not change the conditions from the view point of the Indian, who with feelings of bitter resentment sadly realizes that the white man's hand has clutched the red man's throat for centuries, and has gradually forced him back and narrowed the circle of his domain.

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History of Dakota Territory, volume I, Part 53

Author: Kingsbury, George Washington, 1837-; Smith, George Martin, 1847-1920 Publication date: 1915 Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : S.J. Clarke Publishing Company Number of Pages: 1198

Author: Kingsbury, George Washington, 1837-; Smith, George Martin, 1847-1920
Publication date: 1915
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : S.J. Clarke Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1198