History of Dakota Territory, volume I, Part 77

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 vote on delegate to Congress in the various precincts of the territory was very light, as will be seen from the figures following, giving Doctor Bur- leigh and the national union tickets for legislative and county offices, majorities ranging from a close vote to a clean sweep. In Union County there were four precincts, in Clay County two, and but one in each of the other counties :

Union County, Sioux Point Precinct, Burleigh received 41 votes, and Brook- ings 15; Reandeu's precinct, Burleigh 98, Brookings 22; Elk Point precinct, Burleigh 53, Brookings 37; Brule Creek precinct, Burleigh 21, Brookings II ; Clay County, East Vermillion precinct, Burleigh 67; Brookings 15; West Ver- million precinct, Burleigh 12; Brookings 37. Total for Burleigh 79; Brook- ings 52; Yankton County, Burleigh 95; Brookings 87; Bon Homme County, Burleigh 17, Brookings 14; Charles Mix County, Burleigh 59, Brookings 2; Todd County, Burleigh 25, Brookings none; Pembina County (Red River), St. Joseph precinct, Burleigh .96; Pembina precinct, Burleigh 7. There was no Brookings ticket.

Total vote cast for delegate in the organized counties on the Missouri slope was 743; Burleigh receiving 489, and Brookings 254. Adding Red River the total vote was 846.

The territorial officers elected were M. K. Armstrong, Yankton, treasurer ; and I. T. Gore, Union County, Auditor.

Territorial Board of Education, John W. Turner, Clay County; Samuel A. Bentley, Bon Homme County ; and William Walters, Union County.

A COMPANY OF SOLDIERS SLAIN NEAR FORT PIIIL KEARNEY

Without warning, and when there was a general belief that the Indian troubles throughout the Northwest were pacified and settled, and the reign of peace restored, the Teton tribes west of the Missouri and north of the Cheyenne, broke out in open hostility carly in the spring of 1867. Many Indians who had been parties as members of the tribes who had joined in the recent treaties, took to the war path, and all seemed animated by a fiendish desire to slaughter. And because of the hundreds and even thousands of emigrants that were then pressing forward to the auriferous gulches and streams of Montana and Idaho from this direction, there was abundant opportunity for the Indians to gratify their fiendish temper. The cause of this sudden outbreak and the apparent deep-seated hostility of the natives was attributed very largely to the invasion of their landed domain by the gold-seeking emigrants. The Indians claimed that they had agreed to permit travel through this country only by boats; that the land travel was a violation of the treaties and that it did them permanent and incalculable injury in destroying the game, robbing their fishing grounds and trapping parks, and sowing the seeds of immorality among their young people both men and women. Probably many of the emigrants conducted them- selves in an imprudent, insolent, and in some cases, grossly immoral and dis- honest manner, in their intercourse with the Indian people, engendering a feel- ing of enmity and a desire for revenge. Added to these indignities was the apprehension of the Indians that so large an influx of white people signified an early abandonment of their land to make way for the aggressors. They were fighting, as they reasoned, for self-preservation, and by their horrid atrocities expected to frighten the whites out of the country and put a stop to their coming. The building of the Union Pacific Railroad was in progress at this time, an enterprise that found no favor whatever with the untamed children of the forest and plain, who regarded it as an enemy that would drive them from

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their buffalo ranges east of the mountains and exterminate the animal that furnished them their principal support.

About this time the frightful and atrocious massacre near Fort Phil Kear- ney, one of the posts built on the headwaters of Powder River in 1865, under General Sully's military administration, had aroused public interest and awakened an intense feeling throughout the country. This sanguinary slaughter occurred on the 21st of December, 1866, and was about the first of the hostile acts of the Indians. Three officers, Lieutenant-Colonel Fetterman, Captain Brown, and Lieutenant Greenwood with ninety soldiers were slain. Not one escaped. All were killed and scalped, their bodies chopped with knives and tomahawks, stripped of every article of clothing, and shot through and through with arrows. There were about three thousand Sioux Indians in the vicinity of the fort, and about one-half were engaged in this atrocity. The troops had been decoyed from the fort, caught in ambush, and slain to the last man. The number of Indians killed was reported at 500, and 1,000 wounded; but this was not credited, as the troops were at a great disadvantage and must have been allowed little time for defence.

Fort Phil Kearney was in the Territory of Dakota (now Wyoming), situated at Pine Forks at the base of the Big Horn Mountains on the northeast, and 250 miles from Fort Laramie. The particulars of the slaughter were never told by white men, for the reason that none were left to tell the story. It was only from the Indians who did the killing, that an account of the affair, which was something of a battle, but in its details partook more of a massacre, could be obtained ; and this came some months later. The following statement was made by a Sioux Indian chief, who participated in the tragedy, and confirms the partial account given by General Carrington, who was in command of the fort :

The Sioux had been hovering around the fort for some time, watching an opportunity to cut off the soldiers who came out for hay and fuel, and also for the purposes of capturing horses. They numbered about two thousand and were all warriors, with no women or children. The Indians finally hit upon a stratagem to draw the troops from the fort, expecting it would furnish an opportunity to capture the post and massacre the entire gar- rison. About two miles from the fort there was a deep coolie or ravine, and the main body of the Indians were stationed on opposite sides of this defile, lying close to the ground so as not to be seen; while a small number of their best riders were sent on a dash up near the fort where the Government horses were loose and stampeded them. The com- mander of the post sent out about ninety men and officers to pursue the Indians and recover the stock. The small band of marauders rode slowly enough to encourage the troops in pursuit as far as the narrow defile, where over twelve hundred Indians were concealed, prepared to destroy them. The trap was successful in every particular. After Colonel Fetterman and his men had fairly entered the defile, the Indians who lined its slopes on either side raised and fired a volley of arrows and bullets, killing on the spot all but seventeen of the soldiers and every officer. These seventeen, though a number of them were wounded, fought bravely and killed fifteen or twenty of the Indians, among them the thrce principal chiefs, before they were shot down. There was one soldier that neither arrows nor bullets would fell ; he had received a number of wounds, but stood up and fought hand to hand till overwhelmed by the Indians closing in upon him, when they carried him off a prisoner and finally tortured him to death. The Indians claim that they had 600 picked young warriors near the fort so as to make sure of its capture in case the troops should be sent out to the relief of their comrades. This was not done, though the firing was plainly heard at the fort.

This was the Indian account. From military sources it was ascertained that Colonel Fetterman disobeyed orders in following the Indians into the ravine. He was instructed to go no farther than the hill which bordered the upper end of the ravine. Had he confined himself to this limit, the tragedy could not have occurred as it did, and some portion of the command might have escaped, though they would have been compelled to fight their way through the 100 who had been stationed near the post. When the battle was visited by the officers of the fort, a ghastly spectacle was presented to their vision. The Indians had mangled the remains of the dead in the most barbarous manner. The bodies had all been stripped of their clothing and were brutally cut to pieces.

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One man was found with 256 arrows sticking in to his lifeless corpse, and nearly all the bodies were pierced with a score of arrows. These arrows had been shot into the dead bodies after the battle. It was the Indian way of emphazing their hatred of the whites. The officers killed were Lieutenant- Colonel Fetterman, Fifteenth Infantry; Capt. W. Brown, eighteenth Infantry ; 2nd Lieut. George Greenwood, eighteenth Infantry : and Lieutenant Bingham, 2d United States Cavalry. Colonel Carrington, commanding officer, engaged a scout to carry a dispatch with the fateful tidings to General Palmer, at Fort Laramie, 250 miles away, through a wilderness of mountain and plain, covered with a heavy snow. This scout made the journey and reached Laramie on New Year's evening, 1867, while a military ball was in progress. The music ceased, and there was no further sound of revelry. (The scout was paid $1 200 for his trip.) Palmer immediately sent a detachment of troops and supplies to the relief of the fort, supposing the post was in imminent danger. The weather turned intensely cold, and the march to Fort Phil Kearney was made through two feet of snow frequently, and the last twelve miles occupied two days, the road being impassable because of the depth of snow; resort was had to the shovel to clear away the obstruction. About seventy of the command, including officers as well as private soldiers, were badly frozen, so that ampu- tation was necessary in many cases.

The military people alleged that the Civil Peace commissioners had fur- nished the Indians with guns and ammunition to hunt with; and there followed for a time a great war of words between the military and those who defended the peace commission, waxing so heated that it was claimed the two factions were as hostile to one another as were the Indians toward the whites, and that a few scalps would be enjoyed by either side.

These Indian hostilities ceased during the summer, and in November Gen- eral Sherman pronounced the Indian war ended. There had not, however, been an Indian war; but during the year '67, every month brought its crop of threatening rumors; the peace commission was kept busy making treaties; the control of the Indians had become a bone of contention between the Quakers and the Military, so that the public mind might have been impressed with a belief that a war was being or had been waged. Sherman's assurance of the termination of all hostile feeling referred to organized bodies of Indians pre- pared for war. It could not have been intended as an assurance that the frontiers were in no danger from marauding bands. These small war parties, whose pur- pose appears to have been plunder but who did not hesitate to kill, continued their predatory occupation, assailing the steamboats, capturing the emigrant trains, killing the emigrants and confiscating their goods and live stock; requir- ing the active efforts of the limited force of troops stationed at the various posts and agencies, to prevent their becoming more formidable.

A JANUARY BLIZZARD

An intense cold spell visited the settled portions of the territory in January, 1866, which was the cause of considerable suffering among the settlers, and many cases of freezing, but none fatal, Theophilus Brughier, who was engaged in the robe and fur trade along the upper river, had a train of fifty oxen engaged in hauling robes down the valley from his trading posts near Pierre, and every animal was frozen to death, and the train abandoned by the drivers, who were compelled to seek shelter at the fort.

.A wind and snow storm of alarming proportions, visited the entire settled part of the territory in February. It was a genuine blizzard, of the dangerous character, and continued to rage, with terrible fury. for thirty-six hours. Colonel Moody, and his successor in office, Mr. Miller, were out on the Govern- ment wagon road, near James River, when the storm suddenly burst upon them, and in their efforts to find their way into town, became lost. By good fortune,

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they ran against a barn belonging to W. W. Benedict, in the eastern suburb of the thinly inhabited town, where they were compelled to remain all night, suffer- ing painfully from cold, and would probably have perished had they ceased their exercise during the long night, for both were quite benumbed with cold, and compelled to resort to many expedients to keep from falling asleep. They escaped with frost-bitten feet, hands and faces. Similar experiences occurred to a number in all the settlements, the storm being widespread. This "blizzard" came up at a time when men were just preparing to quit their occupation for the day, and return home. Scores of people got lost, but fortunately stumbled upon an outbuilding or a neighbor's house, and spent the night safely-their families and friends, in the meantime, using every effort, through the night, to discover their whereabouts, and in some instances wailing bitterly under the belief that the worst had befallen them. People who were acquainted with the dangerous character of the "blizzard" remained in doors, and ventured out only when urged by the most pressing necessity. There was the class known as "Old Timers," who would take the precaution to fasten a strong cord to the door post, and then holding fast to this guide would make their way to a nearby neighbor's or to a barn, returning safely aided by the rope. It was the uniform testimony of these experienced ones that they lost all sense of direction as soon as the storm struck them.

Mr. Spink, the secretary of the territory, resided at Yankton, not far from the Missouri River. He was a man of unusual size and strength, and had heard the blizzard stories of the Dakota people, but was not inclined to give the bliz- zard credit for so much fury as the people had associated with it and having some reasonable excuse for a visit to a near-by store, concluded to test the stuff that blizzards are made of. The store was a block and a half distant; there were three buildings and a long strip of fence that guided him, and he reached the store somewhat exhausted, as he confessed. The storekeeper resided at his place of business, and was at home; and when his visitor prepared to depart, he cautioned him about clinging to the fence and buildings on his way back. The caution was of no value, for Mr. Spink was unable to find a vestige of fence or building after he left the store, and becanie so confused the first five min- utes that he realized he was lost. The wind blew from all directions, and no matter which way he turned the wind struck him squarely in the face and took away his breath. He struggled and stumbled for two hours and finally con- cluded he had fallen over the river bank. While under this delusion, his out- stretched hands came in contact with a structure of some sort, and through the snow he detected the glimmer of light; and keeping the light in view, a few struggles and steps brought him to the window through which the light beamed. Ile aroused the inmates and was admitted; his face had been exposed and was badly frozen. Ilis refuge was near the corner of Third and Locust streets, not a quarter of a mile from his residence. He remained here until noon of the fol- lowing day, and though the storm had only slightly abated, he made his way home in safety. In speaking of his blizzard experience later, he declared that the blizzard stories he had heard related, and could not credit, were so far from being an exaggeration, that they failed to convey any adequate idea of such a storm. No language could describe it, and to pass through one, exposed to its fury as he was, and come out alive, seemed little less than miraculous. The constant, furious, eddying wind, and blinding snow, simply deprived a person of all sense of direction, and left him a prey to doubtful chance.

These storms were of annual occurrence during the early years of Dakota's settlement, and two or three were not unusual during a winter season. They do not now appear to have been as furious and prolonged for the past twenty- five or thirty years, for what cause we can only conjecture. We believe a modi- fying influence has been exerted by the settlement of the country and the arti- ficial groves that have become so numerous and widespread. One of the most dangerous features attending a blizzard was where it broke out abruptly during

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the day time, and caught the farmers on the road or in town with their produce to sell, and citizens of the sparsely settled towns at their places of business. The blizzard usually came on without much warning, and would continue, as a rule, until the third day without intermission or modification. The most serious and dangerous form of this storm occurred when there was a fair depth of snow on the ground; the wind would lift this snow into the air and whirl it about in its furious eddies, and it was these forceful eddies that made breathing so difficult in the teeth of the gale. The blizzard snow gets finely pulverized, and will find its way through any crevice the wind can penetrate. Cattle suffer intensely if exposed to a blizzard even if protected by sheds; the snow clouds the animal's face, and is inhaled, and finally the nostrils are filled and packed with it, and the mouth covered with an icy crust, while the snow covers their head and eyes, blinding them. The doomed brute becomes frantic, rears and plunges, maddened by the tortures of suffocation, from the effects of which it finally succumbs. In some instances farmers lost their entire herd where the cattle were bunched together in open sheds, all perishing from suffocation.

THE LYNCHING OF HOGAN

James Hogan was lynched at Vermillion on the night of February 26. 1866. It was one of those cases where the people of the community felt that their personal safety demanded that the desperado should be put out of the way of doing violence to others, but after he had been lynched, it was said that it was a most barbarous thing to do and not altogether necessary. Hogan appears to have been a terror to the law abiding people; fond of drinking to excess, and desperate and ungovernable when influenced by drink. Dakota communi- ties were at that time emerging into orderly, law abiding communities, but public order had not become the settled rule, and men of the Hogan type were endured as a necessary evil until patience was worn out, and the gibbet called in as the only effectual remedy. There were no jails or places for confining vicious persons, though the courts were established. About four weeks before the lynching, a man named Hagan (not Hogan), had shot a hole through Herman Oleson's leg, with a revolver. This occurred at Vermillion, and cre- ated so much indignation that a number of the law-abiding citizens, without consultation, reached the conclusion that it would be necessary to make an example before they could put a stop to the disgraceful brawls and shooting scrapes which was injuring the fair name of the community. Hogan was drink- ing freely on the 26th, and in the afternoon, while in the land office, made a violent attack upon a young Norwegian, named Burgis, or Burgess, snapping a revolver at him several times while in McHenry's store, but the cap did not explode, or there may have been nonc. Hogan then walked out into the street, pointed his pistol at a number of parties and snapped it, but did no damage except to stir up a furious storm of indignation. He was playing the bully and seemed to have pleasure in terrorizing the people. Finally Patrick Hand grappled with him, secured his revolver and gave it to Captain Miner, who locked it up in the land office. Hogan entered the office in a perfect frenzy and demanded the weapon, declaring that he was going to shoot Burgess. Miner seized him and after a struggle got him into the street. About a dozen lowa soldiers were quartered in the village, and Miner turned Hogan over to the detachment and requested them to tic him up and keep him until night. He was tied to a large tree in front of the quarters, with a rope wound several times around his body. While he was confined in this way, General Todd, who happened to be there, went out and talked with him. He told the general that Burgess and his father had burned his cabin, about five miles below Ver- million, and all he had in it, and he intended to shoot both of them. He said further that while his cabin was burning he caught a son of Burgess's, a small boy, and held him over the flames until he confessed that he thought his father

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might have fired the cabin. Hogan said that he "then chucked the boy's head against a log and left him insensible." About dark Hogan was removed, and it was said he had been taken inside the quarters. The cry of "murder" was heard several times about eight o'clock in the evening, and before ten o'clock several persons saw Hogan's lifeless body hanging to the limb of a tree a short distance from the mouth of the Vermillion River. No attempt was made to disturb the body that night. The next morning the place of execution was visited by a number, and Hogan was found hanging by a half inch rope, with his feet squarely on the ground-his hands were tied behind him; his face presented a most revolting and sickening appearance. The body was taken down, and the ladies of the village collected enough to purchase a coffin and shroud, and the body was buried under the tree whercon he was hung. While public sentiment condemned the lynching as unjustifiable because the man was in custody and the courts were open, it appeared that he could not have been legally restrained of his liberty for any offense he had actually committed for any length of time, and a partial justification was given by the statement that Hogan would have been hung finally anyway, and his lynching probably saved the life of one or two whom he had marked as targets for his revolver. A. term of court was held in June, 1866, at which Judge Kidder charged the grand jury to thoroughly investigate the lynching. The jury took up the tragic affair, but were unable to secure the least evidence that would justify an indict- ment. Whoever were concerned in the crime kept the secret well. and it was never divulged. At the time the offense was committed public sentiment in the neighborhood of the occurrence was not inclined to look upon the tragic occurrence as an unmixed evil. This was the first appearance of public lynching in Dakota.

TIIE FLOOD OF 1866

There was a great flood in the spring of 1866, and the Missouri bottom lands between Yankton and the Big Sioux River were covered with from two to six fect of water. The winter had been unusually cold and the heavy ice did not float out of the river through its channel when the break up occurred in March, but gorged in the big bend below the mouth of James River, backing the water up stream fifteen miles, and inundating the low lands in Union, Clay and Yankton counties. For several weeks all travel between Yankton and Sioux City direct, except for small boats, was suspended. No great damage ensued, the farmers generally having been forewarned, and had removed their live stock, feed, and necessary supplies, to the highlands, before the flood camc. During this overflow, the Government engineer, in charge of the Big Sioux and Fort Randall wagon road, discovered that the bottom lands were higher nearer the river than farther back toward the highland, and made some im- portant and economical changes in the location of the road, because of this discovery. It was also discovered that where the bottom and bluff join there was a swift current and a depth of water sufficient to float a steamboat, from which it was concluded that the main current of the river had sought that as the route offering the least resistance, indicating that the land was the lowest next to the bluff. The Big Sioux Valley was inundated during this high water period, but it had no settlers except on Brush Creek and lower down, to be discommoded.

AAfter the high water subsided there was considerable immigration during the late spring and early summer, and also during the fall. The City of Yankton made notable progress in improvement, but did not gain much in popu- lation. The church and the schoolhouse and a thousand shade trees planted, were the principal improvements accomplished. Both Union and Clay counties, and along up the Sioux Valley into Lincoln County, a large majority of the farmer class of immigrants located. It was apparent that the lands of Union

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History of Dakota Territory, volume I, Part 77

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