History of Dakota Territory, volume I, Part 91

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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Whereas, the authority of the Federal Government having been established in all the states and territories within the jurisdiction of the United States, it is believed that such prudential reservations and exceptions as at the dates of said several proclamations were deemed necessary and proper, may be now wisely and justly relinquished, and that an universal amnesty proclamation for participation in said rebellion be extended to all who have borne any part therein will tend to secure permanent peace, order and prosperity throughout the land, and to renew and fully restore confidence and fraternal feeling among the whole people, and their respect for and attachment to the national Government, designed by its patriotic founders for the general good.

Now, therefore, be it known, that 1. Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, by virtue of the power and authority in me vested by the Constitution, and in the name of the sovereign people of the United States, do hereby proclaim and declare, unconditionally and without reservation, to all and every person who directly or indirectly participated in the late insurrection and rebellion, full pardon and amnesty for the offense of treason against the United States, or of adhering to their enemies during the late war, with the restoration of all rights and privileges under the Constitution and laws, which have been made in pursuance thereof.

In testimony whereof I have signed these presents with my hand and have caused the seal of the United States to be hereunto affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this 20th day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight, and of the Independence of the United States of America, the ninety-third.

By the President, (Signed) ANDREW JOHNSON.

F. W. SEWARD,

Acting Secretary of State.

INDIANS SUFFER FROM PRAIRIE FIRE

Later in the year a disaster befell a band of Yankions tinder Chief Two Bears, who were out on Knife River, a western tributary of the upper Missouri. for

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their fall hunt to get their winter's supply of meat. There were about one hun- dred families in the band, numbering all told about five hundred people and a relation of their misfortune will serve to exhibit the calamities the poor natives had to contend with. They had encamped near the stream and had set up their tepees, numbering about one hundred in the tall grass bordering the river. It was in October and the grass was in condition to burn fiercely. A prairie fire swept in on the little village in the evening, and came so rapidly that their danger was imminent before they realized it, for many had been engaged in efforts to check the onspeeding flames. The smoke blinded them, and suffocated a number. It was particularly severe on the women and little people. Sixty of the tepees were burned and nine of the men received fatal injuries, dying during the fire. Many of the squaws were seriously burned and disfigured for life, while the chil- dren suffered intensely. One little fellow had his fingers burned off and his hand scorched to a crisp. Many of the children were severely burned in the face, hands and feet. These Indians lost all their blankets, a large quantity of flour and a large store of meat. Nearly one-half of the number had been so severely burned as to require medical aid. The weeping and wailing of the mourners, the moans of the suffering men and women, and the cries and shrieks of the tortured chil- dren formed a scene of woe and despair of the most pathetic description. The United States Indian agent at Grand River Agency being notified, removed the sufferers to the agency, where they received the best medical treatment and care that could be given at that place, and kept them until they were able to be sent home to the Yankton Agency. Many of them were permanently crippled, and all bore marks of the ordeal of fire through which they had passed.

A cold wave swept over the Dakota plains early in March, 1869, and the fifth day of that month was dangerously cold, the mercury sinking to twenty-five below zero. A party of Santee Indians who had been in camp on the Vermillion River for a few weeks prior, broke camp and started out for Fort Dakota at Sioux Falls. An aged squaw, named Owincatowin-"Blue-all-Over"-became ex- hausted four miles from the fort and lay down. Her Indian husband fixed a tepee over her and covered her with blankets, then went to the fort and set up their lodge near the stockade. The husband then returned for his squaw, found the tepee and blankets, but the woman had disappeared. Search was made for an entire day and the venerable Owincatowin was finally discovered sitting on bare ground, with her hands to her mouth, frozen stark and stiff.

A trapper named Kolshauff, a discharged soldier from the fort, who had been trapping on the Sioux all winter was fatally frozen during the same cold spell.

CHAPTER XLIV GENERAL ULYSSES S. GRANT, PRESIDENT 1869

PRESIDENT GRANT INAUGURATED-HIS WONDERFUL CAREER-CHANGE IN TERRI- TORIAL OFFICIALS-WYOMING TERRITORY ORGANIZED-TILE NEW INDIAN PEACE POLICY-PRESIDENT DISCUSSED INDIAN QUESTION-GENERAL SIIERIDAN STATES TIIE MILITARY VIEW-IRISHI REPUBLICANS, JOIIN POPE HIODNETT-THE TERRI- TORY IN 1869-INDIAN TREATIES-BRITISHI OFFICER SIIOT BY SENTINEL ON STEAMBOAT-BOHEMIAN IMMIGRATION-ABUNDANT CROPS-AGRICULTURAL SO- CIETY ORGANIZED-THIE YEAR 1869-COUNTIES ORGANIZED.

At the beginning of the career of Dakota Territory in 1861, there resided at Galena, Illinois, an industrious, frugal and exemplary citizen who was engaged in operating a tannery. The great War of the Rebellion was inaugurated almost simultaneously with the organization of Dakota, and the United States having been since the close of the Mexican war, on a peace footing, save an occasional uprising of warlike Indians, or refractory Mormons, the regular army had dwindled to a comparatively small force; and a large proportion of its officers, being southern men, had resigned their commissions and accepted positions in the army of the Southern Confederacy. This left the Federal Government prac- tically without an army at a time when its perpetnity was threatened and the dis- solution of the union of states already declared.

The only reliance and recourse of the Federal Government in this crisis was the masses of loyal people, almost wholly inexperienced and untrained for mili- tary service ; but it was the only resource-the dernier ressort-and President Lin- coln promptly called upon the states to furnish 75,000 volunteers. There was a prompt and overwhelming response. A certain ratio of the number was allotted to each state and Illinois was among the number. Governor Richard Yates was the executive at the time, and his call for militiamen brought thousands of in- trepid volunteers to Springfield; but few were qualified to undertake the im- portant duty of organizing them into companies and regiments and preparing them for actual war.

The unostentatious tanner of Galena was among the number who responded, and in tendering his services to the governor he asked to be placed where he could do the most good. He was accepted and promptly employed in the work of or- ganizing, disciplining, drilling and equipping the raw recruits. He had been a lieutenant and captain in the regular army, was an educated soldier, and a grad- uate of the West Point Military Academy, and had served with credit during the war with Mexico in 1847-8. He had a wife and young children to support, and the army did not appeal to him as offering the best inducements for a home, for which reason he had resigned his commission several years prior to the breaking out of the Civil war, and entered upon an industrious life as a civilian.

The work of organization at Springfield was hastily completed because of the emergency which demanded defenders. Three hundred thousand additional volunteers had been called for. The war had actually begun, and in nearly all

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the southern states the Confederate forces were in the field. There was a hostile force threatening Northern Missouri and Governor Yates hesitatingly commis- sioned his efficient helpmeet in organization, as colonel of the Twenty-first Regi- ment of Illinois Volunteers (infantry) after the troops of the regiment had re- fused to go into service with their former colonel. The regiment was mustered into the service of the United States, and its colonel was dispatched with his tintried recruits to the threatened district of the neighboring southern state, Missouri.

We now turn to a page of the Colonel's biography and glean an account of this, his first experience as a military commander :

My sensations as we approached what might be a "field of battle" were anything but agreeable. I had been in all the engagements in Mexico that it was possible for one man to be in, but not in command. If some one else had been colonel and I lieutenant-colonel, I do not think I would have felt any trepidation.

I received orders at Palmyra to move against Col. Thomas Harris, who was said to be encamped at the little town of Florida, some twenty-five miles south of where we then were. At the time we had no transportation and the country about Salt River was sparsely settled, so it took some time to collect teams and wagons and drivers to move our camp and garrison equipage, provisions and ammunition. While preparations for moving were going on I felt quite comfortable, but when I got on the road and found every house deserted, I was anything but easy. In the twenty-five miles we had to march we did not see a person, old or young, male or female, except two horsemen who were on a road that crossed ours. As soon as they saw us they decamped as fast as their animals could carry them. We halted at night and proceeded the next morning at an early hour. Harris had been encamped in a creek bottom for the purpose of being near water. The hills on either side of the creek extend to a considerable height, possibly more than a hundred feet. As we approached the brow of the hill, from which it was expected we could see Harris' camp, and possibly find his men ready formed to meet us, my heart kept getting higher and higher, until it felt to me as though it was in my throat. I would have given anything then to have been back in Illinois, but I had not the moral courage to halt and consider what to do. I kept right on. When we reached a point from which the valley below was in full view, 1 halted. The place where Harris had been encamped a few days before was still there, and the marks of a recent encampment were plainly visible, but the troops were gone. My heart resumed its place. It occurred to me at once that Harris had been as much afraid of me as I had been of him. This was a view of the question I had never taken before, but it was one I never forgot afterwards. From that event to the close of the war [ never experienced trepidation upon confronting an enemy, though I always felt more or less anxiety. I never forgot that he had as much reason to fear my forces as I had his. The lesson was valuable.

Harris had been apprised of the coming of the Union troops and for reasons that will be appreciated by military men. had removed his camp three or four days before the Twenty-first Illinois reached their deserted camp.

We will not follow the career of the Illinois colonel through the succeeding eight years further than to mention that the unassuming citizen of Galena of 1861 is now, in 1869, President of the United States, chosen to that high and respon- sible office by an overwhelming majority of his countrymen, who gave their almost unanimous voice to his election. His wonderful career through the Civil war had been one of remarkable successes and no serious failures. His name became a talisman of victory. The initials of his name. U. S., were suggestive, and he came to be famous as United States Grant, Uncle Sam Grant, Uniform Success Grant, Unconditional Surrender Grant, Unequalled Soldier Grant, and many other appelatives of like character. He rose from the rank of colonel to the generalship of the army, a rank previously held only by Washington and bestowed on him by special acts of Congress. No military or civil career in the annals of our country exhibits more fairly earned laurels or rapid and honorable promotion.

NEW FEDERAL OFFICIALS FOR DAAKOT.\

The inauguration of Ulysses S. Grant as President of the United States, March 4, 1869, was the signal for a radical change in the official roster of Dakota Territory as it had been under President Johnson. Many of our territorial lead-

GENERAL WILLIAM IL. H. BEADLE

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ers, men who had worked strenuously and spent their own money for the success of the straight republican ticket, were grievously disappointed to see all the good plums go to outsiders-in fact they were indignant. They had commited with certainty on the secretaryship, the surveyor general, and others not necessary to mention. These positions dispensed valuable patronage which gave them a peculiar value. Mr. Brookings secured a judgeship which was the only recogni- tion the victorious republican party was awarded; while Judge Kidder, who ran for Congress on the people's ticket, and United States Marshal Litchfieldl, who supported him, were reappointed. It was suggested at Washington, as a con- solation to the Dakotans ( who were numerously represented there ), that by send- ing us new men to fill the offices, they were assisting in populating the territory with very desirable people.

Grant's newly appointed officials were John A. Burbank, of Indiana, for governor, vice Andrew J. Faulk ; Turney M. Wilkins, Iowa, secretary, vice S. 1. Spink, elected to Congress ; George W. French, Maine, chief justice, vice Ara Bartlett ; Jefferson P. Kidder and W. W. Brookings, associate justices. Judge Kidder succeeded himself and Mr. Brookings succeeded John W. Boyle, third dis- trict : William H. H. Beadle, Wisconsin, surveyor general, vice William W. Tripp.

The office of surveyor-general appears to have been conceded to a certain congressional district of Wisconsin in 1869, with an indefinite tenure, when Gen. W. 11. 11. Beadle, of Grant County, that state, was appointed to that position. It was a report in official circles at that time, that Mr. Beadle was a growing favorite for the nomination of representative to Congress by the republicans of his Wis- consin district, which alarmed the then incumbent, who was a very competent and ambitious gentleman and earnestly desired to retain the place. Perceiving that Beadle might be a formidable opponent he made a determined and successful effort to secure his appointment to the office of surveyor-general of Dakota. This was good policy and good politics, and somewhat in line with the counsel given by Gen. James H. Lane, of Kansas, who held a commission as major general in the volunteer army during the early days of the Civil war, and who was desir- ous of being elected United States Senator from that state when it was admitted into the Union. He was bitterly opposed in his senatorial ambition, but there were a number of prominent Kansans who were eager for promotion in the army and knowing this Lane frankly told them that the course of least resistance lay in their "boosting him" into the senatorship when they could have the military position. His suggestion was acted upon. After Mr. Beadle, the surveyor-gen- eral of Dakota came with unremitting regularity from Grant County, Wisconsin, until President Cleveland came in and changed the program. George Il. Hand was United States attorney, Dakota. No change was made in this office for the reason that Mr. Hand's term had not expired. Laban H. Litchfield, Dakota, United States marshal, succeeded himself. N. J. Wallace of Union County and Benj. F. Campbell, of Clay County, respectively register and receiver of the United States land office, Vermillion, vice George Stickney and Nelson Miner. Gilbert P. Bennett, Union County collector and John Pope Hodnett, Illinois, assessor internal revenue, vice William Shriner, of Clay, and D. M. Mills of Union County. AAgent of the Wahpeton and Sisseton Sioux Indians, Jarrett W. Daniels. Gov- ernor Burbank was the brother-in-law of United States Senator Morton, of In- diana, who had won fame as the energetic war governor of the Hoosier state during the Rebellion, and was a close friend of the President as well as a leader in the Senate. The land office and internal revenue appointments were given, with the exception of Hodnett to the republicans recommended by Delegate Spink.

WYOMING

The Territory of Wyoming was finally erected into a separate territory, in April, 1860, when President Grant appointed and the Senate confirmed the follow-

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ing officers: Governor, John .A. Campbell; secretary, Ed M. Lec; chief justice, John H. Ilowe ; associate justices, John W. Kingman, Wm. Jones ; surveyor-gen- cral, Edward Ruger; United States marshal, C. Howe; United States attorney, Joseph M. Carey; receiver United States land office, Frank Walcott.

There were two sections of the organic act of the new territory that were of special interest to Dakotans-the boundaries and the date when the act became operative. Though passed and approved in 1868, it did not go into effect until the federal officers were appointed as above noted. These two sections named are appended :

BOUNDARIES OF WYOMING

That all that part of the United States described as follows: Commencing at the inter- section of the 27th meridian of longitude west from Washington with the 45th degree of north latitude, and running thence west to the 34th meridian of west longitude; thence south to the 4Ist degree of north latitude; thence east to the 27th meridian of west longi- tude; and thence north to the place of beginning: be and the same is hereby organized into a temporary government by the name of the Territory of Wyoming.

The various provisions of the act, with the exceptions given here were almost identical with the organic act of Dakota. The last section, No. 17, enacted as follows :

And be it further enacted. that this act shall take effect from and after the time when the executive and judicial officers herein provided for shall have been duly appointed and qualified; Provided, That all general territorial laws of the Territory of Dakota, at the time this act shall take effect, shall be and continue in force throughout the said territory until repealed by the legislative authority of said territory, except such laws as relate to the possession or occupation of mines or mining claims.

Approved, July 25, 1868.

NEW INDIAN POLICY

A new Indian policy was inaugurated with the coming in of President Grant's administration in 1869. Henceforth it was intended to rely mainly upon peace- ful diplomacy and ample rations, etc., to control the Indian wards. General Sherman's treaties, made in 1868, with the hostile Sioux were relied upon, if faithfully executed on the part of the Government, to maintain peaceful rela- tions not only between the Indians and whites, but between the various Indian nations. The first step in the new departure was a practical divorce of the Indian bureau from party politics. The religious denominations, including the Quakers, were recognized and a large proportion of the agents were taken from the army and assigned to duty as Indian agents at the various agencies. In Dakota, Capt. Dewitt C. Poole was assigned to the Whetstone AAgency; Bvt. Maj. G. W. Ran- dall to the Cheyenne Agency ; Bvt. Maj. J. A. Hlearn to Grand River ; Capt. Wm. T. Broatch to the Yankton Agency: Byt. Maj. W. H. French, to Crow Creek; Bvt. Maj. W. H. Hugo, to the Poncas; Capt. H. Clifford to the Upper Mis- souri tribes, and a Quaker, Samnel Jenney, succeeded Maj. J. M. Stone, of Yankton, as agent of the Santees, at Niobrara. Maj. Pat Conger, at the Yankton Agency, Dr. Joel A. Potter at the Ponca, and Maj. J. R. Hanson, in charge at Crow Creek and the Upper Missouri Agency, were relieved. By virtue of his office as governor, John A. Burbank became superintendent of Indian affairs for Dakota Territory. General Parker, of New York, a full blooded Oneida Indian, who had served on the staff of General Grant during the war for the Union, was appointed commissioner of Indian affairs.

While there was no Indian war in the Dakotas in the year 1869, there were a number of Indian bands at large which had not deserted the warpath in ac- cordance with the peace treaties and which hung around the forts and along the trails and highways, seeking an opportunity to rob and kill white people. They claimed that they were not parties to the peace treaties and would not be gov-

GOVERNOR JOHN A. BURBANK

Fourth governor of Dakota Territory. Served from May, 1-69, to December, 1874. Had been reappointed but resigned a few months later.

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erned by them. They were implacable enemies of the white race on general principles. The purpose and character of their attacks on the forts is described in the following letter from Fort Stevenson, August 4, 1869. The writer says :

We were attacked by a band of Sioux Indians, numbering about seventy, at 6 o'clock this morning, and repulsed them with a loss on their part of ten killed and - wounded, while on our side no one was injured. They were after a lot of oxen belonging to a train from Fort Totten, that came here for military stores and forage brought up and landed here by steamboats. They succeeded in putting five arrows into one animal, and came very near nepoing two bull whackers. These attacks are quite frequent, and the Indians seldom fail to kill or wound some of us. This band belongs to the Little Bull faction. They are too lazy to hunt, but have fleet horses, and prefer to fight and gather spoils from the whites. They are not very well armed.

A battle in which Indians were the combatants was fought near the Ponca reservation and not over twenty-five miles from Fort Randall, on the 18th of September, 1869. The tribes engaged were the Pawnees, said to number 500, and an equal number of Sioux-Yankions and Santees. The Sioux had been stealing ponies from the Pawnees on the Platte, and were followed to Dakota by the Pawnees, who made reparation by stealing a large number of Sioux ponies. The invaders, with the spoils, were overtaken by the Sioux at the place mentioned and an all day's battle followed, in which the Sioux were worsted with severe loss, and the Pawnees made good their escape, with their booty, to their own country.

The Indians in the far Northwest, who had not been parties to the treaties of 1868, were troublesome in 1869 and committed a number of atrocities. General Sheridan, who was in command of the military division of Missouri, which in- cluded Dakota, in a letter to General Sherman, who was then commanding the United States army, gave an account of Indian affairs in the West and North- west that was no doubt true and was strongly prejudicial to the Indians, tending to arouse a popular sentiment favorable to a war that would practically extermi- nate all the wild tribes. This led to a brief war with the Piegan Indians in Montana, and the annihilation, practically, of what was known as Red Horn's band. At the session of Congress following the condition of the Indians and their relation to the Government formed a prominent subject in the President's message and in the department reports. President Grant was not disposed to throw all the blame on the redmen, and cited the fact that no provision, or no adequate provision, had been made to carry out the treaty obligations of the Government ; and the secretary of the interior, in his report, expressed his con- viction that it was unfair to put the whole blame on the savages. He said :

The great cause of all our difficulty with the wild tribes is the fact that civilized settle- ments are constantly narrowing the boundaries of their hunting grounds, crowding them out of regions which they have by immemorial tradition regarded as their own; while no thoroughly consistent good faith is kept in redeeming the promises we made to them as a condition of their acquiescence in the new order of things.

The secretary had reference to the new peace and industrial reservation policy of the Government, which had been put in practical operation only to a limited extent ; and recommends that Congress make an explicit definition of the purposes of the Government on the subject of Indian treaties, and take such action as in their wisdom may seem best to "avert the evils that now seem im- minent." lle concludes :

If I were to waive all questions or inquiry as to the material objections of a Christian nation under such circumstances, I think it would be demonstrably clear that, as a mere question of pecuniary economy, it will be cheaper to feed every adult Indian now living. even to sleepy surfeiting, during his natural life, while their children are being educated to agriculture, than it would be to carry on a general Indian war even for one year. The shocking barbarities and mutilations of the dead, of prisoners, which are often referred 10. are the usual accompaniment of Indian warfare. By preserving peace we may hope to avoid

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History of Dakota Territory, volume I, Part 91

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