History of South Dakota, Vol. I, Part 29

Author: Robinson, Doane, 1856-1946. cn
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 998

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When Major Galpin passed down the river, spreading information of the whereabouts of the Shetak captives, he arrived at Fort Randall, probably on the 18th day of November. Captain Pattee, now promoted to be lieutenant colonel of the Forty-first Iowa, was still in command, but at that time was absent from the post. Galpin

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left a note for him and hurried on. Pattee re- turned to the post on the 20th and at once set about organizing an expedition looking to the rescue of the captives, but several days were consunied in effecting arrangements. Finally on the 25th day of November Colonel Pattee, with seventeen men of Company A and all of Com- pany B of the Forty-first Iowa and seventy men of Company A, Dakota Cavalry, started for Fort Pierre. They made eighteen miles the first day and camped on Wilson creek, where they were overtaken by a messenger from the fort with information that the paymaster had arrived. Now the Dakota boys had been in the service since the 30th day of the previous April and had not yet seen the color of Uncle Sam's gold and the Iowa boys were six months behind, so the cavalry returned to the fort to draw the money, Colonel Pattee and the infantry remaining in camp on Wilson creek. On the evening of the 27th the cavalry returned to camp and next morning the march was again taken up. The weather was extremely cold and slow progress was made, and after only twenty miles camp was made for the night on Ponca creek. The next morning, when out two miles from camp, they met LaPlant and Dupree with the captives. Colonel Pattee turned back with them to Ponca creek, where he had his cook prepare a dinner for them, and while the meal was in progress the generous soldier boys made up a purse for their' benefit, which, with some additions made at the fort, amounted to five hundred dollars. The captives remained in this camp with the soldiers until the morning of the 30th, when they pro-

ceeded to the fort, where they arrived at four o'clock that afternoon, and Colonel Pattee and his command went on to Fort Pierre, arriving there on December 5th. While at the camp on Ponca creek Colonel Pattee wrote a letter to the newspapers in Sioux City, and also to the Cedar Rapids papers, telling of the rescue of the cap- tives and requesting that the story be given the widest possible circulation to the end that the living relatives of the captives might gain knowl- edge of it. The wife and daughter of Colonel Pattee and seven other ladies were at the fort and they exerted themselves to make the new- comers comfortable, making clothing for them and treating them with the utmost kindness. Mrs. Duly took to her bed as soon as she ar- rived at the fort and remained bedfast for fifteen days. They remained at Fort Randall until De- cember 29th, when General Cooke, commanding the district, arrived and started with them to Sioux City, but at the Yankton agency was storm bound and they remained there for a week longer. At Yankton they were met by Mr. Wright, who learned from the papers of the res- cue and was hurrying to Fort ·Randall. At Sioux City Mr. Everett met them, also hurrying out to secure his little daughter, and finally at Fort Dodge, Mr. Duly reached his family.

As the news of the whereabouts of the cap- tives spread several other rescuing parties ·were fitted out .. The people of Yankton made notable effort in their behalf, sending Frank La- Framboise up river for the purpose, but be- fore he started the captives were in safety at Randall.

CHAPTER XXXV

OCCURRENCES OF 1863, CIVIL AND MILITARY.

Before its close the legislative session of 1862-3 passed an act appointing a commissioner to audit the accounts of the territory, incurred in calling out the militia by Governor Jayne. James Tufts was appointed commissioner and he allowed cach man for two months' service. which, together with the commissary and other expenses, he audited at $28,137.17, and terri- torial warrants were issued for the amount. No provision by way of taxation was made for the payment of the warrants, but congress was pe- titioned to make provision for their redemption. Many years, however, elapsed before congress acted in the matter ; finally, in 1874, Gen. James A. Hardie, inspector general of the army, was sent out to re-audit the claims. He determined that each man was entitled to but one month's pay, but he found three hundred ninety-nine men entitled to payment in addition to Company A, of the Dakota Cavalry, while Tufts had allowed compensation to but two hundred sixty-six. Hardie audited the whole account at $26.976.22, which was paid by the government.

As before stated, Governor Jayne resigned, after the close of the legislature, in time to take his seat in congress on March 4th. A consider- able number of the federal officials within the territory, and a number of gentlemen from abroad, aspired to the position made vacant by Governor Jayne's resignation, including Chief Justice Bliss and Secretary Hutchinson ; mean- while Secretary Hutchinson performing the duties of the office. The President, however,

took no action until August, when he appointed Newton Edmunds to the position. Mr. Ed- inunds had at that time been a citizen of Dakota for more than a year, having come to the terri- tory at the time of the establishment of the surveyor general's office as chief clerk to Sur- veyor General Fessenden. He had voted at the election of 1862, for Governor Jayne, and the legality of his vote was questioned in the contest on the ground that his family still resided in Michigan. He took hold of the administration of his office with the practical business sense which is strongly characteristic of his whole career.

Only a legislature was elected that fall and though the excitement was something less than in the previous year, the Todd-Jayne alignment was observed. There were contests from Cole and Bon Homme counties. The Jayne men con- trolled the organization and admitted the Jayne members, giving them a working majority throughout the session. No delegation came from the Pembina country. Pembina was un- relinquished Indian land which the organic act clearly cut out of the territory, and this session repealed the provision giving to them represent- atives in the legislature and leaving the in- habitants of that section where congress had placed them as trespassers upon Indian lands.

The season had been in every way a most de- pressing and discouraging one for the pioneers. Drouth rendered the crops almost a failure. Im- migration was entirely stopped by the Indian

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troubles and some settlers left the territory. In- deed there was little to attract anyone to the land and the future of Dakota looked gloomy indeed.

The Dakota cavalry Company A having spent the winter in garrison duty and scouting about Fort Randall, were in the spring ordered to pro- ceed to the mouth of Crow creek and there pre- pare a post and agency for the reception of the captured Minnesota Santees, who were brought around by Col. Clark Thompson, their agent, upon steamboats. When the outbreak came on the principal agency of the Winnebagoes had but recently been removed from a point near Long Prairie in the borderland between the Dakotas and the Chippewas to a location in Blue Earth county near Mankato and it was claimed that some of these Winnebagoes were concerned in the outrages at New Ulm and Redwood. The sentiment of the white people in Minnesota be- came so hostile to all Indians after the outbreak that in compliance to the universal demand that Minnesota be cleared of Indians the Winne- bagoes were removed at the same time with the remnant of the hostiles to Fort Thompson. After completing the buildings the Dakota boys remained for a time and garrisoned the post and herded the Indians, who had become tame enough to suit the most timid.

The government had determined to deliver a crushing blow to the hostiles and had provided to send two expeditions after them. One, under General Sibley, to cross Dakota to the Missouri river, the other, under General Sully, to pass up the river and make a junction with Sibley with the hope of catching the Sioux between the two divisions and crushing them at one blow. Ac- cordingly Sully was sent up river in the spring in command of the Sixth and Seventh Iowa In- fantry and the Second Nebraska Cavalry. They made slow progress and it was July before they reached Fort Pierre, with the troops, marching overland. It was the intention to send up pro- visions by steamboat, but the prolonged drouth rendered the river so low that navigation was seriously interfered with and great delay caused from this reason; consequently when Sibley reached the Missouri near Bismarck, Sully had

not yet arrived, and after defeating the hostiles in the battle of Big Mound, on July 26th, and driv- ing them across the river, Sibley, getting no word from Sully, retired toward the Minnesota line. Ultimately Sully got up and learning from a Sioux prisoner of Sibley's fight he turned toward the southeast and passed over the divide into the James valley, where, he had learned, a portion of the hostiles had recrossed the Missouri river and gone to make buffalo meat.

He came upon them September 3d, at White Stone hill, a point about twelve miles west of the present village of Ellendale, in Dickey county, North Dakota, and administered to them a disas- trous whipping. His own loss was considerable. Thirteen men were killed outright and nine others mortally wounded; thirty-three others were wounded more or less seriously. The Indian loss was much heavier and has been estimated as high as three hundred killed. One hundred fifty pris- oners were taken, chiefly women, and all the camp equippage and tents were destroyed, to- gether with all the meat they had made for their winter's supply. The captives were taken down to the new agency at Crow creek.

When the returning troops arrived at Peoria bottom a camp was made which shortly was moved down to four or five miles below Pierre and a post was built just opposite the upper end of Farm island, which was named in honor of the commander, Fort Sully. The fort was built the latter part of September from logs, cut by the soldiers on Farm Island. It was not a very pre- tentious establishment, but it was comfortable and well stockaded. Several log buildings were built outside the stockade, and the traders set up their establishments as near by as permissible, and all of the Indians residing in that locality at once took up their quarters about the post.

A portion of the Iowa boys went down to Crow creek and to Randall, while the Nebraska boys were mustered out, their time having ex- pired. Fort Thompson, at Crow Creek, was a more pretentious post than Sully. Sergeant J. H. Drips, of the Sixth Iowa, who has printed a his- tory of the campaign, gives the following descrip- tion of the post at Crow creek : "It is laid out in a

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square some three hundred feet each way. Around the whole square was dug a ditch three feet deep and the same width. In this ditch were set cedar pickets fifteen feet long which leaves twelve feet above the ground. On the west side are two stores and one warehouse coming out flush with the pickets. On the north side is the Winnebago schoolhouse, the interpreters' quarters, the agent's quarters and the doctor's quarters. On the cor- ner were barracks for soldiers. On the east side are the boarding house, blacksmith's, carpenter's and wagonmaker's shops. On the south side are the Sioux buildings, one doctor's quarters, two agent's quarters, three interpreters' quarters and four school houses and on the corner barracks for soldiers. On the northwest and southwest cor- ners there are barracks outside of the pickets. The pickets are sawed on three sides, the outside being left rough. Holes for guns were made some eight feet from the ground and about twelve feet apart. On the north and south sides are gates made of the same kind of stuff as the pick- ets. The saw mill is on the west side of the fort and about fifteen rods from it in the edge of the timber. Still further on in the timber are the Indians' wigwams. The river is about half a mile from the fort and pretty heavy timber."

On the night of the 16th of October a fearful blizzard came on, which piled down drifts of snow to the depth of fifteen to twenty-five feet and the soldiers and the horses suffered a good deal, being quite unprepared for so unseasonable a storm. This storm is noteworthy because of the recurrence of it on the anniversary of the date seventeen years later and again in 1896. Gen. Zebulon Pike notes that a severe snow storm enveloped the Northwest on October 16, 1807.

Aside from garrison duty and scouting about the forests the only other military operations of the early summer of 1863 in South Dakota con- sisted of a scout from Fort Randall to the Dirt lodges in Spink county by Capt. T. W. Burdick, of the Sixth Iowa, with sixty men, and another later from Fort Randall to the mouth of the Fire- steel by Captain Pell with a detachment of Io-

wans and South Dakotans. Both scouts were made with the hope of intercepting parties of ma- rauders reported to be passing down the Jim toward the settlements, but if such parties were in the vicinity they escaped apprehension. Cap- tain Moreland, of the Sixth Iowa, with fifteen men, five of whom were Dakotans, engaged a party of Sioux at the mouth of the Keya Paha and killed seven of the hostiles.

Lieutenant John K. Fowler, of Company A, resigned and DeWitt C. Smith, a Wisconsin man, was appointed to the position, to the great disgust of the Dakota people.

On the night of May 5, 1863, Messrs. Jacob- son and Thompson, of Vermillion, camped at Greenway's ferry across James river east of Yankton. At daylight next morning Jacobson was killed and Thompson severely wounded by prowling Indians. A few days later Sergeant Trask, of the Fourteenth Iowa, was killed at Tacket's Station, on Chouteau creek, while traveling by stage from Fort Randall to Sioux City. These circumstances so alarmed the peo- ple and the authorities that it was deemed prudent to station more troops in the settled por- tions of the territory and a strong detachment of the A Company, under Lieutenant Bacon, were ordered to Vermillion to scout that section. A regular patrol was established between Ver- million and Brule creek, a detail leaving each point each morning and traveling to the other, to return over the road next day.

During the summer Sioux Indians from Dakota crossed over into Nebraska and attacked the family of Henson Wiseman, a soldier in the Second Nebraska, who was in Dakota with his regiment. Mrs. Wiseman was that day in Yank- ton, twelve miles distant, leaving her five chil- dren at home and all of whom were brutally murdered. A detachment of the Dakota cavalry, under Sergeant English, was sent to apprehend the Indians and found their trail where they had crossed the river back into Dakota and fol- lowed it to within five miles of Sioux Falls where they lost it and could not again pick it up. It is now known that the Indians concerned

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in the killing of both Jacobson and the Wiseman family were a few men of the bands of Inkpa- duta and White Lodge.

In October the Dakota boys were returned to Fort Randall, where they were divided into squads to protect the stage road from Randall to Bon Homme and spent the following winter in scouting along this line. It was at this time that the name Kiote was first applied to the Dakotans, and that is doubtless the true story of the origin of the name as a state nickname. It grew out of a horse race between a horse owned by Major House, of the Sixth Iowa, and one owned by Charles Wambole, of the Dakotas. Wambole's horse won and William Trusedell, of the Fourteenth Iowa, remarked that the Dakota horse ran like a coyote. Immediately the name was taken up and applied to the Dakotans, and when the next summer General Sully, speaking in commendation of the Dakotans, said, "see my damned coyotes," the name was fastened in- delibly.

As above stated, the government had es- tablished the captured hostiles and a party of Winnebagoes at Crow creek, but had made no provision for their subsistence. The awful drouth of the year had completely destroyed any- thing in the shape of crops in the vicinity of the reservation and by the time winter had ar- rived the Indians were at the point of starvation. Owing, too, to the dry weather, the Missouri had dwindled to a point where navigation was utterly impracticable. It was therefore deter- mined by General Pope to attempt to transport supplies to them from Minnesota. Mankato was adopted as the depot of supplies. To start at that season of the year across country to the Missouri was deemed extraordinarily hazardous

and the soldiers were at the point of insubordina- tion, particularly as details had to be made for oxteamsters, it being impossible to hire trained bull-whackers for the trip. They got off on November 5th with one hundred thirty loaded wagons, six oxen to the wagon, under escort of Companies D, E and H, of the Sixth Minnesota Volunteers, and arrived at Fort Thompson in good condition on December 2d, having traveled by way of the Nobles road of 1857, passing through Medary, Madison, Howard, Woon- socket and Wessington Springs.

Two days later they started home by way of Sioux City, but when they got to the James river below Yankton they were overtaken by an officer from Colonel Pollock, in command at Fort Randall, commanding them to go into winter quarters where they were. The Minne- sota boys, who had volunteered to fight Indians in Minnesota, and who knew very little of mili- tary discipline and nothing whatever of Colonel Pollock, paid no attention to the order, but pushed along and reached Mankato January Ist. Captain Whitney was court-martialed for dis- obedience, but was excused under the circum- stances.

The legislature convened December Ist. Governor Edmunds' first message was a patriotic document becoming the times. He also had prac- tical suggestions for education, revenue, im- migration and railway legislation, in addition to suggestions relating to the defense from the In- dians by means of a line of small posts along the frontier. He gives a hint of the coming New York colony as due to the efforts of Surveyor General Hill. The session of the solons was har- monious and the legislation enacted by them was practical.

CHAPTER XXXVI

EVENTS OF THE YEAR 1864.

The year 1864 opened with better promise for the people of the territory. The campaigns against the Indians the previous year had not been particularly decisive, but they had driven the hostiles further away and stragglers were no longer found skulking about the settlements. Besides there were rumors of new immigration to the lower river settlements. The previous year, amid the terrors and discouragements of 1863, Prof. James S. Foster, of Syracuse, New York, had visited Dakota, in the interests of a large number of his neighbors who were looking for a western location, and with the opening of the new year a report came that he had decided favorably to the Missouri valley and would con- duct a large colony hither. There were also tidings that a Michigan colony was looking this way and hope revived by leaps.

With the first of April Professor Foster ar- rived and contracted for the erection of fifty temporary cottages for the accommodation of his colonists and eventually sixty families arrived and became permanent settlers, many of whom are still reckoned among South Dakota's most valued citizens.

The harvest, however, did not bear out the promise of the spring time. Mr. Armstrong thus describes the situation: "Unremitting drouth and clouds of grasshoppers swept the bloom of the fields and the verdure of the plains, and with the approach of autumn the despondent farmers repaired with their teams to the neigh- boring states to bring in a supply of subsistence

until another seed time." It is a wonder that under all of the discouragements, of floods and drouths, grasshoppers and Indians, any one re- mained at all, much less that new settlers could have been attracted to the territory. Of all the bad conditions with which the Dakota country has had to contend at any time, 1864 was the worst, but the undaunted pioneers fought it out and found their due. reward for their courage and persistence.

A new campaign against the Indians was planned by General Pope and General Sully placed in command. Two battalions were to move to the front ; the first, under Sully himself, from Sioux City, up the river, and the second, under Colonel M. T. Thomas, of the Minnesota cavalry, from Fort Ridgely, on the Minnesota, across the central portion of the territory to join Sully on the Missouri, where a fort was to be built. The Dakota cavalry joined the First Bat- talion. Captain Miner's company, after spend- ing the winter at outposts near Fort Randall, having gone in the spring to garrison Fort Thompson, at Crow creek, where it joined Sully as he came up on the 20th of June.

Sully left Sioux City on the 8th of June with a few troops, gathering force as he went along. At Vermillion he found Company M, Sixth Iowa, and at Yankton Company F of the same regiment, these troops having wintered at the points named. As finally organized, by acces- sions at Randall, Crow Creek and Sully, the First Battalion consisted of the following troops :

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The Sixth Iowa Cavalry, under command of Lieutenant Colonel Pollock ; three companies of the Seventh Iowa Cavalry, under Lieutenant Colonel John Pattee; four companies of Min- nesota cavalry known as Brackett's Batallion ; two companies of Dakota cavalry under Captain Nelson Miner and a battery of four howitzers under command of Captain Pope. The expedi- tion moved along without noteworthy incident until the Little Cheyenne was reached, when Captain Fielner, of the regular army, topo- graphical engineer and naturalist to the expedi- tion, in company with two soldiers, started off to examine Medicine Rock, for the purpose going a long way in advance of the command. Having examined the rock and made a sketch of it, Captain Fielner and his escort mounted their horses and started to a camp some distance up the creek which Captain Miner's men had established and where they were waiting for the main force to come up. They were about a mile from this camp when they picketed their horses and started down to the creek for a drink. There was a heavy clump of bushes near by on the creek and as they came within range of it a rifle rang out and Captain Fielner fell, shot through the lungs. Three Indians dashed from the thicket and made for the horses. The sol- diers were too spry for them, however, and, se- curing the animals, brought the captain into camp, the Indians meanwhile having taken to their heels. Captain Miner was immediately in pursuit, himself and Sergeant English in the lead, and the balance of the coyotes followed, their position being determined by the speed of their horses, until they were scattered over the prairie like a flock of sheep, as General Sully expressed his view of the scene. They chased them for fifteen' miles, when the Sioux took refuge in a buffalo wallow. Without hesitation the Dakotans advanced upon the ambush, to be met by a volley which miraculously did no dam- age, and soon had the satisfaction of finishing each of the three Indians. They returned to camp at dusk and General Sully at once dis- patched a detail to go out and bring in the heads of the savages, which was done, and next morn-

ing, at the command of Sully, Sergeant English mounted the three heads upon long poles set on the highest point in the vicinity as a warning to the Indians of the neighborhood. This oc- curred on the 28th of June and on the 30th a junction was made with the Second Battalion, under Captain Thomas, at Swan Lake creek. Captain Thomas had nine companies of Min- nesota infantry, six companies of the Second Minnesota Cavalry, two howitzers and two twelve-pounders. He had escorted Captain Fiske's train of emigrants bound for Idaho, con- sisting of one hundred and fifty wagons. The course of this battalion had been up the Minne- sota to the Lacqui Parle, thence entering Dakota at the Crow's Nest, north of Gary by way of Chanopa (Two Woods), thence crossing the Sioux ten miles north of Kampeska and through the Oak Gulch to the Jim river plains, thence north to the vicinity of Tacoma Park and thence in a southwest direction, passing very near Aber- deen to Swan Lake in Walworth county, where the junction was made seven miles from the Missouri. They then proceeded up river, cross- ing it and building Fort Rice, and getting trace of the hostiles, followed them up Hart River and giving them battle and a disastrous whipping at Deer Mountain, near the Bad Lands, on July 28th, and gave them a hard running fight again on August 7th and 8th in the Bad Lands of the Little Missouri, but the Indians no longer had any stomach for a standing fight and kept mostly out of reach. The Dakota boys, being trained frontiersmen, and having in the battalion about twenty Indian scouts, were usually kept on the scout and General Sully was unsparing of his praise of their conduct throughout the tedious campaign, which lasted until winter. They scouted through the northern portion of the ter- ritory, but did not again come upon the savages in force. Toward fall the Dakota boys returned to the settlements, B Company wintering at Yankton agency and Tackett's station and A Company at Vermillion.

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History of South Dakota, Vol. I, Part 29

Author: Robinson, Doane, 1856-1946. cn Publication date: 1904 Publisher: [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen Number of Pages: 998

Author: Robinson, Doane, 1856-1946. cn
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 998