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(x61) (35) The Causes of the Sioux War
At the treaties of Mendota and Traverse de Sioux in 1853 the Sioux Indians,
as we have before stated, ceded to the government all the lands of the
Minnesota valley except two small reservations, 10 miles broad by 150 miles
in length. These reservations were situated at the upper waters of the
Minnesota river, about twenty miles up the river from the Welsh settlement
and about fifteen miles from the village of New Ulm, and on the same side of
the river.
(For the text of the
Mendota and Traverse Treaties, along with a contemporary sketch of the
meeting for the Traverse Treaty - see “Treaties with Minnesota Indians” main
page http://cs.fdl.cc.mn.us/~isk/maps/mn/treaties.html) (Accessed 15-09-2001)
(For a map of the reservation in 1862, see Dakota Conflicts Trials: Maps and
Explanations
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/dakota/DakMAP1862.html
“Key: 1: Dakota Reservation in 1862 (shaded area); 2: Dakota land
ceded in 1858(outlined area north of Minnesota River); 3: Upper Sioux Agency;
4: Lower Sioux Agency; 5: Acton, site of first violence; 6: New Ulm; 7: Fort
Ridgely; 8: Camp Release; 9: Camp Lincoln and Mankato) (Accessed 15-09-2001)
·····
On each of
these reservations was located a government post, where resided the Indian
commissioner with his retinue and a number of traders, forming two small
villages. One of these, situated in the northwest corner of the town of
Sherman, in Red Wood county, was known as the Lower Sioux Agency, and the
other, located on the present site of Yellow Medicine village, in Yellow
Medicine county, was called the Upper Sioux Agency. Three miles further up
the Yellow Medicine river was the mission station of Dr. S. Williamson,
called “Pay-zhe-hoo-ta-ze,” (pezhúta = medicine, zi
= yellow) and two miles beyond was the mission station of Dr. Stephen
R. Riggs, termed “Hazelwood”.
(Dakota Conflict Trials Website:
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/dakota/riggs.html
Rev. Stephen.R. Riggs) (Accessed 15-09-2001)
Thirteen miles below the Lower Agency, upon the north bank of the Minnesota
river, Ft. Ridgely was situated, with a garrison of soldiers for the protection
of the frontier. A few Indians had been induced by the teaching of the
Missionaries and by the great aids and rewards of the government to adopt
civilized life, and had houses and farms near the two Agencies - about 60
farms at the Upper Agency and 100 farms at the Lower Agency, with about 1,500
acres under good cultivation.”
(Contemporary photo of
a Dakota Indian farm on the Website of KTCA-TV (“Dakota Exile” (1996) page)
http://www.ktca.org/dakota/stills.htm) (Accessed 15-09-2001)
The great majority, however, retained their ancient customs, wandering about
hunting and fishing through the great forests and plains. Little attention
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(x62) paid they to the lines of their reservations, but roamed at will over
their ancient hunting grounds as freely as though the same had never been
ceded, and mingled with fullest freedom among the few scattered settlers, who
from daily associations had come to look upon them without the least fear or
suspicion.
·····
Once a year the tribes would gather at the Agencies to
receive their annuities, which, according to the treaty, were to amount to
$30,000.00 in money and $10,000.00 in provisions annually. There were also
paid $12,000.00 per year as a civilization fund, and $6,000.00 for an
educational fund. Delays, however, frequently occurred in the payment of
these annuities, which worked serious hardship and inconvenience to the
Indians. Greater still was the hardship due to dishonesty of agents and
traders, who often took advantage of the simple minded savage to swindle him
out of all his money even before he received it.
·····
The government’s custom of allowing agents and traders to
present claims against the Indians for pretended credits that had been
advance to them, and deducting these amounts first from the annuities, caused
particularly sore grievances.
·····
It afforded the widest chance for frauds, as the Indians had
no opportunity to dispute any of the claims. About $400,000.00 of the money
due to the Indians under the treaties of 1851 and 1852 were thus paid for the
first year to traders and agents on old debts, which roused great indignation
among the Indians, who claimed they did not owe these parties a cent. One
Hugh Miller was paid $55,000.00 for pretended services in helping to
negotiate the treaties.
·····
With the change of administration in 1861 came a change of
agents and a change of policy. Instead of paying the annuities in money they
were paid in goods, which afforded greater opportunity for fraud, if
anything, than before, and caused greater dissatisfaction to the Indians.
There were also vexatious delays in the payment of these annuities. In 1862
they were due the first of July, but did not arrive unbtil August 19th,
a day after the beginning of the massacre. The Indians, who had gathered at
the Lower Agency, the place of payment, on time - many coming from a great
distance with their families, were kept waiting, doomed to daily
disappointment, until their small supply of food was exhausted and they were
rendered desperate by want.
Settlers, also, were pouring into the country more and more every year and
the land was fast being taken by them. The
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(x63) game, which had been the hunters (sic) sustenance, was fast disappearing, so the redman was beginning
to realize what he had done in ceding his land to the pale-face, and how soon
he would be driven out of the home of his fathers.
(Dakota Conflict
Trials Website - A group of Dakotas shortly before the outbreak http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/dakota/SIOUX_~1.jpg)
(Accessed 15-09-2001)
·····
Then there was what may be termed the patriotic feeling - the strong innate
love of their old customs, habits and institutions, which were fast being
expelled by the aggressive power of the white man’s civilization. Barbarism
and civilization are naturally antagonistic, and when suddenly brought
together there is usually a hostile clash.
·····
To see a strange people, with strange manners and
institutions, expel them from the land of their fathers and destroy their
ancient savage customs and rights necessarily begot a hostile feeling in the
hearts of the Dakotas.
·····
These things were discussed and agitated by the Sioux in
their Tee-yo-tee-pi (Soldiers Lodge) a secret society, formed by them for the
purpose shortly before the outbreak, until the savage mind was made ripe for
mischief. Foremost among the agitators was a chief of the Medawakonton band,
(Shakopee Mdewakanton
Dakota Reservation (Prior Lake) Website - http://cs.fdl.cc.mn.us/~isk/maps/mn/shakopee.htm), (Accessed 15-09-2001)
named “Tahohyahtaydootah,” (His Scarlet People) or as he was called by the
whites after his father, “Little Crow.”
(Dakota Conflict
Trials Website - http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/dakota/LittleCrow.html - Little Crow ) (Accessed 15-09-2001)
The chief was a man of considerable ability and eloquence. He had adopted the
white man’s costume, except that he still retained his long
plaited hair and time-honored blanket, and he dwelt in a comfortable
residence upon a well-furnished farm near the Lower Agency, all generously
supplied him by the government. Besides being civilized, he was also a
Christian convert who went to church regularly and prided himself on his
piety.
(An account of Little
Crow ‘Taoyateduta, His Red People’ by Ohiyesa (“winner”) (Dr. Charles
Alexander Eastman) (1858-1939) who was a Wahpetonwan (a Santee Dakota) at http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/hst/northamerican/IndianHeroesGreatChieftains/chap3.html)
(Accessed 15-09-2001)
·····
(And a website about Ohiyesa is at: http://indy4.fdl.cc.mn.us/~isk/stories/authors/eastman.html) (Accessed 15-09-2001)
At the house
of this amiable chief, on Sunday afternoon on
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(x64) the 3d of August, 1862, an Indian council met,
and one of the darkest and most daring plots was conceived and determined
upon.
This horrible plot meant nothing less than the wholesale murder of all the
whites west of the Mississippi.
·····
(36)
The Commencement of the Sioux War
It was decided to begin this horrible massacre on the morrow at the Upper
Agency
(http://cs.fdl.cc.mn.us/~isk/maps/mn/uppersio.htm Upper Sioux Dakota Reservation Website) (Accessed 15-09-2001)
and at Ft. Ridgely simultaneously, and cunning stratagems were devised to
capture these places. Accordingly, on the morrow, ninety-six young braves,
well-armed and painted went to Ft. Ridgely, pretending they were going on an
excursion against the Chippewas and asked the privilege to hold one of their
customary dances on a vacant lot within the fort. This privilege, for some
reason, was refused, but they were granted a spot outside the walls where at
once they prepared themselves for the dance.
(1862
Dakota Conflicts Map by Kevin Callahan - shows Acton, Fort Snelling, Camp
Release, Upper Agency, Wood Lake, Birch Coulee, Little Crow’s Village, Lower
Agency, Fort Ridgley, New Ulm, Mankato http://207.254.63.58/dakotaconflict.jpg)
(Accessed 15-09-2001)
·····
There were about sixty soldiers at Ft. Ridgely at the
time, and these not dreaming of danger were sauntering about negligent of
every military precaution. As the Indians had expected, the soldiers and
citizens soon gathered around to witness the strange performance. It was the
plan of the savages, when the soldiers were thus unarmed and wholly
unprepared, to ruch into the fort, seize the guns and ammunition and massacre
the entire garrison. The accomplishment, however, of this stratagem was
thwarted by the cautiousness of a brave Welshman. In command of the six small
pieces of artillery at the fort was one Sergeant John Jones. This man,
thinking it the duty of a soldier to be always prepared, loaded three of his
guns with grape and cannister shot and pointed them squarely at the dancing
braves. All that afternoon and all night long Sargeant (sic) Jones kept himself and two subordinates stationed
at the guns, whose frowning muscles (sic: = muzzles) were all that saved Ft. Ridgely. On the morrow the Indians, naturally
cowards and having special dread of the white man’s big guns, departed from
the fort without causing even the suspicion of evil.
The complicated attack upon the Upper Agency was, also, happily frustrated.
On the same morning of the 4th of August about 400 Indians,
mounted and on foot, made a raid upon the government warehouse at this place,
breaking in the door and shooting down the flag before the eyes of the agent
and 100 armed soldiers, but a prompt and vigorous action of the part of the
soldiery awed the cowardly savages and defeated their murmurous (Added from page v,
Errata: read “murderous” instead of murmurous.) purpose.
Their bloody plans having been thus thwarted at the start, another council of
the entire Sioux nation with as
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(x65) many Winnebagoes and other Indians as wished to come, was called to
meet on Sunday the 17th of August, at Rice Creek, sixteen miles
above the Lower Agency
(http://cs.fdl.cc.mn.us/~isk/maps/mn/lowersio.htm Lower Sioux Mdewakanton Reservation
Website) (Accessed 15-09-2001)
During the two or three days preceding this council the Sioux bands dwelling
in the Welsh settlement, after holding a few wild dances, suddenly took their
departure westward taking with them their squaws, papooses and all their
belongings. Likewise did the other Sioux bands dwelling over the rest of the
state, and daily the roads leading toward the Sioux Reservation were full of
Indians all going toward the Lower Agency, until by the evening of the
sixteenth all were gone. This strange movement, however, created not the
slightest suspicion among the whites as the Indians had been in the habit of
going to the reservation in great numbers to receive their annuities, which
were then past due.
·····
Sunday morning, August 17th, Little Crow, Inkdapoota and Little
Priest, chief of the Winnebagoes, attended religious service at the Episcopal
church in the Lower Agency and listened attentively to the sermon preached by
Rev. J. D. Hinman. In the afternoon of the same day the three attended a
large Indian council held again on Rice Creek, at which they were the
principal spokesmen. The theme was how to destroy the white race and redress
their wrongs.
·····
Then was thought to be the opportune time, as the whites were engaged in a
great war among themselves. All the regular soldiers, who heretofore had been
stationed in the frontier forts, had gone to the south and their places were
supplied by a mere handful of raw recruits. Fort Ridgely was occupied by
Campany B, Fifth Minnesota Volunteers, which comprised eighty men and four
officers, whoo had enlisted only six months before, together with Ordinance
Sergeant John Jones with six small pieces of artillery. Post Surgeon Alfred
Muller, Sutler B. H. Randall
(sutler = a person who
follows an army and sells provisions to soldiers - obsolete Dutch soeteler,
now zoetalaar, equivalent to soetel(en) to do befouling work (akin to SOOT) +
-er; Webster’s Dictionary) (Accessed 15-09-2001)
and Indian Interpreter Peter Quinn - in
all only eighty-eight men to guard hundreds of miles of frontier against
4,000 Sioux and 2,000 Winnebagoes, while at the other frontier military
posts, Forts Ripley and Abercrombie, only Companies C and A, of the same
regiment, with about the same number of men were stationed to keep in check
the hordes of Chippewas and Sioux in the region of the north and west.
Besides all this four thousand of the best able-bodied men from the scattered
homes of Minnesota had already gone to southern battle fields, and five
thousand more had recently enlisted and had just started for the great
conflict until it seemed there were only women and children and old men left.
·····
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(x66) Company E., of the 9th Regiment, was recruited
in Blue Earth county and contained a large proportion of Welshmen. They had
left Mankato only the previous Friday for Fort Snelling to be mustered in.
(“Historic
Fort Snelling” http://www.mnhs.org/places/sites/hfs/
“Discover an 1820s military outpost once at the edge of a small settlement
but now at the center of Minnesota’s Twin Cities metropolitan area.”) (Accessed
15-09-2001)
(Dakota
Conflict Trials Website: Photograph of Fort Snelling http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/dakota/PRISON~2.jpg)
(Accessed 15-09-2001)
On the same day the Indian agent, Maj. Thos. J. Galbraith, having enlisted
thirty men at the Upper Agency and twenty men at the Lower Agency, went with
them to Fort Ridgely, and this very Sunday morning, being furnished
transportation, they had left the fort accompanied by Lieutenant N. K.
Culver, Sergeant McGraw and four men of Company B for Fort Snelling, by way
of New Ulm and St. Peter, to be sworn in and sent south with the thousands of
able bodied men there gathered from all parts of the state in answer to their
country’s call. At 7 o’ clock on the morning of this same Sunday Lieutenant
Sheehan, with fifty men of company C, Fifth Regiment, who had been sent from
Fort Ripley to said Maj. Galbraith two months before in quelling certain
disturbances which had broken out among the Indians of the Upper Agency, left
Fort Ridgely to return to Fort Ripley, thinking the danger was all over. The
watchful eye of the Indian had observed all this. Now, if ever, was the
opportune time to avenge all their wrongs and recover all their lands from
the hated pale-face invader.
·····
The Great Spirit had delivered the white people into
their hands with all their rich spoil. It would be but a small pastime for
the Indian warriors to kill the women and children and the few men - mostly
old and decrepit - left in the country. These were the sentiments expressed
with all the force of Indian oratory at this Sunday afternoon council.
·····
There were present, by special invitation, delegates
from the Winnebagoes, Chippewas and the tribes who dwelt on the great plains
of Dakota, and all gave assurances of sympathy and aid in ridding the country
of the common foe. It was thought prudent, however, to defer the attack until
all the soldiers then mustering at St. Paul had left the state, and to make
sure of this a delegation of Indians was to be sent to St. Paul to spy into
affairs, under the pretext of seeking redress for their grievances. Little
Crow and his associates planned well and undoubtedly if these plans had been
carried out to full maturity the awful Indian massacre of 1862 would have
been ten times more awful and the Indian prediction that all the whites in
Minnesota, west of the Mississippi, would be destroyed and corn planted on
the sites of St. Peter, Mankato and Red Wing would have been fulfilled.
·····
A merciful providence, however, hastened the
massacre
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(x67) prematurely, and thus weakened the foe; and the gathering at Fort Snelling
of so many thousands of men enlisted ready for war turned out to be a very
important factor in saving the state from destruction by the savage tomahawk.
·····
On the 10th of August (Sunday) twenty Indians had left
the Lower Agency for the North End of the Big Woods in Meeker county to hunt
deer. On the morning of this eventful Sunday (August 17) four of these
twenty, having become separated from the others came to house of one Robinson
Jones in the town of Acton. Jones kept a sort of public house and had a bar
with liquors for sale.
A violent quarrel soon arose between Jones and the
Indians regarding a gun, which Jones charged they had taken some tiime before
to shoot deer with and had failed to return. Jones finally drove them out of
his house and refused to give them more whiskey. They then went a quarter of
a mile distant to the house of Howard Baker, a son of Mrs. Jones’ by a former
husband. There they conducted themselves peaceably, until an hour later when
Mr. and Mrs. Jones came over on a visit and resumed with them the old quarrel
with much bitterness. It seems these Indians belonged to Chief Shakopee’s
band near the Lower Agency, which band was the worst disposed towards the
whites and had been the most violent and aggressive in their denunciation in
the “Soldiers Lodge.” Evil inclined at heart towards the whites and greatly
incensed by the scurrilous abuse of Jones and his wife, and their brains
probably somewhat inflamed by whiskey, their savage thirst for vengeance
could contain itself no longer, so they induced the whites to shoot with them
at a mark and taking advantage of them when their guns were empty, they
immediately shot and killed Jones, Baker and his wife, and an immigrant named
Webster, who was stopping at Baker’s house, and then returned to Jones’
house, and killed a Miss Wilson, who was stopping there. This occurred about
noon. The bloody work done, they began to reflect on the terrible
consequences it might bring on themselves, and, stealing a span of horses
from a Mr. Eckland near by, they made all haste for home, 35 miles away, at
Shakopee’s village on Rice Creek, where they arrived late at night. The story
of the murders was at once communicated to the head man of the tribe and a
second council hastily summoned, after midnight, of all the Indians within
reach.
(
Dakota Conflict Trials Website: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/dakota/DAK_BIOG.htm
[Big Eagle’s Account, Through Dakota
Eyes. “You know how the war started -- by the killing of some white people
near Acton, in Meeker county. I will tell you how this was done, as it was told me by all of the four young men who did the
killing. These young fellows all belonged to Shakopee’s band. Their names
were Sungigidan (“Brown Wing”), Ka-om-de-i-ye-ye-dan (“Breaking Up’),
Nagi-we-cak-te (“Killing Ghost”), and Pa-zo-i-yo-pa (‘Runs against Something
when Crawling’)....”) (Accessed 15-09-2001)
·····
The four murderers were closely related to the strongest and most influential
families in the tribe. To save the young men
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(x68) from being immediately arrested and hung by the whites there seemed to
be but one remedy: to commence the massacre at once and annihilate the plae
face from the land before the tidings of this outrage should reach them and
put them on their guard, and soldiers should be sent to their defense.
·····
The young bloods not having the foresight of the older chiefs, having before
been impatient of the delay in beginning the massacre, now swept all before
them in their mad enthusiasm. Little Crow, however, was keen enough to
foresee the difficulty of so hasty a beginning and expressed his regret that
the outbreak was forced thus prematurely, but finally yielded to the argument
of necessity as their hands were already red. Seeing nothing could stem the
mad tide he threw himself on it’s (sic) top wave, ambitious of the hero’s place, as leader of his people. Ere
yet it was dawn the roads leading down to the Lower
Agency were full of armed savages, hideous with paint and feathers, and eager
to begin the carnage.
·····
Reaching the village about sunrise they began killing the people, and
plundering, and burning the government warehouse and the private stores and
houses and stealing the horses from the barns. So sudden and wholly
unexpected was the attack that no resistance could be made, and in a few
minutes about twenty persons were murdered. The rest of the inhabitants
taking advantage of the short respite the Indians spent in pillaging, fled
hurriedly toward Ft. Ridgely, thirteen miles distant. Forty-one of them reached
the fort in safety, but many fell victims to savage vengeance along the way.
Among the latter were Dr. Humphreys, the government physician of the Lower
Agency, and his family, consisting of wife and three children, a little girl
and two boys, the oldest only 12 years old.
·····
The wife was sick and after going three or four miles she became so exhausted
that they had to turn into a house to rest. The doctor sent the oldest boy to
a spring at the foot of the bluff close by after some water to drink. As the
boy was returning he heard the report of the gun that killed his father, and
hiding he saw the fiends chop off his father’s head with an ax and set fire
to the house and burn his sick mother and little brother and sister in it.
·····
The first news of the outbreak reached Ft. Ridgely
about 10 o’ clock a.m. The long roll was sounded and
the garrison immediately put under arms. A mounted messenger was at once
dispatched after Lieutenant Sheehan and his men, who had left
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(x69) the day before, requesting them to return to Ft. Ridgely forthwith.
Within thirty minutes after the first alarm Capt. Marsh with Quinn, the
interpreter, and forty-six soldiers started for the Agency. The road was full
of fugitives fleeing for their lives. They also met a soldier who had been
home on a furlough, John Magill, by name, at whose house Dr. Humphreys and
family had stopped. He joined the command making forty-seven soldiers beside (sic) Capt. Marsh. Six miles out they began to come
across dead bodies of men, women and children, lying in the road, some
horribly mutilated, while the smoke and flames of burning houses rose near
and far all over the country before them showing the appalling extent of the
dreadful massacre then being enacted.
·····
(37) The
Sioux War - Battle of Redwood Ferry- Monday August 18th 1862
In spite of every warning Capt. Marsh and his little
band of soldiers pressed resolutely on, by the body of Dr. Humphrey (sic) and the burning pile where his wife and his two children perished.
Near this place the oldest boy coming from his hiding place joined them, and
they hurried on across the wide valley of the Minnesota with the tall grass
on each side until they reached the ferry at the Agency crossing. The brave
French ferryman had stood by his post like a hero that morning and had
crossed over all the fleeing fugitives from the Agency until at last he fell
a martyr to duty. His body disembowelled, with head and hands chopped off and
inserted into the cavity, lay now by the road-side a
horrible sight. The ferry lay unfastened on the fort side of the river. The
water at the ford was very riley as though recently disturbed and a troop of
Indian ponies was noticed standing a little ways off
in the grass. There were bushes and tall grass all around. The soldiers
formed in line facing the river and two of their number went a few feet above
the ford for water. They returned saying they had seen the heads of many
Indians peering over the logs by the Agency saw mill
just across the river. Just then White Dog, who had been president of the
farmer, or civilized Indians, appeared on the other side of the river and
shouted to the soldiers to come over. It was the plan to get the soldiers on
the ferry and murder them all in mid-stream. Seeing the soldiers were about
to withdraw instead of crossing White Dog fired his gun as a signal of attack
and instantly a volley was fired from across the river by a hundred or more
Indians lying there in ambush.
(Dakota Conflict Trials Website - White Dog -
“White Dog, a young Indian of splendid physique, about 24 years of age... White
Dog, by the way, was an Indian Don Juan, of whom they said at that time, that
he did not merely “turn the heads” of young Indian maidens, but that he had
succeeded with a number of white women as well” http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/dakota/whitedog.html)
(Accessed 15-09-2001)
·····
Interpreter Quinn fell dead pierced by twelve bullets. Most of the shots,
however, passed fortunately over the soldiers’ heads.
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(x70) The captain ordered a retreat to the ferry house near by, but instantly,
before the order was hardly given, hundreds od paintd savages with demonic
yells rushed from the ferry house and barns and leaped out of the brush and
grass all around, and poured a murderous fire at close range into the devoted
little band. There was a terrible struggle for a few minutes and twenty-four soldiers and a few Indians lay dead on that fatal field.
Captain Marsh and fifteen of his men managed to gain a thicket, which lay
down the river a few rods, and from its shelter kept the Indians at bay all
that afternoon until 4 o’ clock when the lower end of the strip of wood was
reached. Here the Indians had concentrated their force to receive the
soldiers as they emerged from the timber. Discovering their intention Capt.
Marsh concluded to cross the river with the hope thus to elude the foe. Going
ahead of his command the brve officer waded into the stream and getting
beyond his depth began to swim when, probably seized by cramps, he threw up
his arms and cried for help and immediately sank beneath the waves and, in
spite of heroic efforts to save him, was drowned.
·····
The soldiers now gave up the attempt to cross the
river and passed down the north bank. The Indians, in the meantime, supposing
the soldiers had crossed the river, had hurried away to a ford and thus the
little band eluded them and escaped. Sergeant Bishop, on whom the command
devolved after Marsh was drowned, was wounded and one of the men was so badly
shot he had to be carried. Two men were then detailed to bear tidings to the fort
where Lieutenant Gere had been left with only twenty-two men fit for duty.
·····
All day long the terrified people had been pouring into the fort from the
country round, until by night there were gathered within it fully 200
helpless, horror-stricken people, mostly women and children: Many were crazed
with grief over the loss of dear ones, butchered before their eyes, others
were wildly anxious for missing friends and relatives, while all trembled as
to what their own fate might be, expecting every moment to hear the savage
war whoop and the crack of Indian guns. The few extra fire
arms in the fort were placed in the hands of those who could best use
them. About noon the long expected Sioux annuity of
$71,000.00 in gold had arrived at the fort in charge of C. J. Wykoff, clerk
of the Indian Superintendent, and four others. About 8 o’ clock at night the
two messengers dispatched ahead by Sergeant Bishop reached the fort, bringing
the first report of the terrible disaster which had befallen Capt.
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(x71) Marsh and his men. Two hours later Bishop and the twelve men with him
arrived. Before morning eight more men of Marsh’s command, who had managed to
hide in the brush near the ferry until dark, came straggling in, and with
them, having escaped all the peril, was Dr. Humphrey’s little son. Five of
the twenty-three men of Marsh’s command who escaped were wounded, leaving
only eighteen available for military service.
·····
At once on learning of the fate of Capt. Marsh and his company, Lieutenant
Gere sent a mounted messenger with dispatches to the commanding officer at
Ft. Snelling and to Gov. Ramsey acquainting them with the condition of things
and asking immediate aid. After plundering and burning the Lower Agency a
portion of the Indians under the command of Little Crow went to meet Capt.
Marsh and his men and were engaged in that battle all the afternoon as we
have stated, others scattered in small bands all over the country, a distance
of forty or fifty miles along the Minnesota river on both sides, butchering
the surprised and defenseless people, without regard to age or sex, pillaging
and burning their homes.
·····
Awful was the carnage - shocking were the horrors of that day’s outrages. At
night, the Indians, for the most part, returned to their villages - the
squaws laden with plunder, the braves with the gory scalps of their victims
dangling at their belts - the gray hair of age and silken locks of childhood
mingled together. The night was spent in celebrating their wild success.
Early in the morning the Indians had sent couriers on swift horses to inform
the Sioux of the Upper Agency of the outbreak and to urge their co-operation
in the war against the whites. Couriers were also dispatched in haste to all
the various bands scattered through the length and breadth of the
reservation, and within six hours after the first gun had been fired at the
Lower Agency there was not an Indian between the Little Rock river and Lake
Traverse but knew that the massacre of the whites had begun and had been
invited to participate in the glory and booty it would bring. The news
reached Yellow Medicine about noon and was so unexpected to the Indians
themselves that at first they hesitated to believe
it. Later couriers soon followed confirming the report and showing how
wonderfully successful the Indians had been.
·····
They had captured the Lower Agency and utterly destroyed it without the loss of a single Indian.
They had met, defeated and would soon annihilate the soldiers from
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(delwedd 4106) (tudalen 72)
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(x72) Ft. Ridgely. A council was summoned at once and met that afternoon to
determine what action they, the Upper Sioux, would take. The council was
divided in opinion. The heathen party were enthusiastic to join in the
massacre, while the Christian Indians and some of the others were opposed to
it. As fresh reports came continually of the success of the Lower Indians it
became evident to the friendly Christian Indians that they could not stem the
rising tide of war. So toward evening, on the 18th (Monday), John Otherday, a full-blooded Indian, an influential member of Dr.
Williamson’s church, and one of the bravest, truest and noblest men that ever
lived, with a member of his Christian companions at once notified the whites
of the Upper Agency and gathered them into a warehouse, and with their guns
stood guard outside all night determined to die in defense of their white
friends.
(Dakota Conflict Trials Website -http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/dakota/otherday.htm
Saint Paul Press, August
28, 1862] On Monday, the 18th, about 8 o’clock A.M., word came to the upper
Agency at Yellow Medicine, that all the white people at the Lower or Red Wood
Agency, had been murdered by the M’dewakanton Sioux... Other-Day himself
addressed them. He told them that they might easily enough kill a few whites
-- five, ten, or a hundred. But the consequence would be that their whole
country would be filled with soldiers of the United States, and all of them
killed or driven away...) (Accessed 15-09-2001)
·····
Early on the morrow the hostiles broke into the
stores and houses and shot two or three persons, who had failed to heed the
warning, and began the work of plundering. While their attention was thus
absorbed, Otherday seized the opportunity to load the white people into
wagons, and well-knowing the terrible chances he ran, placed himself at the
head of the caravan, which comprised twenty men and forty-two women and
children, and piloted them out of the very jaws of death, and across the
trackless prairie to Hutchinson and thence by St. Cloud to Shakopee, where
they all arrived safely the following Friday. Other Christian Indians went
the same Monday evening (August 18) and warned Dr. Williamson and Dr. Riggs
at their respective mission stations. With them were a
number of young ladies teaching in the mission schools. Through the
protection and aid of the faithful Christian converts, all were saved. Dr.
Riggs and his company were taken at midnight to an island in the Minnesota,
three miles away, and next morning being supplied with some food and a wagon
they started for Ft. Ridgely, and on the way were joined by Dr. Williamson
and his family and a few settlers, making in all forty-two souls. Unable to enter
the fort because of the siege they passed around it, and in hearing of the
Indian guns and in sight of the burning houses they journeyed all day through
Nicollet county on the road which lay next to and parallel with the one on
which the Indians were massacreing (sic) the people, and finally reached Henderson in safety. Too much
emphasis cannot be laid upon the work of the Christian Indians. Were it not
for them there is every reason to believe that the bloody designs of Little
Crow had
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(delwedd 4107) (tudalen 73)
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(x73) been fully consumated. First, by refusing to join in the massacre themselves
they greatly diminshed the number of hostiles; Second, by their voice and
influence in the councils and everywhere they restrained and thwarted the
ardour and plans of the hostile party; and third by their warning and aid
hundreds of people were enabled to escape. Ft. Ridgely, New Ulm, Mankato, St.
Peter and in short the entire state owed its
preservation at that great massacre to the missionary cause more than any
other thing. The years of consecrated, self-sacrificing labors of Dr.
Williamson and Dr. Riggs among the Indians bore rich fruit not only in saving
souls, but also in the saving of thousands of precious lives during the
terrible days of the Sioux war.
It was Little Crow’s plan to attack Ft. Ridgely at once before
re-inforcements could arrive, but the Indians utter want of organization and
discipline made it hard to concentrate his forces for the purpose.
·····
The warriors were scattered all over the country too much engrossed in
personal plunder and rapine to join in a united, intelligent campaign
necessary to the capture of strong holds. The open and secret opposition of
the Christian Indians destroyed united action at the Lower Agency and
deterred the expected aid from the Upper Sioux.
·····
By 9 o’ clock Tuesday morning Little Crow managed to gather between one and
two hundred warriors. They assembled on the open prairie two miles west of
the fort and were there addressed by Little Crow and other chiefs.
·····
There were only about thirty soldiers and twenty citizens available for service
at the fort, and it would have then been an easy matter to capture it and
massacre its garrison and the nearly three hundred non-combatant refugees. At
this perilous crisis Lieutenant Sheehan, with his fifty men of Company C,
entered the fort to the unbounded joy of the terror
stricken people. The message sent by Capt. Marsh had found them the
evening before, and by an all night forced march they had retraced the entire
distance it had taken them two days to make. They were the first
re-enforcements to enter the fort.
·····
Against the advice of Little Crow, the Indians, however, most fortunately, if
not providentially, decided not to attack the fort then, but to pass by it
and capture New Ulm first, as that place had no soldiers or cannon to defend
it, and by its capture they thought communications between the fort and the
east
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(delwedd 4108) (tudalen 74)
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(x74) would be cut off. Accordingly the Indians
crossed the river and passed down along its north bank to New Ulm.
·····
On the morning of the 18th, a recruiting party of twenty-five, in
five teams, had left
New Ulm for the west; when six or seven miles out, and when near the
“Travelers (sic) Home”
they came upon a man who had been shot lying in the road. A little way ahead
were four or five Indians in the road. Three of the teams were immediately
turned around to head for town. A number of the men
jumped into the other two wagons and, though wholly unarmed, gave chase after
the Indians, who soon turned and fired upon them. Three of their number were
killed and two wounded, one mortally. The rest abandoned their two teams and
ran back to the other wagons and so escaped to New Ulm, where some French
traders, who had also been attacked when going to the Agency, had preceded
them a short time before with news of the outbreak.
·····
Refugees soon began to pour in from the west with direful tales of the awful
massacre then being enacted by the Indians all over the country. The little
German town was thrown into the wildest confusion and terror, and the fresh
tales of horror which each fleeing fugitive brought, increased the panic more
and more.
·····
Wm. Banke was dispatched at once to Nicollet and St. Peter after aid and scattered
the report among the farmers along the road as he went. He reached St. Peter
about 6 o’ clock and there overtook Maj. Galbraith and Lieutenant Culver with
the Renville Rangers, who had left New Ulm that morning for Ft. Snelling.
About 2 o’ clock two men in a buggy from New Ulm, warning the settlers along
the Little Cottonwood, reached the residence of Robert Jones (Indiana). Evan
Jones and John J. Sh¡elds, who were harvesting in Mr. Jones’ field,
immediately hurried through the Welsh settlement in Cambria spreading the
startling news. Most of the people were harvesting and did not believe the
report. About 4 o’ clock in the afternoon three men in a light wagon, drawn
by two horses, were soon going at full speed down the Mankato road, through
the Welsh towns. They proved to be Germans from New Ulm. Two sat on the
driver’s seat with their guns in their hands, loaded and cocked, the other, a
large, fleshy person, sat on the bottom of the wagon-bed, face backwards,
holding a cocked revolver pointed in each hand and trembling like a leaf.
“The Indians are killing and burning all west of New Ulm and we are going to
Mankato after help,” was all they had time to say.
·····
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(delwedd 4109) (tudalen 75)
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(x75) The settlers hurried home to their families and the old oxen were soon
hitched to the wagon, the wife and children with a bundle of clothing and bedding
and some provisions were quickly stowed away in it. The door of the log cabin
was locked and leaving the stock to care for itself the
majority of the people congregated together, four or five families in
one cabin, to pass an anxious night. A few fled at once to South Bend. Some
had their tables spread for supper when the news came, and leaving the dishes
and food untouched they fled for their lives.
·····
The Welsh people of Eureka, in Nicollet county, heard of the outbreak the
same afternoon through Wm. Paddock, of Mankato, who had just come from New
Ulm with Joe Robert to Nicollet, and walked thence to Evan Bowen’s house.
Bowen took Mr. Paddock in his wagon and hurried through Judson to South Bend
and Mankato with the report. About 10 o’ clock in the morning of that same
day - only about six hours before the news arrived - eight or ten Sioux
warriors had passed through South Bend going west. They were all decked in
war paint and went along the street in marching order, beating an Indian
drum.
(For the significance of the drum to the Dakota
people, go to
http://www.ktca.org/powwow/realvideo/index.html
Wacipi PowWow (1995) on the Website of KTCA-TV; video clip ‘The Drum’;
length 5.40 minutes) (Accessed 15-09-2001)
It was also noticed that they carried themselves much more defiantly than
usual and never saluted any of the whites with the customary “Ho-Ho.”
·····
The people, however, thought they were simply mimicing (sic) white soldiers. Where these Indians came from and whither
they went is a mystery to this day, for no one saw them after they left the
village. Whether they had been on a visit to the Winnebagoes or elsewhere,
and were returning home ignorant of the outbreak, or whether they were
messengers which Little Crow had sent to the Winnebagoes to inform them of
the outbreak and request their co-operation is not known.
·····
So unexpected was the attack that the people everywhere at first discredited
the reports, until fully confirmed.
·····
The messenger which Sergeant Bishop had sent Monday night reached St.
Peter before daylight Tuesday morning and reported at once the
condition of things to Lieut. Culver and Maj. Galbraith. Having found some
Harper’s Ferry rifles at St. Peter they armed the Renville Rangers, and with
only three rounds of ammunition apiece they started back for the fort at 6
a.m., which they reached after twelve hours hard march, completing its list
of defenders.
·····
St. Peter, Mankato, South Bend, Nicollet and all the villages were in a
turmoil of excitement all Monday night, and for many days and nights
thereafter for that matter.
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(delwedd 4110) (tudalen 76)
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(x76) Public meetings were held, volunteers were called for, military
organizations were formed, arms and ammunition procured. A company of
eighteen, of which A. M. Bean was chosen captain, was formed at Nicollet
Tuesday morning and proceeded at once to New Ulm, where they arrived about 1
o’ clock p.m. The town seem paralyzed with fear. Hundreds of refugees had
come in from the country round and confusion and terror reigned supreme.
·····
Captain Bean’s company was the first help to arrive. There were two Welshmen
from the Eureka settlement in this company, namely Griffith Williams and his
brother Thos. D. Williams, who rendered splendid service at all the New Ulm
battles. Two other Welshmen, William J. Jones and Edward Dackins, reached New
Ulm from Judson this afternoon in time to participate in the battle, where
they did gallant work, both being well armed and good shots. They joined the
South Bend company later. Barricades of wagons and boards were thrown across
the street near the center of town. About 4 o’ clock in the afternoon Little
Crow and his warriors arrived near the village and began the attack.
·····
Five houses on the outskirts of the town were soon captured and burnt by
them, and their bullets began to whistle thick even in the centre of town.
One ball glanced from the side of a brick building and hit a young woman,
named Pauli, in the forehead, killing her instantly. Another stray bullet killed
a butcher in his shop. John Nix had succeeded in organizing a few New Ulm
people into a company and they with Capt. Bean’s company formed the only
defense. The great bulk of the people were in a frenzy of fear, hiding in
cellars and closets.
·····
The little handful of defenders, though most of them were but poorly armed,
returned the enemy’s fire with vigor and held them in check for about an
hour, when L. M. Boardman with sixteen men, mounted and well armed, arrived,
and with this re-enforcement the Indians were, after a sharp engagement,
driven back and at dusk retired from the field.
Had the savages known the true state of affairs in New Ulm they might have
taken the town easily that afternoon and massacred all the 1,200 to 1,500
people, including refugees that it then contained.
·····
Little Crow’s army seemed to have diminished greatly since it left Ft.
Ridgely in the morning. The temptation to murder and plunder the defenceless
farmers proved too much for most
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(delwedd 4111) (tudalen 77)
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(x77) of the warriors and they had scattered over the country for that
purpose. The Indians supposed the houses at the center of town were full of
men ready to fire upon them if they entered and concluded that their number
was too small to attempt it. So that evening Little Crow and his warriors
returned toward the Lower Agency to hold another council, gather together
again their scattered forces and to see if the large re-enforcements expected
from the Upper Agency had yet arrived.
·····
On the morning of this same Tuesday (August 19) a number of the men who had fled to New Ulm the night before from the
settlements on the Big Cottonwood and a few miles to the west, organized
themselves into a company and went back to their homes in quest of missing
relatives and friends. They spent the day in burying the dead and picking up
the wounded and those in hiding, whom they had sent by team to New Ulm, and
late in the afternoon as they themselves were returning in two divisions they
were ambushed by a part of Little Crow’s army at a place where the road
passed through a slough within a mile or town and eleven of their number
killed.
·····
At St. Peter the people had been busy all day organizing a company for the
relief of New Ulm.
·····
At 4 o’ clock in the morning word was sent to Chas. E. Flandreau, then judge
of the supreme court, who lived at Traverse, about a mile from St. Peter,
requesting him to come and help form a company.
·····
He immediately complied, and by noon, Sheriff Boardman was sent ahead with
sixteen mounted men, who reached New Ulm just in time to help save it at the
first battle. Judge Flandreau followed with the main body of the company
numbering over a hundred. They were also accompanied by a squad from Le Sueur
under Capt. Tousley, making in all about 125 men. They reached New ulm
bewtween 8 and 9 o’ clock in the evening in pouring rain. A company was also
formed at Mankato the same day and another at South Bend. The Mankato company
numbered about eighty men, and Wm. Bierbauer was their captain. The South
Bend company comprised about as many men and J. D. Zimmerman was captain and
Jehile Cheney and Minor Porter were lieutenants. More than half of this
company were Welshmen.
·····
Tuesday morning the people of the Upper Welsh settlement (then known as
Cottonwood or Butternut Valley, now Cambria), who had spent the night four or
five families together in a house, were in much uncertainty as to what to do.
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(delwedd 4112) (tudalen 78)
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(x78) Some favored fleeing to South Bend or Mankato, others thought the
report of the outbreak to be a false rumor, or at most an exaggerated account
of some drunken brawl. Thos. Y. Davis, John Shields and one or two others
concluded to go up toward New Ulm and ascertain the truth about the matter.
When near the Little Cottonwood river they met some refugees
who said the Indians were coming close by, killing and burning everything
before them.
·····
Returning at once on the full run they warned the settlers. The very smoky
condition of the atmosphere that morning seemed to corroborate the story.
Never were horses or oxen hitched to wagons more wuickly than then, and in a
few seconds the road was lined with teams all on ther full gallop, the
ox-teams vieing (sic) with
the horse-teams in the wild race for South Bend, while the excited drivers
plied their whips to urge their speed up hill and down hill, fearing at every
turn to see the Indians or to hear the crack of their guns and their savage
war-whoop. In a short time the whole country was
evacuated. Most of the people went to South Bend and Mankato, filling these
towns to overflowing. A number of the Cottonwood families, however, took
refuge in the houses of Hugh Edwards, Wm. J. Roberts and John I. Jones, on
Minneopa creek.
·····
Wednesday (20 August) morning the Mankato company and about
thirty members of the South Bend company went up to New Ulm to hear the news
and aid, if necessary, in its defense.
·····
Hugh Edwards and Rev. John W. Roberts took their teams to transport the
Baggage of the South Bend company and David T. Davis and his team were also
pressed into the same service and went as far as the Little Cottonwwod. This
company had been recruitng men all the way through the Welsh towns, and had
received many accessions, especially at Hugh Edwards’ place and at Judson
village, until it numbered over ninety men when it entered New Ulm, about the
middle of the afternoon.
(Added from the page of Errata: the number of the
South Bend company when it arrived at New Ulm was 73, and 10 of them remained
and took part in the battle of Aug. 31). (Accessed 15-09-2001)
·····
The Mankato company arrived an hour or two later. The first thing after their
arrival each company was marched up to a building and shown the mutilated
bodies of the eleven men who had been ambushed and killed the day before near
town when returning from an expedition up the Cottonwood. The ghastly
spectacle of those remains spread out upon the floor, heads all scalped and
some severed from the body, the arms and legs of some also chopped off and
otherwise mutilated, was enough to impress each one with the reality of the
Indian outbreak, and many of the boys who had thought that fighting Indians
would
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(delwedd 4113) (tudalen 79) narrow s
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(x79) be a nice pastime began to look serious and wish themselves back home.
Judge Flandreau had been selected commander in chief, and he had appointed
Capt. Todd, of St. Peter, provost marshal.
·····
Other companies of citizens from Le Sueur and elsewhere also arrived until
the defenders numbered 400 to 500 men. Their military organization was
perfected as well as could be and the town put into a fair state of defense.
The defenders, however, were only a crowd of farmers and town people who knew
nothing of military life. There was not a soldier among them. They had no
idea of drill or discipline. They had not enlisted in any regular way, bt had
simply come together voluntarily for mutual protection for as long as each
saw fit. Hence there was not that restraint and subordination among them seen
among regular soldiers. They were also poorly armed. Only a few carried good
rifles. The great majority had only ordinary shot guns, while many had no
weapons whatever except a pitchfork or a scythe. During Wednesday (20 August), Thursday (21 August) and Friday (22 August) no Indians appeared in the immediate vicinity of New Ulm. Their
attention during these days was taken up with the attempt to capture Ft.
Ridgely, and with the destruction of remote white settlements, such as those
of Lake Shetek, Norway Lake and others.
·····
(38) ·
The Sioux War - Battle of Ft. Ridgely, Friday August 22nd, 1862
Foiled in their plan to capture New Ulm
Tuesday afternoon, the Indians concluded to carry out their original plan and
capture Ft. Ridgely first. The principal white settlements west of New Ulm
lay along the Minnesota and the two Cottonwoods, and these had been
completely devastated by fire and tomahawk on Monday and Tuesday, so there
was no more fuel convenient to feed the savage fury without the capture of
Ft. Ridgely and New Ulm.
·····
The hundreds of savages who had been engaged in the fiendish slaughter had
returned to their villages near the Lower Agency by Wednesday morning (20 August), so that Little Crow was able then to muster a large force to attack
the fort.
·····
The fort stands on the high bluff overlooking the valley of the Minnesota. It
is lamost surrounded by ravines. In front is the valley of the Minnesota, On
the east and north is the deep wooded ravine of the Lone Tree creek, which
here enters the Minnesota from the north. On the west a short spur from the
Minnesota valley projects out a short distance into the prairie. So that the
small point on which the fort was situated is connected
with the great prairie, of which it is a part, by a narrow strip
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(delwedd 4114) (tudalen 80)
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(x80) only on the northwest. Thus located, this fort was quite accessible to
an Indian attack.
·····
There were now at the fort between ninety and one hundred soldiers, well
armed and fairly well disciplined: forty to forty-five Renville Rangers,
poorly armed with old Harper’s Ferry muskets and without any military
training, twenty-five to thirty citizens armed wit such guns as could be
found in the fort, and Sergeant Jones with six small cannons, only three of
which could be manned and used. About 1 o’ clock p.m. Wednesday (20 August), Little Crow and a few of his warriors showed themselves on the
prairie to the west of the fort and seemed to desire a conference. The
purpose of this demonstration, however, was simply to draw the attention of
the garrison in that direction as soon became apparent. The main body of the
Indians had passed down the Minnesota valley unobserved and got into Lone
Tree creek ravine, from which they charged with great fury upon the northeast
corner of the fort, where there was an open space between the fort buildings.
By a quick movement, on the part of the soldiers, this charge was met and
after a short, sharp struggle the Indians were repulsed and driven back into
the ravine. From this cover they poured deadly volleys into the fort at short
range until the cannon could be used upon them.
·····
Among the Renville Rangers were a few half breeds from the Lower Agency who
were in secret league with the Indians. By some means two of these managed,
unobserved, to remove the charges from the cannons and to stuff them with
rags, and then that morning under the pretext of going after some kinnikinic (sic) (kinnikinnik - a mixture
of bark, dried leaves and sometimes tobacco, formerly smoked by the Indians
and pioneers in the Ohio Valley. (Algonquian (Ojibwa): literally “that which
is mixed”. Webster’s Dictionary) deserted to the hostiles.
The condition of the cannons was not discovered until it was attempted to use
them at this attack. As soon as possible they were got into condition and the
Indians shelled from their advantageous position. The battle continued all
that afternoon, but towards night the Indians retired having failed in all
their attempts to storm the fort. Thursday (21 August) was spent by the Indians in gathering further re-emforcements from
the Upper Agency and elsewhere, and in making preparation for a second
attack. Friday afternoon (August 22) about 1 o’ clock, Little Crow
with from 500 to 600 warriors commenced the second attack on the fort, which
continued all that afternoon until dark. The Indians fought with desperate
determination and kept a constant shower of bullets and arrows pouring
against the fort from all sides. The principal attack, however, was made on
the southwest corner, where they captured the government stables. A well
directed shell
|
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(delwedd 4115) (tudalen 80a)
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Mankato, Minn. The rear of the Normal School
is shown on the left, the Court House on the right, and the High School
building is in the centre.
|
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(delwedd 4116) (tudalen 80b)
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Grove of Humphrey J. Roberts, Esq., Judson, Minn.
Where the “Big Meetings” of the C.M. Churches have been held for years.
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(delwedd 4117) (tudalen 81)
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(x81) from Sergeant Jones’ cannon set these on fire and they burned to the ground.
The Indians tried to fire the fort by shooting burning arrows into the roofs
but the shingles being wet from recent rain refused to burn. A number of Indians were massed in the ravine on the
north-east corner and a fierce charge was made from that quarter, but it was
repulsed. Keeping up a hot fire from this side the Indians tried to hold the
attention of the whites here, while they secretly massed a large force in the
ravine on the south-west to make another charge from that quarter. The
movement was fortunately discovered and one of the unused cannons was put in
position on the west side with Sergeant McGraw in charge and the shells from
this piece added to those from Jones’ piece soon dispersed the savages.
·····
No sooner had the chiefs massed a number of their warriors at some special
point than a shell from one of the cannons would scatter them like autumn
leaves. The whites were running short of ammunition and a
number of men and women were kept busy making bullets. Nail rods were
also cut into slugs and used as bullets, making a most unearthly noise as
they passed through the air, greatly terrifying the Indians.
·····
The Indian bullets, which fell thick within the fort, were also gathered and
remoulded to be sent back on a second mission of death. Toward night the
Indians retired and the second attack on Ft. Ridgely was over. That night
Little Crow received words from his scouts which directed his attention
elsewhere, and the fort was saved. The whites fought from under cover and
hence their loss was very small - only three killed and thirteen wounded. The
Indians claim their loss in killed was only two, but the whites estimated
from fresh graves found around the fort their dead must have been over a
hundred. It is alleged that when the last attempt to mass there
forces for a charge was made, that Sergeant Jones slew seventeen of them with
one shell. The truth probably lies somewhere between the two reports, as the
Indians usually greatly under estimated their loss
while the whites generally over estimated it.
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(delwedd J4117) (tudalen 81)
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(39) THE SIOUX WAR - BATTLE OF NEW ULM · FRIDAY
AUGUST 22ND / SATURDAY AUGUST 23RD 1862)
Let us now return to New Ulm to trace the course of events there.
·····
This town had not been molested since Tuesday and was wholly in the dark as
to the movements of the enemy, expecting another attack at any moment. Guards
were stationed around the town night and day, and as it rained much of the
time this duty was anything but pleasant. Thursday a squad of men was
sent out into the country to reconnoiter. They saw no Indians nor
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(delwedd J4118) (tudalen 82)
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(x82) white refugees,
but at every settlement, they came across scores of dead bodies of men, women
and children, who had been butchered by the savages.
(On the American Museum
of Photography website there is a photograph taken on Thursday, August 21,
1862 by Adrian J. Ebell, entitled “People Escaping from the Indian Massacre,
At Dinner on a Prairie”. This is compared with a wood engraving entitled “The
Breakfast on the Prairie” which appeared in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine in
June 1863 which was based on this photo. http://www.photographymuseum.com/massacr2.html.) (Accessed 15-09-2001)
·····
The departure for New Ulm of the Mankato and South Bend companies had taken
from the latter towns most of the able bodied men
and about all the guns and ammunition, so thatthese places were in quite a
defenceless condition. There was nothing to prevent the Sioux from passing by
New Ulm as they had passed by Ft. Ridgely and fall upon the country from the
east.
The Winnebagoes were known to be on most intimate terms with the Sioux, and
there was abundant evidence that the two nations intended to join in the
massacre and that messages were being passed between them. The Winnebago
reservation comprised the present towns of McPherson, Decoria, Rapidan, Lyra,
Beauford and Medo, in Blue Earth County, and the four towns adjoining on the
east in Waseca County. Thus they adjoined the
townships of Mankato and South Bend. Friday morning the rumour came to New
Ulm that the Sioux and Winnebagoes were going to unite in an attack on South
Bend and Mankato. The horrible butchery and mutilation of women and children
they had seen in their excursions west of New Ulm and upon bodies brought
into town by burial parties had made our stout hearted
volunteers shudder for their dear ones at home left in such a defenceless
condition. The rumor that the savages were about to attack them, therefore,
determined the South Bend company to return home immediately. There was a
little opposition to their departure on the part of some of the other
defenders, but with Judge Buck to champion their cause, they were allowed to depart in peace. About a dozen of the
company remained at New Ulm and were incorporated into the Mankato company.
Of this number were Joseph Wigley, John C. Jones, A.S. VanPatten (sic), Geo. Gilley
and others. The balance of the South Bend company, about seventy-five strong,
marched home. In passing through the woods and ravines of the Big Cottonwood
they were in momentary expectation of an ambush by the Indians, and it was
evident that there were Indians in the vicinity, for Indian dogs were noticed
crossing the road a number of times.
·····
This same Friday morning a refugee came to New Ulm seeking help to rescue
eleven persons, who were hid in a big clump of bushes on the Big Cottonwood,
near Sleepy Eye. An expedition of about 140 men was at once sent upon this
mission; and they took with them nearly all the best guns in New Ulm.
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(delwedd J4119) (tudalen 83)
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(x83) Those left to
guard the town were less than a hundred in number and very poorly armed. The
expedition found the refugees and then decided, as it was late in the day and
the distance back to New Ulm rather too much to undertake, to go on to
Leavenworth and pass the night there and next day scour the country in that
vicinity in the hope of saving other refugees. As they were marching,
however, they thought they heard the boom of cannon in the direction of Ft.
Ridgely. Climbing upon an eminence on the prairie, they could plainly hear
the cannonading and knew that the Indians were then atacking the fort. A
consultation was at once heard. Those expert in Indian customs had noticed
Indian signs, consisting of small loops made of grass hung on the tallest
bunches of grass on the prairie in such a way as to indicate to their
comrades the direction in which they had gone. A number of
times also they had caught glimpses of Indians skulking behind knolls. Dr.
Daniels, of St. Peter, had been the Indian physician at the Lower Sioux
Agency for years, and knew them well, and he and Dr. Ayres, of LeSueur, made
strong speeches urging the return of the expedition to New Ulm at once, as
they were sure there was mischief brewing. The matter was put to a vote and
the majority favored returning. After a hard march they reached the town by 2
o’ clock in the morning.
·····
That night, when Little Crow met his braves in council in the ravines of Ft.
Ridgely, his spys (sic)
brought important news. New Ulm was in a defenseless condition. Seventy to
eighty of her defenders had returned home toward South Bend, while 140 others
were wandering over the prairies near Leavenworth.
·····
Now was a splendid opportunity to capture this important town, with all its
rich spoil, slaughter its 1,500 to 1,800 inhabitants, including refugees, and
then turn and annihilate the force out of Levenworth. The plan was admirable
and doubtless would have succeeded had not the defenders, contrary to the
Indian expectation, returned, as we have said, that night.
·····
With the dawn next morning (Saturday, August 23) the Indians raised the siege
of Ft. Ridgely, much to the relief of that garrison, worn out with fighting
and constant guard duty and worse than all with ammunition nearly exhausted.
·····
About 8 o’ clock the people of New Ulm noticed a number of fires breaking
out on the opposite, or Nicollet, side of the Minnesota river. Through spy-glasses a few Indians could be seen going from farm to
farm setting fire to the houses, barns and stacks of grain. A company of
sixty-five to seventy men, well
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(delwedd J4120) (tudalen 84)
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(x84) armed, mostly
citizens of Nicollet County and interested in property on that side of the
river, volunteered under Capt. Wm. Huey, of Traverse, to go across the river
and drive the Indians away.
·····
A few of the defenders, best posted in Indian warfare, protested
against the move, claiming that this Indian demonstration was a mere
feint to draw the men across the river and cut them off from the town. That
the real attack would come from another quarter. The warning, however, was
not heeded and the company passed over the river, leaving twenty men to guard
the ferry. No sooner had they gone some little distance up the Nicollet side
than a number of Indians concealed in the brush
attacked the ferry guards, who fled for their lives. The Indians, after
crossing over to the New Ulm side, cut the ferry loose.
·····
Capt. Huey and his men then found that they could not get back to town, as
the river much swollen with recent rains, could not be crossed without the
ferry, and the Indians were firing upon them from the brush. They, therefore,
retreated toward St. Peter.
·····
The success of this part of the programme the Indians announced by means of
fire signals, and the main body of Little Crow’s army was seen to issue from
a point of timber about two or three miles northwest of town on the Brown
County side of the river. As they kept pouring out of the timber and weaving
in and out among each other like a great swarm of bees, it seemed as thought
there were thousands of them. The whites marched out to meet them and formed
in line of battle on the high table-land about a
quarter of a mile west of town. The Indians made a very grand spectacle as
they swarmed over the prairie in apparently countless numbers, with their
weapons glistening in the sun. When within a quarter of a mile of the whites
they spread out like a fan, advancing on a run, firing their guns,
brandishing their tomahawks and yelling their war whoops.
·····
The whites were only a crowd of raw, undisciplined recruits fresh from the
farm and shop who had never been under fire before, and as the Indians
outnumbered them more than two to one and approached in such a fierce manner,
it is no wonder they were seized with a panic and fled into town as fast as
their feet could carry them. Many hid in cellars and other places of
concealment and nearly all got into houses. A few of the bravest, however,
retreated in a more orderly manner, firing at the Indians as they retired and
holding them a little in check.
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(delwedd J4121) (tudalen 85)
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(x85) The Indians
followed the rout to the edge of town and there paused as though afraid to
enter. Had they then rushed in, there is no doubt but they might have taken
New Ulm and slaughtered all the people without much resistance; but, as they
afterwards explained, they thought the precipitate flight of the whites was a
mere ruse to draw them into an ambush, hence they did not dare advance
between the houses. The hesitation on the part of the Indians gave the whites
the opportunity to rally. A squad of men under John F. Meagher, took
possession of an unfinished brick building on the ridge west of town and
opened a brisk fire on the enemy. As this position was too far out for the
best service in defending the village they soon retired on the run, though in
order, toward town and Mr. Meagher, with most of the Mankato company under
him, was assigned to the southeast side of town, on the main street leading
toward St. Peter and Mankato. Another squad in which were John C. Jones and
Joshua Wigley got into another unfinished brick building on the top of the
ridge just mentioned where they fought bravely, keeping the Indians at bay
until 4 o’ clock p.m., when they retreated to the wind mill near by. This
they found occupied by Evan T. Jones, of Le Sueur County, E.P. Freeman, of
Mankato, J. B. Trogden, Rev. C. A. Stines and a number of other excellent shots.
·····
The Indians were thick on the ridge when this first squad reached the mill
and they had to pass through a shower of bullets. They all reached it,
however, ahead of the Indians, and Rev. Stines was the only one hit, and he
but slightly in the shoulder. Once inside they barricaded the door and from
the windows quickly opened a deadly fire on the enemy and drove them from the
ridge into the slough beyond.
·····
New Ulm is beautifully located at the V of the high table land, where the
valleys of the Minnesota and the Big Cottonwood come together and on the side
of the V facing the Minnesota. The highway from South Bend, Mankato and
points east passed through its principal street, in a north, northwesterly
direction to Fort Ridgely, the Sioux agencies and points west. Most of the
houses then, as now, were built along this street, called Broadway. Within a
block to the right comes the bluff, sloping to the valley of the Minnesota
one hundred and fifty feet below, while about two blocks distant to the left
a rounded ridge rises forty of fifty feet, extending the entire length of the
town. Not daring, as we hace stated, to charge into town, the Indians
proceeded at once to surround it. Some passed
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(delwedd J4122) (tudalen 86)
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(x86) down the river
valley and were joined by those crossing from the Nicollet side, but the main
body circled round the town back of the ridge, to the southwest until they
came to the South Bend and Mankato road at the extreme southeast end of the
town. In massing their main force here the Indians
may have intended to cut off the retreat of the whites, or stop their
communications and re-enforcements, or they may have thought this the most
advantageous point of attack. However this may have
been, here Little Crow fixed his headquarters in a small store building
opposite where (an)
old pottery stood. From this side now came the principal attack.
·····
Taking shelter in the houses which the whites had hastily deserted the
Indians began to work their way from house to house toward the center of
town. Seeing this, the whites began to fire the buildings as the retreated
from them. In the excitement, however, one large stone building on the main
street was passed and twenty or thirty Indians seeing the advantage quickly
got behind it . Just then the watchmen stationed on
the flat roof of Crone’s store noticed a large number of
men standing near the brow of the bluff where the road from Mankato and St.
Peter enters town. As re-enforcements were expected from Col. Sibley, it was
thought at once that they had come and on ascending the hill and seeing the
houses burning all around were afraid to enter thinking the Indians had full
possession. Capt. W. B. Todd, of St. Peter, who was next to Col. Flandrau (sic) in command,
suggested to John F. Meagher that they take a detachment of men out to meet
these people and bring them into town.
·····
The captain was warned that there Indians back of the store building just
mentioned. He wanted the men to charge and drive them away. This they refused
to do, and, putting spurs to his horse, the captain galloped down the street,
declaring he would drive them out himself.
·····
The moment he passed the corner of the building he was met by a fearful
volley. He managed to wheel his horse round and gallop back a short distance,
when horse and rider fell dead riddled with bullets. The captain was a brave
and able man, but had one failing - he was fond of
liquor and this the people of New Ulm foolishly distributed in unlimited
quantities to all the defenders free of cost. Mr. Meagher and his men, among
whom were Thos. Y. Davis and two or thrree other Welshmen, crossed the street
and got into a blacksmith shop which commanded the font of the building in
question, while another squad covered the rear. Two men advanced toward the
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(delwedd J4123) (tudalen 87)
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(x87) side of the
building to fire it. The Indians then beat a hasty retreat followed by a
volley from Mr. Meagher’s command. The supposed re-enforcements turned out
tio be Little Crow and his chiefs in council.
·····
As the wind blew from the southeast it drove the smoke of the burning
buildings towards town, affording concealment to the Indians as they wormed
their way in, and, therefore, to increase the smoke, they also fired houses.
Fortunately, however, the wind changed and the
advance of the Indians was then checked.
·····
The greatest fear of the whites was that the savages would concentrate at one
point and charge into town. During the afternoon te sentries on Crone’s
building noticed a strong concentration taking place behind a clump of trees
and brush on the brow of the hill to the northeast of the town, and a number
of the whites were gathered to meet the attack, which soon came with much fury.
The whites were now in good fighting temper and bravely charged to meet the
enemy, routing them with much loss. The whites, however, lost one of the best
shots and bravest men in this charge - Newell Houghton of the Mankato
company. The Indians had completely invested the town in a short time after
their first attack, as we before stated, and since that time they had slowly
been working their way in from the outskirts toward the centre of town, where
the whites soon concentrated all their force in the four principal blocks.
The Indians had posted a strong force at the head of every street and alley
and their bullets whistled through town in every direction, making it
dangerous to cross any street. Most of the killed and wounded were shot in
crossing the street. James Shoemaker, of Mankato, and the other officers were
exposed to special danger in going ffrom place to place to encourage and
direct the men. One of the most hazardous duties of all was that of
distributing ammunition to the men at the front in the outside circle of
houses. Thos. Y. Davis, now of Mankato, finally volunteered to perform this
perilous work, and he tells of many a narrow escape he had that Saturday
dodging Indian bullets on the streets of New Ulm. Once or twice he made his
way through the midst of the enemy to supply ammunition to the garrison at
the windmill.
·····
The large quantity of ammunition and good guns which the Indians had secured
at the Agencies, at the ferry from Capt.Marsh’s company and from the settlers
they had killed, in addition to the rather plentiful supply they had
themselves to
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(delwedd J4124) (tudalen 88)
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(x88) begin with, gave
them great advantage over the whites, who had very good rifles and a very
limited supply of ammunition. So the firing of the
Indians could be readily distinguished by the loud reports of their well
loaded guns. During the fight the Indians also kept up a constant yelping and
yelling like packs of wolves. This they did partly to communicate orders and
encourage each other.
·····
The summer of 1862 had been rather wet and hence all vegetation had grown
luxuriantly. As in all western village, the houses of New Ulm, except a few
stores and shops in the center, were quite scattering, each surrounded with
an acre or two of land fenced in and overgrown with grass tall and thick. In
almost every back yard there were one or more small stacks of hay and barns or
sheds for cattle. On the river side of the town there were springs coming out
of the bluff here and there causing boggy places where the grass and weeds
grew especially rank. All this afforded the Indians a fine opportunity for
their mode of fighting. Fixing turbans of grass on their heads the braves
would crawl like snakes through the grass until close to town - pour a volley
into it, then wiggle back without exposing themselves in the least to the aim
of the whites. The whites now determined to burn all the town outside of the
four center blocks. Soon after sundown the Indians withdrew after their
custom to their camp which they pitched on the opn prairie in plain view on
the northwest side of the town. The garrison at the wind-mill
now set the mill on fire and retired into town. Men sallied forth and set all
the outside buildings on fire. In all 192 houses, besides barns, sheds,
haystacks, and fences were consumed.
·····
A portion of the South Bend company - among them Wm. Jones and David and John
S. Davies - had started back to New Ulm this Saturday (August 23). When they
reached the bluffs of the Big Cottonwood they saw
the smoke and flames of the houses burnt in the afternoon, and concluding the
town had been captured beat a hasty retreat to South Bend.
·····
Other Welshmen, who had gone up to Cambria to care for their stock, also,
noticed the smoke in the afternoon and from the bluffs on D.J. Davis’ farm
the flames of the burning houses were plainly visible. They at once hasted to
South Bend and Mankato with the report that New Ulm had been taken and was
being sacked and burned by them. The terrified people, who had been stopping
four or five people together in farm houses along
Minneopa Creek and elsewhere hastened with all speed to South Bend and Mankato.
In South
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(delwedd J4125) (tudalen 89)
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(x89)Bend the women and children, numbering
some hundreds were all packed into the second story of the stone mill of
Evans and Price, which still stands in that village, while all the men were
pressed into service to defend the town. Hardly half of them had guns of any
kind, the rest were armed with pitch forks, axes and scythes which had been
procured ffrom the stores. It was an awful nught. The red glow of the burning
city reflected upon the clouds was plainly visible from South Bend, Mankato
and St. Peter. More than half the families in these three towns had husbands,
sons or brothers among the New Ulm defenders and their sorrow and axiety was
pitiful. Then the wildest rumours prevailed, adding to the anguish and
dread. For instance, it was authentically stated that so and so had seen the Indians
kill John Shields and the last he saw of his comrade, Thos. Y. Davis, he was
running for his life with a dozen savages close at his heels. At Mankato a
young man came rushing up Front street with his hair literally standing on
end shouting that the Indians had come. That his father had just seen fifty
canoes come down the river and land below the levee. As his father was a cool headed man and the Indians were expected, the story
was not doubted, and the wildest terror and panic ensued. The marshall, A. N.
Dukes, with John C. Wise, present editor of the Review, C. K. Cleveland and
others hastily mustered about two dozen of the militia together (the rest
were too busy just then, inspecting their cellers (sic), barns and other dark retreats for
fear the Indians may have hid there, to hear the call to arms,) and marched
quickly to the place and then crawled through the brush and behind wood
piles, expecting every moment to hear the crack of Indian guns and feel the
sting of their bullets, until at last they reached the river’s bank and it
was discovered to the great relief of all that the fifty canoes of Indians
consisted of only a half submerged log, over which the swashing of the
current at regular intervals made a noise suggestive of the dipping of oars.
These rumours had all the force, however, of realities for the time being. It
was fully expected that the Sioux flushed with their victory over New Ulm and
Fort Ridgely (for there was no question then but both had fallen into their
hands,) were on their way to attack South Bend and Mankato and would be
joined by the hordes of the Winnebagoes. It was a time to try men’s souls,
and many a man renowned for courage in time of peace, lost it all now, while
others unknown for bravery disclosed heroic hearts.
·····
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(delwedd J4126) (tudalen 90)
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(x90) The first news
of the outbreak reached St. Paul late Tuesday afternnon and Governor Ramsey,
after reading the dispatches sent him by Lieut. Gere, and Agent Galbraith at
once went to Medota and commissioned Ex-Governor H. H. Sibley,
commander-in-chief of all the forces with rank of colonel, to form an
expedition against the Indians.
( Dakota Conflict Trials Website: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/dakota/sibley.html
Sibley was no Indian-hater. He had, in fact, made eloquent appeals to
Congress for better treatment of Native Americans. As he learned details of
uprisng, however, he had no sympathy for those participating in the massacres
and attacks on civilians...) (Accessed 15-09-2001)
The companies,
which had enlisted at Ft. Snelling the day before, had. for the most part,
started home for short furloughs, except those of the Sixth Regiment. Col.
Sibley immediately proceeded to the fort to prepare for the expedition. Word
was sent directing the furloughed men to report for duty forthwith. The
majority of Company E of the Ninth Regiment, containing a
number of the Welsh volunteers from Blue Earth County, had reached
Shakopee Tuesday evening, where the report of the massacre reached them. They
were ordered to Carver and there await their arms and ammunition. They were
obliged to wait for these until Thursday morning. They then took up their
march for Mankato where they arrived Friday afternoon and went into camp on
Van Brunt’s North Row addition on the westerly side of town. They had with
them sealed orders, which were opened and found to instruct them to impress all
the horses they needed and report for duty at Lake Crystal, to guard the
Indian trail leading between the Winnebago and Sioux Agencies, which passed
by the lake, and prevent a junction of the two tribes at New Ulm. The “boys”
immediately sallied out and took possession of all the horses they could find
in Mankato and vicinity, and all thus provided went with Capt. Dane to Lake
Crystal Saturday morning. The rest of the company supplied themselves with
horses during this day and under Lieutenants Keysor and Roberts reported at
the lake Sunday afternoon. Late in the afternoon of the same Friday (August
22) that Capt. Dane’s company reached Mankato, Col. Sibley, with four
companies of the Sixth Regiment arrived at St. Peter after a tedious march
through the Big Woods, where the roads were in a terrible condition, owing to
the continual rains. Sibley at once dispatched Lieut. E. St. Julian Cox, with
seventy-four volunteers, and Lieut. Adam Buck, with forty-eight Henderson
volunteers, to the relief of New Ulm. Many not being armed,
fifty new Austrian rifles were issued to them.
·····
Leaving St. Peter in the afternoon of Saturday they reached their destination
Sunday afternoon (August 24). In the meantime the
Indians had resumed their attack on New Ulm early Sunday morning. Finding the
whites, however, well entrenched and
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(delwedd J4127) (tudalen 91)
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(x91) concentrated in
the four center blocks of town, with all the other buildings around burned to
the ground, so they must approach over the open ground to make their attack,
they soon retired, and gathering a large drove of cattle, they drove them up
towards town and tried to approach in their shelter. As soon as they came
within range the whites fired a volley into the cattle which caused them to
stampede and the Indians stampeded with them. Three
times the Indians tried the cattle breastwork experiment and each time with
the same result. Discouraged of all hope to capture the town and doubtless
learning through their scouts that large re-enforcements for the whites were
coming close at hand, the savages, after a short consultation about 11 a.m.,
gave up the fight and withdrew in a body up the Minnesota valley whence they
came. A few of the whites sallied out a short distance after them and cheered
but the Indians hurried briskly forward driving the cattle before them. In a
short time Jim Hooser rode into town with messages
from Capt. Dane, and the defenders first learned that their families at South
Bens were safe. Jim was a daring fellow, and that morning had volunteered to
enter New Ulm or die. The loss of the whites at the battle of New Ulm was 29
killed and about 50 wounded. The Indian loss is not known, as only two or
three of their dead fell into the hands of the whites. They made use of a
building on a ridge southwest of the town as a hospital, and kept a white
sheet floating over it as a flag all day Saturday. Within an hour or two
after the Indians departed the re-enforcements undr Lieutenants Cox and Buck
were seen approaching the town from the opposite direction. At first the
people feared they might be Indians, but their orderly march soon convinced
them to the contrary. Upon consultation held that afternoon it was found that
both food and ammunition were nearly exhausted and
the re-enforcements availed little without these necessities. There were
nearly 2,000 people then at New Ulm, the great majority of whom were women
and children, and all were packed into the few buildings left standing in the
center of town. Then there were a large number of
wounded and sick for whom it was impossible to properly care. In view of all
these facts and the probability that the Indians would soon return, perhaps
in larger numbers, to renew the attack, it was decided to evacuate the town
early on the morrow
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(delwedd J4128) (tudalen 92)
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(x92) and go to South
Bend and Mankato. All were notified to be ready for the march and every team
in town was put in requisition. Contrary to instructiions the people piled
all manner of personal property on the wagons until there was no room for
half the women and children, so the next morning th officers were obliged to
dump from the wagons into the street, trunks, feather-beds, and all manner of
household goods. The road for two or three miles from town was in fact lined
with goods thrown from the too heavily loaded wagons and many a tear was shed
by the thrifty German house-wives at the loss of
their valuables. Before starting the stores were all thrown open and the
people invited by the proprietors to take whatever they wished as it was
supposed the Indians would get all there was left. Strychnine was placed in
three barrels of whiskey and some flour and brown sugar for the benefit of
the savages. At nine o’ clock this Monday morning the barricades were thrown
down and the procession started. There were 153 wagons in line and 2,000
people. Only the women and children and the wounded and sick were allowed to ride. The defenders marched some in front,
some in the rear, and the rest on both sides of the train with their guns
ready to defend the women and children in any emergency. There was great fear
of an ambush in the wooded ravines of the Big Cottonwood, Little Cottonwood
and Cambria Creek and much precaution taken in crossing them. About a mile
beyond Cambria Creek the train was joined by David J. and William J. Williams
and their mother, whose home then was in an out of the way place in the
wooded valley of the Minnesota, so they had not known of the outbreak until
that day, though New Ulm was only about five miles away and people had been
murdered in Nicollet, much nearer than that. As there were hundreds of
refugees in South Bend already, the town could not accommodate this vast host
and as many as could be induced to do so were sent on to Mankato. To feed the
hungry multitude, two large oxen were killed in the street just back of D. P.
Davis’ present store and their flesh cut up and boiled in four large iron
kettles set over camp fires. John D. Evans, David D.
Evans and Thos. J. Jones (Bryn Llys) (Bryn-llys) had charge of this out door
meat shop. Just across the street in the big hotel still standing, Miss
Elizabeth Davis (now Mrs. Richard Jones of Cambria) had charge of the bread
department and four barrels of flour were converted into biscuits before the
crowd were satisfied.
·····
At Crisp’s store in Judson (where Mrs. Robert Roberts now
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(delwedd J4129) (tudalen 93)
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(x93) lives) the rear
guard consisting of the companies of Lieutenants E. St. Julian Cox and Adam
Buck and a part of the Le Sueur company, under acting Lieutenant J. B. Swan,
halted for the night to guard the rear in case the Indians should follow the
retreat.
·····
It was a very dark, rainy, cold night. Late after midnight one of the
sentries noticed some object move ahead of him in the tall grass. He
challenged it, but, instead of answering, it came
straight toward him. He raised his gun and pulled the trigger but the rain had
wet the cap so it did not fire. A weak, rembling
feminine voice fell on his ear beging him not to shoot. It proved to be a
poor woman, Mrs. Harrington by name, who eight days before had started to
flee from her home on the Big COttonwood with a number of neighbors,
but being overtaken by the Indians nearly all were murdered. She
jumped fro the wagon with her little babe - a year old - in her arms. An
Indian bullet sped through her babe’s little hand, which was resting onher
shoulder, and passed into her body. She ran into the brush and hid. Even the
little babe was conscious of danger and kept as still as a mouse, though its
little hand had been severely lacerated by the cruel bullet. Since then she
had spent the days hiding in bushes and swamps, and the nights wandering over
the prairies, subsisting on roots, berries and raw vegetables, until this
Monday night weak from hunger, loss of blood and pain, wet and shivering with
the cold and her clothes torn almost to shreds, her feet cut by the grass,
she saw the camp fires and determined to approach them rather than perish
from exposure in the slough. The men kindly cared for her and her babe, and
next morning took them to the hospital at Mankato and there the glad husband,
who happened to be east at the time of the massacre, found them.
·····
Judge Flandreau and some of the other officers, now that the women and
children and wounded had been disposed of, and supplies of food and
ammunition obtained, tried to induce the companies who had remained at
Crisp’s farm to return to New Ulm and thus hold the Indians in check, but the
men were anxious to go home and refused.
·····
This same Monday Col. Sibley sent Col. Anderson from St. Peter with forty
mounted men of the St. Paul Cullen Guards and twenty foot
soldiers in wagons to succor New Ulm.
·····
They reached the town Tuesday morning and finding it deserted they returned
at once to St. Peter.
·····
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(delwedd J4130) (tudalen 94)
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(x94) Col. Sibley had
left St. Peter this Tuesday afternoon (August 26) with all his force for Ft.
Ridgely and Wednesday this company followed him. The advance consisting of
175 volunteer citizen horsemen under Col. McPhaill and Col. Wm. R. Marshall
made an allnight march and reached the fort early Wednesday morning, being
the first to arrive since the battle. Col. Sibley with the infantry entered
the fort Thursday, August 28. In the meantime Judge
Flandreau had been assigned to the command of all the military organizations
in Blue Earth County and points south and west, with headquarters at South
Bend. Commissionaries had been established at St. Peter, Makato and South
Bend to feed the fugitives there gathered.
·····
At the last named place John D. Evans’ shoe shop was the location of the
commissary and Geo. Owens was in charge, under Sheriff D. Tyner. Martial law
was everywhere in vogue, and private ownership of property little respected.
Every horse that could be found was immediately seized and pressed into service
by the soldiery. Cattle were taken by the authorities without compensation to
the owners and slaughtered for food as public necessity required. Threshing
crews were also formed and the stacks of the farmers threshed and the grain
taken and ground, without asking the owner’s leave, to supply the common
need.
·····
On Tuesday, August 26, while Capt. Dane’s company were in their camp at
Robinson’s place, at the out-let of Crystal Lake, they discovered a wagon
coming from the west by Buffalo Grove. A detachment went out to meet it. The
occupants proved to be refugees from Lake Shetek - Messrs. Everett, Chas. D.
Hatch and Edgar Bentley and a Mrs. Meyers and her four little children. Mrs.
Meyers had been carried from her home on her sick bed and her husband had
left the party two days ago, when near New Ulm, to get help. He managed to
elude the Indians and get into town but could not get out. As he failed to
return the party puched on until they saw the soldiers coming and thinking
them to be Indians, Hatch and Bentley fled into Buffalo Grove Lake and hid in
the grass. Everett and the Mrs. Meyers could not flee
and the fright threw the woman into convulsions. After much trouble the
soldiers made the two men understand they were friends and they came out of
the slough. Messrs. Everett and Hatch had been badly wounded. All were taken
to the hospital at Mankato, where Mrs. Meyers died the next day. The
hardships she had undergone proving too much for her enfeebled constitution.
·····
|
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(delwedd J4131) (tudalen 95)
|
(x95) On Friday, August
29, Capt. Dane’s company were ordered from Lake Crystal to occupy New Ulm,
which had been deserted since Monday, and presented a very desolate
appearance. The houses were all burnt except for a few in the center. The
streets were littered from end to end with household goods of every
description, and here and there were the bloated carcasses of horses and
cattle that had been killed in the fight, emitting a horrible stench. Little
mounds of earth were frequent in the streets, where the dead had been hastily
deposited in shallow graves. Barricades were left in several places across
the streets, and the few buildings left were all loop-holed for musketry, and
both barricades and buildings were riddled and splintered with bullets.
Everywhere were evidences of the desperate conflict of Saturday and Sunday,
and it was several days before the company could restore the town into any
appearance of order.
·····
Col. Sibley was now at Ft. Ridgely with a force of between 1,500 and 1,600
men - but all were raw recruits, who had received no military training, and
were armed for the most part with rejected muskets, which the government had
sent north to be used only in drilling new regiments. There was scarcity of
ammunition also, and much they had did not fit the guns. Then rations had to
be gathered to feed the army. Camping outfits and means of transportation had
to be gathered to be procured. To secure all these necessaries at once for
the expedition taxed Col. Sibley’s ability to the utmost.
·····
Sunday, August 31, Col. Sibley detailed as a burial party, under Capt. H. P.
Grant, Comapny A of the Sixth Regiment, and two volunteers from each of the
other companies of the sixth, and sent the Cullen guards, a small detachment
of citizen cavalry under Capt. Joe Anderson, with them to act as scouts.
·····
In all there were one hundred and fifty-three men including infantry, cavalry
and teamsters and ninety-six horses including twenty teams to carry luggage.
They were instructed to inter the remains of Capt. Marsh and his command
killed at the ferry and proceed to the Agency and bury all bodies found there
and in thast vicinity: Major Joseph R. Brown, the famous Indian trader, went
with this expedition, perhaps nominally as its commander, though Grant seems
to have been in actual command.
·····
During the first day they buried over fifty persons and camped about five
miles up the river on the Renville county side. Early Monday morning,
dividing the command, Capt. Anderson and the mounted men were sent across the
river to explore the country toward the Yellow Medicine, while Capt. Grant
and the
|
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(delwedd J4132) (tudalen 96)
|
(x96) infantry
continued to march up the north side of the river to Beaver Creek. Every
little while they had to stop to bury entire families of women and children
who had been massacred. In the morning Capt. Grant noticed what he supposed
was an Indian hiding in a slough near the road. Surrounding the spot they found a white woman. Thirteen days before, her
husband and three little children were butchered before her eyes. The Indians
then told her to run and just as she was starting
they fired on her and put nine buckshot into her back. The fiends then took a
knife and ripped her clothing all off, and in so doing cut a deep gash over
her stomach and left her for dead. She revived but the shock had affected her
brain and she had wandered over the prairies in a nude and demented condition
subsisting on roots and water until then. A blanket was wraped (sic) around her and
a bed of hay made for her in one of the wagons, while Dr. Daniels dressed her
wounds.
·····
(40) THE SIOUX WAR - BATTLE OF BIRCH COOLEY -
TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 2ND 1862
Every little while two or three wagons would be seen standing in the
road, and always in and around them would be found the remains of entire
families, men women and children horribly mutilated. Among otheres they found
the half burnt remains of Mrs. Henderson and her
infant. She was sick, confined to her bed, on the awful morning of the
outbreak. Her husband and friends carried her out on the bed to the wagon and
while on the way to the fort the Indians overtook them and killed nearly all
the party. Mrs. Henderson and her babe were tossed out of the wagon on the
prairie by the wretches, the bed thrown over them and a match applied to it
and thus the mother and child horribly perished. Burying all these remains
the expidition (sic) pressed
on to Beaver Creek where thirty more remains were buried. It was now to late
to return to the fort that night, so they concluded to get back as far as
Birch Cooley (coulee
[kúuli], (1) (Western North America) a deep ravine or gulch, usually dry,
that has been worn away by running watrer; (2) a small valley; (3) a
low-lying area; (4) a small intermittent stream; from Canadian French <
French = ‘a flowing’, nominative use of tthe feminine of coulé, the past
participle of couler = to flow < Latin côlâre = to filter, strain, derivative
of côlum = strainer, sieve; Webster’s Dictionary) a small stream, which empties into the Minnesota,
from the north twelve miles north west of Ft. Ridgely. The camp was fixed on
the bluff overlooking the Minnesota Valley where the cooley entered it. Capt.
Anderson soon joined them with the mounted troops. Both he and Major Brown
declared there were no Indians within twenty-five miles. Five hundred hostile
savages, on the way to attack South Bend and Mankato had caught sight of the
expidition (sic)
that morning as it marched on the side of the bluff and all day their spies
had watched it and at this very moment their eyes were fixed on the devoted
little band as they pitched their camp in fancied security. The wagons were
arranged in a circle about the tents and ropes
|
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(delwedd J4133) (tudalen 97)
|
(x97) stretched from wagon
to wagon and the horses tethered to them forming a circle about the tents.
Pickets were posted outside and the tired command
turned in for a good night’s rest. About four o’ clock in the morning one of
the pickets discovered some object crawling toward him in the grass. He
challenged it and then fired. Immediately an awful yell from five hundred
Indian throats rent the air and in the gloom five hundred Indian guns lit a
circle of deadly flame round about the camp. The guards rushed in, firing at
the enemy as they came. The startled soldiers rushed out of their tents in a half dazed condition and for a few moments there was much
confusion. The soldiers mistook the command to “fall down” for “fall in” and
so exposed themselves for a few minutes to the deadly aim of the foe, whose
bullets whistled thick through the camp from every direction. The men soon
got in the shelter of the wagons and dead horses and blazed back at the enemy
with all their might. It was a fearful struggle at short range, but the whites
fought with desperation, well knowing they could hope for no quarter from
such a foe. After an hour of furious fighting the Indians were forced back to
long range. The forty rounds of ammuntion apiece which the soldiers had
brought in their cartridge boxes were now about exhausted. 3,000 extra rounds
had been brought in the wagons, but, on opening the
boxes, it was found that through some error all the balls were 62 caliber,
while the guns were only 58 caliber. The soldiers were at once set to work
whittling bullets and all took care to fire only when absolutely
necessary. Fortunately, however, the Indians did not attempt another
charge, but contented themselves with lying concealed in the ravines and tall
grass around and firing the instant a soldier showed himself.
·····
In the first encounter nearly one-fourth of the entire command had been
killed or wounded, and all the horses had been killed save two or three.
Another serious trouble now arose, there was not a drop of water in the camp
and none could be had nearer than the bottom of the cooley, but this was full
of Indians. The the two day’s (sic) rations, which they had brought, was all gone. The
suffering of the men, especially of the wounded and dying, was terrible as
they lay on the bluff all day in the hot sun. But how long was it to
continue? Fortunately the guards at Fort Ridgely
heard the firing in the early morning, and Col. Sibley dispatched Col.
McPhaill with two hundred and forty men and two cannons to their aid. About
four o’ clock in the afternoon, to the great joy of the beleaguered
|
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(delwedd J4134) (tudalen 98)
|
(x98) camp,
McPhaill’s force was seen approaching two or three miles east of the cooley
and the boom of the cannon heard. The Indians concentrated such a force in
front of McPhaill that he was scared and instead of pressing forward and
giving battle to the savages he dispatched a courier back to Ft. Ridgley for
re-enforcements and entrenched his army on the prairie to await their coming.
The disappointment of the besieged camp at the sudden disappearance of the
relief they thought was at hand was great, and they spent a long night of
intense suffering and anxiety. By morning the Indians were re-enforced and
began to close in on the camp.
(Photo of Wambdi Tonka (Big Eagle) a chief who
fought in this battle http://www.esu1.k12.ne.us/~santewww/) (Accessed
15-09-2001)
·····
A message was sent to the few half breeds in the white force offering them
their lives if they would surrender, but with heroic courage and fidelity
they answered, that they would never desert their friends and would die with
the whites if need be. The arms of the dead and wounded were distributed so
that nearly all had two or three loaded guns by their side
and they defied the Indians to come. The savage horde, made bold by numbers,
was drawing nearer, when a big Indian stood up and shouted in Sioux from the
east side of the cooley (Dakota Language Homepage http://www.alliance2k.org/daklang/dakota9463.htm): “there are three
miles of soldiers coming.” Gen. Sibley with his entire force was at hand and
the boom of his cannon and the rattle of his musketry was the sweetest of
music to the distressed command. The Indians soon beat a hasty retreat. A sad
spectacle did that camp by Birch Cooley present. In a circle round the tents
lay the swollen carcasses of ninety-one dead horses, behind them lay twelve
dead men and forty-five wounded. For thirty-six long hours the camp had been
without food, water or sleep in a desperate struggle for life. The dead were
buried in one grave. One of the wounded died a day or two afterwards at the
fort. The poor woman who had been picked up on the prairie had lain in the
wagon during the entire time of the battle wihtout food or drink, and strange
to say, though the wagons were riddled and splintered with bullets, she escaped
with only a slight wound in her arm.
·····
As Gen. Sibley had no cavalry to pursue the Indians, he returned to the fort.
Appropriate monuments have been erected recently by the state to commemorate
the battles of Birch Cooley and New Ulm.
·····
On the day of the main battle at Birch Cooley, September 2, a refugee from
Lake Shetek, Thos. Ireland by name, came to New Ulm to Capt. Dane’s company.
He had seven large buckshot wounds in his body - two of them in his left
lung. In this
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(delwedd J4135) (tudalen 99)
|
(x99) condition he had
for thirteen days suffered every hardship in dragging himself through the
eighty miles of Indian invested (= besieged) country to New Ulm., and he was indeed a pitiful
object to behold. He had left, however, the morning before, two women, Mrs.
Hurd and Mrs. Eastlick, and their four children at the house of a Mr. Brown,
thirty miles west on the Big Cottonwood. Capt. Dane called at once for
volunteers to rescue these women and children.
Lieut. Roberts, one of the bravest men in the company at once offered to go
and fourteen others promptly joined him, about half of whom were Welsh boys -
among others besides Lieut. Roberts were Lewis P. Jones, David Y. Davis and
Wm. E. Williams. It was a very hazardous journey. The country was known to be
thickly invested by savages. It was already late in the afternoon, so the
journey would have to be made mostly in the night. The boys were only raw
recruits without any military practice. Their horses were untrained so the
report of a gun would render them wholly unmanageable.Their guns were
rejected Austrian rifles whose locks were too weak to fire the caps, and when
bu chance they did fire, no one could tell where the bullet would go, but the
rebound of the gun was always sure to lame the shoulder if it did not land the
gunner on his back. About 6 p.m. the little squad started in charge of Lieut.
Roberts, and it was past midnight before they reached their destination. Mrs.
Eastlick, has published in pamphlet form, a most vivid description of her
trials. As her experience was similar to hundreds of others we will condense
and quote a few paragraphs of her narrative to give a glimpse of the horrors
of that massacre:
·····
The family comprised Mr. and Mrs. Eastlick and five children, the oldest,
eleven years old, named Merton, and the youngest fifteen months, named
Johnny. Wednesday morning, while the family were at breakfast on their farm
at Lake Shetek, young Hatch, whom we met before at Buffalo Grove lake with
Mr. Everett and Mrs. Meyers, came running, saying, “The Indians are upon us.”
Leaving all they fled with the children - Mr. Eastlick carrying his two guns
and ammunition with the youngest child. Meeting a number of
neighbours on the road they all gathered into the house of a Mr. Wright and
prepared to defend themselves. A few Indians, well known to the settlers,
were at this house, pretending to be friendly and ready to fight the ‘bad’
Indians. One of them was called “Pawn”. The hostiles appearing in large
numbers in the vicinity, they left the house on the advice of “Pawn” in a
lumber wagon, thirty-four of them including men, women and children. Pursued
and overtaken on the road by the Indians, they fled into a slough near by.
Most of them were wounded before they got into the grass. We will now quote
from her narrative:
·····
“The balls fell around us like hail. I lay in the grass with my little
ones gathered close around me; as it was very hot and sultry, I tried to move
a little
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(delwedd J4136) (tudalen 100)
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(x100)
distance from them, but could not get a foot away from them, for they would
follow me. Poor little dears! they did not know how much they were destined
to suffer, and they seemed to think if they kept close to mother, they would
be safe. I could now hear groans about me in the grass, in various
directions, and Mrs. Everett told me she was shot in the neck; and in a few
minutes more I was struck by a ball in the side. I told my husband I was
shot. “Are you much hurt?” he asked. “Yes, I think I shall die,” I answered,
“but do not come here, for you can do me no good; stay there, for you can do more good with your rifle.” I knew he could not come
without being discovered by the Indians. Another ball soon struck me on the
head, lodging between the skull and the scalp, where it still
remains. I could tell if a ball struck anyone, by the sound. My
husband then said he though he would move a little, as the Indians had
discovered his hiding-place. He removed, reloaded his gun, and was watching
for a chance to shoot, when I heard a ball strike some one. Fearing that he
was the one, I called to him, saying: “John, are you hurt?” He did not
answer. I called again, but there was no reply, save that I heard him groan
twice, very faintly, than I knew he was hurt, and I thought that I must go to
him, but Mrs. Cook begged me not to go. “Do not, for God’s sake,” said Mrs.
Cook, “stay with your children; if you stir from that spot they will all be
killed; your husband is dead already and you cannot possibly do him any good,
so stay with your children, I beg of you.” I took her advice and stayed with
them, for they were all I had left in the world.”
·····
After detailing how the women and children were induced by old Pawn to come
out of the slough and surrender themselves to the savages on promise of their
lives being spared, and how a heavy thunder storm having come up, the Indians
began to hurry them away. She proceeds:
·····
“I stopped, however, and looked around to see if my children were coming, and
to tell them to follow me. Little Freddy, one of my boys, aged five years,
arose out of the grass, at my call, and started to come. Then, for the first
time, I observed a hideous old squaw, who had just joined the Indians; she
ran after him, and felled him to th ground, with a blow upon the head from
something she carried in her hand. Weak, wounded, and tightly held by my
captor, as I was, I could only stand and look on the scene which followed,
while such anguish racked my soul as, I pray to God, that you, ye mothers who
read this, may never feel. The old hag beat him for some minutes upon the
back part of the head, till I thought she had killed him. She stepped back a
few paces, when the little innocent arose, and again started for me; but, oh!
what a piteous sight for a mother to behold! The blood was streaming from his
nose, mouth and ears. The old squaw, not yet satisfied, again knocked him
down, and pounded him awhile; then took him by the clothes, raised him as
high as she could, and with all her force, dashed him to the ground. She then
took a knife and stabbed him several times. I could not stop or return, for
my captor was by this time dragging me away, but my head was turned around,
and my eyes riveted upon the cruel murder of my defenceless little ones. I
heard some one call out, “Mother! mother!!” I looked, and there stood little
Ffrank, my next oldest child, on his knees, with hands raised toward heaven,
calling “Mother!” while the blood was streaming from his mouth. O! who could
witness such a sight, and not feel their hearts melt with pity! None but the
brutal Indians could. He had been shot in the mouth, knocking out four of his
teeth - once through the thigh, and once through the bowels. But what could I
do? Nothing, but gaze in silent horror on my children while they were being
murdered by savages.”
·····
|
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(delwedd J4137) (tudalen 101)
|
(x101) She then
gives an account of the horrible outrage and butchery of her companions. Most
of the younger children were left by the fiends wounded on the prairie to
perish a lingering death from cold and starvation. Mrs. Eastlick was taken a
short distance when Pawn shot her in the back and
she fell on her face. Another Indian came up to her and struck her on the
head with all his might a number of times with his
gun until her head bounded from the ground with each blow. She was then left
for dead. Though her skull was broken she did not lose consciousness,
but lay where she was too weak to move for hours. The crying of a
child whom she thought was her Johnny aroused the mother’s heart.
·····
“So I determined to try to go to them, thinking we
could, perhaps, keep warm better, for the rain still fell very fast, and the
night was settling in, cold and stormy. I rose upon my feet, and found that I
could walk, but with great difficulty. I heard William Duly, whom I supposed
dead long before this, cry out, “Mother! mother!!” but a few steps from me,
and then he called “Mrs. Smith! Mrs. Smith!!” Having to pass close by him, as
I left the slough, I stopped and thought I would speak to him; but, on
reflecting that I could not possibly help the poor boy, I passed him without
speaking. He never moved again from the spot where I last saw him; for when
the soldiers went there to bury the dead, they found him in the same
position, lying on his face, at the edge of the slough I was guided to where
my children and neighbors were killed, by the cry of a child, which I
supposed to be Johnny’s voice: but, on reaching the spot where it lay, it
proved to be Mrs. Everett’s youngest child. Her eldest, Lily, aged six years,
was leaning over him to shield him from the cold strom. I called her by name:
she knew my voice instantly, and said, “Mrs. Eastlick, the Indians haven’t
killed us yet?” “No, Lily,” said I, “not quite, but there are very few of us
left!” “Mrs. Eastlick,” said she, “I wish you would take care of Charley? (sic)” I told her
it was impossible, for my Johnny was somewhere on the prairie, and I feared
he would die unless I could find him, and keep him
warm. She begged me to give her a drink of water, but it was out of my power
to give her even that, or to assist her in any way, and I told her so. She
raised her eyes, and with a sad, thoughtful, hopeless look, asked the
question, “Is there any water in heaven?” “Lily,” I replied, when you get to
heaven, you will never suffer from thirst or pain.” On hearing this, the poor
little patient sufferer, only six years old, laid herself down again, and
seemed reconciled to her fate.”
·····
After wandering among the dead and dying and failing to find either Johnny or
Merton, she thought they might have escaped the savages and wandered out on
the prairie. So she dragged herself away some
distance in quest of them, imagining every few minutes she heard them crying
here or there. All night and next day she wandered around in the vicinity,
and all this time she could hear the agonizing cries of the poor little
children that had not yet perished in the slough. After three nights and
three days of wandering she was overtaken, only five miles from where she
started, by a mail carrier, who helped her into his sulky, and they proceeded
about ten or eleven miles farther to the house of a German, called Dutch
Charley. The owners had deserted the place some days, but to the great
surprise of Mrs. Eastlick she found there her old neighbor, Thomas Ireland,
whom she supposed killed as she had last seen him in the slough in a dying
condition, pierced with seven bullets. Be ha had revived and amaged to crawl
thus far, though in a sorry plight. From him she received the first tidings of
her two missing boys. Merton had left the slough the afterrnnon of the
massacre with his baby brother on his back to go to “Dutch Charleys.” (sic). After
resting a few minutes the mail carrier, Mrs.
Eastlick and Mr. Ireland hurried
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(delwedd J4138) (tudalen 102)
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(x102) on as well
as they could. Next day (Sunday) a little before noon they overtook Mrs. Hurd
and her two children in the road. They, too, were from Lake Shelek, but the
pitiful story of her trials is too long for us. A short distance ahead Mrs.
Eastlick found her two lost children. Merton had little Johnny on his back
and had carried him thus for fifty miles, and they had sufferd terrribly from
want of food and shelter, so their emaciated faces could hardly be
recognized. Two miles further and they came to the deserted home of J.F.
Brown, which stood in Section 22, of Burnstown, in Brown county, thirty miles
west of New Ulm. Here Mr. Ireland and the women and children were left while
the mail carrier went on to get help from New Ulm. He returend the following
Wednesday with the disheartening news that New Ulm had nearly all been burnt,
and wehn he got near it six Indians rose from the grass and chased him, and
that settlers everywhere had all been killed. He then left to go to Sioux
Falls, Dakota, for help. They waited at Brown’s house until the following
Monday, when Mr. Ireland felt strong enought to make another attempt to reach
New Ulm and succeeded in getting there Tuesday afternnon as we stated before.
·····
Lieut.
Roberts and his squad reached Mr. Brown’s house about 1 o’ clock at night.
The women thought they were Indians at first, but when they learned the truth
their joy knew no bounds and there was not a dry eye in the room. After
resting until dawn the soldiers put the women and children into a wagon,
wh¡ch they had brought and started back. For fear of an ambush Lieut. Roberts
returned by another road , and on the opposite side
of the Cottonwood, from that on which they had come. One of the men, J.R.
Gilfillan by name, tarried behind a few minutes to get some corn for his
horse. He was not missed by his comrdes for a time. The men sent back to look
for him failed to find him. It seems he took the same road he had come on,
and searching parties, two or three days afterwards, found his headless trunk
in a field near the road. The Indians afterwards said that they had seen the
soldiers going out, but thought they were scouts and that the main army was
coming right after them so they did not fire on them, but when the main army
did not come they had fixed a good ambush for the soldiers when they
returned, and it was only the foresight of Lieut. Roberts that saved the
entire squad from sharing the fate of poor Gilfinnan.
·····
Immediately after the occupation of New Ulm by Dane’s company, and Ft.
Ridgely by Col. Sibley’s force the settlers living east of these places
returned mostly to their homes to care for their stock and crops. Tuesday,
September 2, the very day of the battle of Birch Cooley and the departure of
Lieut. Robert’s squad from New Ulm to rescue Mrs. Eastlick and Mrs. Hurd, a
band of eight Indians suddenly appeared in the town of Courtland, then called
“Hilo,” on the other side of the
|
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(delwedd J4139) (tudalen 103)
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(x103) Minnesota from
Cambria, and adjoining the Welsh settlement of Eureka, in Nicollet county, on
the west, and killed two men and a boy. Crossing the river
they passed through the town of Cambria. In the afternoon David P. Davis and
his boys were making hay on their farm, three quarters of a mile west of
Horeb church. His son, Eben P. Davis, had just put a span of young horses
into the pasture near by and was returning along a margin of grass between
the fence and a field of standing grain. Suddenly an Indian jumped up amd
made a grab for his shoulder, but Eben, with a mighty jump, eluded his grasp
and fled for the woods like a deer. The Indian chased him a short distance,
then fired. The ball passed through Eben’s left arm, between the elbow and
the wrist (See biography of Eben P. Davis 0850e). The settlers soon heard of the
shooting and hurried with their families to Jame’s Morgan’s house to learn
the particulars and for mutual defence. A stampede
of the settlers was prevented by the arrival, just before sundown, of a
company of soldiers - belonging to the Twenty-fifth Wisconsin - who were on
their way to New Ulm. They helped the settlers search for the Indians, but no
trace of them could be found, nor of the two horses Eben had put into
pasture. The soldiers camped by Horeb church that night with the Welsh
settlers.
·····
The Welsh people of Eureka with the rest of the settlers of that part
of Nicollet county fled to Nicollet village where they fortified themselves.
The bodies of the three men murdered in Courtland were brought there next day
and buried.
·····
Next day Col. Flandreau sent Capt. Rogers’s company of the Seventh
Minnesota to relieve Capt. Dane’s company at New Ulm and the latter company
were brought down and stationed in the midst of the Welsh settlement at the
southwest corner of Evan Davis’ present farm in Judson - just half a mile
west of Jerusalem cemetery. The camp was called “Camp Crisp,” from Mr.
Crisp’s house just across the road from it. It was not the wisest location as
subsequent events proved, , for it left half of the
Welsh settlement to the west exposed to the Indians. A vigilant watch was now
kept by the soldiers. Squads of mounted men were sent out every day from Camp
Crisp and New Ulm to scour the country thoroughly. The Welsh settlers of
Horeb neighbourhood were wont to gather for mutual protection every night at
James Morgan’s house. Tuesday night, September 9, just one week after Eben P.
Davis was shot, most of the families concluded, because the soldiers were
searching the country every day, that the danger was over and so staid (sic) at their homes.
A
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(delwedd J4140) (tudalen 104)
|
(x104) few, however,
came together as usual. These were the families of David P. Davis, James
Edwards, Lewis D. Lewis and Richard Morgan - twenty-two persons between men,
women and children. David Price and family had also come with their
neighbour, James Edwards, but at the invitation of Thomas Y. Davis they drove
over to spend the night with him. His house (the present residence of Rev.
Thos. E. Hughes) was only about fifty rods away, on the other side of a
little knoll. A number of the men gathered at James
Morgan’s house in the early evening to hear and talk over the news. Among
others were John S. Jones (Prairie), David J. Davis and Henry Hughes. The
latter spoke of an adventure he had just had in looking for his cow on the
creek under his house - a suspicious noise in the brush, which kept moving
away from him. Wm. Edwards was sure he had seen Indians down on the Minnesota
river below their house that afternoon. Not much credence was given to
stories about seeing Indians in those days, for everything then assumed the
appearance of an Indian warrior, to the excited imagination.
·····
(41) · THE SIOUX WAR - ATTACK ON BUTTERNUT VALLEY ·
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 10TH 1862
Next morning, September 10th, at break of day, the people at James Morgan’s house
were awakened by the furious barking of the dogs. Mr. Morgan opened the front
door and saw some person in the road in front of the house with a dog barking
viciously at his heels. He was dressed in citizen’s clothes and had a straw
hat on, but as he turned to look at the dog, James Morgan recognized him to
be an Indian and called the attention of Lewis D. Lewis, who had also stepped
to the door, to him. Mr. Lewis raised his right hand to shield his eyes as he
peered through the dusk of the morning in the direction of pointed by Morgan.
Suddenly a bullet struck his hand, passed through its entire width, a little
above the knuckles and hit his forehead a slight blow, then fell to the
floor. His hand had saved his brain (See
biography of Lewis D. Lewis 0850e ). Another bullet came whizzing through the
north window on the east side of the front door, but though the room was full
of people it passed between them doing them no harm. James Edwards had just
jumped from his bed on the floor to reach for his gun, when a third ball came
through the east window hitting him in the neck, severing the jugular vein.
Without a word he fell dead across the bed, his blood spurting over the room (See biography of of his son, also called James Edwards
0850e ).The other men had now secured
their guns and opened a brisk fire on the enemy and they retreated into Thos.
Y. Davis’ corn field across the road. David P. Davis, Jr., thinks he hit one
Indian as he passed over the fence, but no
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(delwedd J4141) (tudalen 104a)
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(x104a)
Jerusalem Church and Cemetery, Judson, Minn. By grove in centre stood Camp
Crisp.
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(delwedd J4142) (tudalen 104b)
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View of Horeb Church and
School House, from Southeast. By the trees in left foreground stood house of
James Morgan, attacked by Indians Sept. 10, 1862.
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(delwedd J4143) (tudalen 105)
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(x105) trace could be
found of him afterwards. As soon as the Indians were driven off, John P. and
Henry P. Davis started for Camp Crisp, six miles away, for help. Wm. Edwards
and David P. Davis, Jr., followed in a short time on the same errand. Miss
Mary Morgan, taking one of her young brother’s young children in her arms
started, also, for the camp, The others staid (sic) in the house
for a time and kept a watch from the upstair’s window. David P. Davis had
been stacking grain the day before and had left his horses in the pasture
over night. Not long after the shooting a number of
Indians were observed chasing the horses. They soon corraled them in the
corner of the field, where they had made a pen wit the wagons used in
stacking. The Indians then congregated on Daniel P. Davis’ hill (a knoll or
ridge on the southwest corner of the same farm). There were twelve to fifteen
of them. After a short consultation the four mounted on David P. Davis’ and
Richard Morgan’s horses and two on foot started down the hill eastward, the
direction of Morgan’s house. Three or four went south, where they stole Rev.
Jenkins’ horses, the rest passed beyond the hill to the west.
·····
The people in Jame Morgan’s house, seeing a portion of the Indians coming
again towards them, concluded they were bent on another attack, and all fled
from the house. David P. Davis, Sr., got into Thomas Y. Davis’ corn field,
Jas. Morgan hid in the grain stacks near the house. The rest ran down a
little gully towards Cambria creek. When about eighty rods west of the house
the two Indians on foot turned to the left into Thos. Y. Davis’ field; those
mounted, evidently to avoid passing the house, turned on the right into Henry
Hughes’ field, and passed down a branch of the same gully just mentioned and
barely missed the women and children, who had just reached a clump of bushes,
when the Indians passed within a few feet of them. Lewis D. Lewis, being
unable to staunch the flow of blood from his hand, had left the house about
fifteen minutes before, to go to the camp. When nearing Bennet’s creek he saw the Indians coming after him in the road. He
ran and threw himself into a small clump of trees by the roadside. He found
himself lying down within a foot or two of a monster prairie snake. Lewis concluded to trust the snake, however, rather
than the Indians, and so remained where he was until the Sioux were gone, nor
did his snakeship resent his den being made a city of refuge.
·····
The two Indians who had turned into Thos. Y. Davis’ field went straight for
his horses, which had been staked out to grass
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(delwedd J4144) (tudalen 106)
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(x106) near the
house. Mr. Davis thought they were soldiers, and ran out to stop them taking
the horses, and when close to them perceived they were Indians. He ran back
and then over to James Morgan’s house for help. The front door was locked and
no one. to his surprise, answered his raps. He ran to the back door and
opened it. Nothing but confusion and blood everywhere. A glance into that
chamber of death was enough. Mr. Davis ran down the road to the house of Mr.
Shields, whom he found at home. Taking Enoch, the youngest child, on his back
Mr. Davis ran into the brush followed by the balance of the Shields family.
Emerging from the woods where David E. Bowen’s house now stands, they saw not
more than ten rods ahead of them, in the road, the four Indians mounted on D.
P. Davis’ horses. The Indians glanced back over their shoulders at them, but did not stop. Half a mile further Wm. P. Jones,
Hugh R. Williams, Stephen and David Walters, and Thos. D. Lloyd were
approaching the Mankato road from Lloyd’s house with an ox-team and wagon.
The Indians turned from the main road and approached the wagon on the full
gallop, whooping and brandishing their weapons. The men scattered into the
adjoining corn field, except Stephen Walters, who, mounted on Hugh Williams’
fleet mare tried to outrun the foe, but he gave up too soon, and ran into the
cornfield, leaving the mare for the Indians. They plundered the wagons of a
few articles and exchanged their poorest horse for the mare and then passed
down the road.
·····
Leaving them at present let us return again to the west end of the
settlement.
·····
David J. Davis’ house then stood in Section 17, at the foot of the steep
bluff descending to the river bottom. A path led up to the bluff, back of the
house, to the tableland above, where was a corn field. At day
break this tenth day of September, Mr. Davis’ 18 year old son, Thomas,
went up this path to see if there were cattle in the corn. Just at the top he
met two Indians and turned to flee, but they shot him in the back, through
the heart. The father heard the shot and the piercing shriek of his son. He
rushed to the door just in time to see his son fall and the two Indians
standing at the top of the hill. Mr. Davis seized his ax, while his oldest
son, David, who was an excellent shot, seized his trusty rifle and gathering
the other eight children, most of whom were quite small, they fled on foot down
the valley, while the Indians sat on the bluff watching them, not daring to
pursue, from respect to David’s rifle. Thus they
fled on foot, to Camp Crisp,
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(delwedd J4145) (tudalen 107)
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(x107) a distance of
six miles, warning Hugh R. Williams, Wm. P. Jones, John E. Davis, Wm. R.
Lewis, and all they met.
·····
John P. Davis, who we mentioned leaving James Morgan’s house, had caught on
Bennett creek an old horse belonging to Richard Morgan and thus had been
enabled to reach the camp ten or fifteen minutes ahead of David J. Davis and
children, whom he had passed on the road. That morning Richard Wigley, Wm. J.
Roberts and John C. Jones had left Camp Crisp with a threshing machine. On
the knoll on the west side of Jonas Mohr’s farm, in Section 36, (now owned by
Richard Jones), they met David J. and John P. Davis and other fugitives with
news of the attack. Not knowing what to do they stopped there on the knoll
for half an hour talking with fugitives as they came. Mr. Mohr came up the
road to look for his horses. After learning the news at the threshing machine he started on west. In the slough west of the
knoll J.W.Trask and John Page were making hay. Seven
men on horseback were seen coming down the road full speed. As they had straw
hats and citizens clothes on the people halted in doubt as to whether they
were white fugitives or Indians.
·····
One of them turned aside to persue (sic) Mr. Trask and they were then known to be Indians., Mr.
Trask ran and the Indian fired after him, hitting him in the wrist. The other
Indians made straight for the machine. Wigley and Roberts were unarmed and
ran to hide in some sugar cane near by. Mohr had a Sharp’s rifle, and was a
fine shot, but he ran back and past the machine wihtout firing, evidently
trying to get home to protect his family. One of the Indians followed him
past the machine and Mohr, seeing the Indian was nearly upon him, wheeled
around to fire, but the Indian’s gun went off first and the ball penetrated
his forehead. He fell over backward and soon
expired. In the meantime the other Indians cut the harness off one of Roberts’
best horses and took it in place of a poor one they had, and, seeing the
soldiers coming up the roadat full speed about a mile away, they fled in hot
haste for the woods near by - four of them passing down the ravine near
Morris Lewis’ house, barely missing Mr. Lewis and family(,) David A. Davis
and family and David J. Thomas as they were coming with ox teams toward the
road. The other three passed down the ravine by Geo. Owens place, and Owens
and his children scarcely had time to get out of their way into the brush and
corn by the roadside.
·····
Let us again return to the Horeb neighborhood. Early this same morning
John S. Jones (Prairie), living on the northwest
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(delwedd J4146) (tudalen 108)
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(x108) corner of
section 32 bid his dear wife and six children goodbye to go and help Robert
Jones (Indiana) stack grain. In passing along the westerly foot of Daniel P.
Davis’ hill, near where the road from the south met the road running west
from Horeb church, on John Rees’ farm, he was killed and scalped by the
savages - probably by those seen going west from the hill. He was a brave and
powerful man and the grass around bore evidence of a powerful struggle, his
pitchfork was bent and bloody. Whether he wounded or slew any of the foe will
never be known. These Indians then passed on to Jones’ (Indiana). He was on
the stack and John B. Shaw on the load pitching, when the Indians rushed upon
them. Both men jumped to the ground, and ran for the
brush. Shaw escaped and reached the hiding place of the refugees from Jas.
Morgan’s house, three miles away, which was in the brush on the south side of
Cambria creek, on the James Morgan farm, in the spot where afterwards stood
the house of Rev. Griffith Roberts.
·····
The last seen of poor Jones alive was running into the brush with the Indians
firing upon him. The following spring (April 6), when D. P. Davis was burning
his meadow three-fourths of a mile west of the Horeb church, he found his
bones in the edge of the slough. He also found his shoe caught in the fence
where he had crossed into the meadow. Whether he was wounded while running
into the brush and then had fled to this spot, a distance of two miles,
before he fell exhausted, or whether he met the foe again near where he
crossed the fence into the meadow, which was within a few rods of where Jones
(Prairie) was killed, will never be known. His son, Evan Jones, fled to the
sloughs south of their farm and remained in hiding for a week or ten days
before being discovered by the soldiers. David Morris, living three quarters
of a mile north-east of Horeb church, went down early the same morning
towards David J. Davis’ house and came across the body of Thos. J. Davis
lying beside the path. He hurried back home and with Mrs. Morris went over to
Jas. Morgan’s house. Finding it deserted and the floor covered with blood
they hastened on to the house of rev. Jenkin Jenkins. David Price and family
went home early from Thos. Y. Davis’ house and finding that their neighbour,
Jas. Edwards and family did not return by 9 o’ clock a.m., Mr. Price went up
to Morgan’s house to see what was the matter. There
was no one there. In the corner a quilt seemed to spread over something. He
entered and lifted it a little when to his
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(delwedd J4147) (tudalen 108a)
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(x108a)
School House, District No. 11, Cambria, Minn.
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(delwedd J4148) (tudalen 109)
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(x109) horror he
discovered the body of his murdered neighbour, Edwards. He imagined the foe
were hid in the house and watching him and expected every moment to feel the
sting of their bullets in his own body. Beating a hasty retreat, he started
for Thos. J. Davis’ house , but just then saw Rev.
Jenkin Jenkins and wife, David Morris and wife and George and Neal Porter
coming down the road on foot. He joined them and induced them to go with him
to get his family. All the men had their guns. At Price’s house, Mrs.
Jenkins, Mrs. Morris, Mrs. Evan J, Davies and Mrs. Price and her children
were put into Price’s wagon which stood ready at the door and they started.
They had barely passed out of the Little Prairie up Thos. Lloyd’s hill, when
the seven Indians who had shot Mohr and Trask came up the Minnesota valley
and crossed the road our fugitives had just passed over.
·····
Fifty rods southwest of Horeb church stood the cabin of Henry Hughes. Mr.
Hughes and his family were at home attending to their usual duties this
morning unconscious of danger. From their hiding placethe fugitives from Jaz.
Morgans’s house could see the Indians passing and repassing close by, and
finally Richard Morgan ventured over to warn them. The old man was
bareheaded, barefooted and without a coat and a club was his only weapon.
Soon after the Hughes family were gathered into the brush, the first
detachment of soldiers arrived, half of them Welsh boys. Across Cambria Creek
coming down the road from Rev. Jenkin Jenkins three mounted Indians were
seen. Three detachments of Dane’s company were sent on different road (sic) through the
settlement and they drove the Indians far out into Brown Co. The murdered
settlers were gathered and buried in Jerusalem cemetery that afternoon. The
living deserted their homes for many weeks staying in the vicinity of Camp
Crisp and South Bend.
·····
Sept. 20th twenty-two Welshmen of Cambria (then called Butternut
Valley) enlisted as a militia company for thirty days and built a fort two or
three rods west of David E. Bowen’s barn (which barn was then in existence
and known as the “Big Barn”) in the center of Section 28, of Cambria. The
state furnished the company arms, ammunition and rations and they rendered
service in protecting the frontier, caring for the stock left at the deserted
farms, and cutting hay for winter.
·····
(42) · THE SIOUX WAR - BATTLE OF WOOD LAKE
· MONDAY SEPTEMBER 23RD 1862
On Sept 23rd Col. Sibley with 1500 men met Little Crow with
800 braves at Wood Lake, three miles east of the ford of
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(delwedd J4149) (tudalen 110)
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(x110) the Yellow
Medicine. The indians (sic)
fled leaving 30 of their dead on the field. The whites lost only 4 killed.
The battle proved quite decisive and made Sibley a Brigadier general.
·····
Soon after this battle about 2,000 Sioux surrendered - the rest fled to
Dakota and kept up a predatory war for three years.
(Dakota Conflict Trials Website - http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/dakota/LittleCrow.html
- Little Crow - “The morning after the battle of Wood Lake, Little Crow sent
word to father to come, he wanted to see him.”) (Accessed 15-09-2001)
·····
In all, about 1,000 whites perished in this massacre, and as many more
were wounded. In the fall of 1864 the Butternut Valley settlement was visited
by a grasshopper plague, which destroyed the crops of that section the
following spring.
·····
The Indian war and the war of the Rebellion being over and the grasshoppers
having departed, the settlements entered on a period of great material
prosperity. Immigration came pouring in from the east like a flood. It was
the day of the “movers.” One could not lift up his eyes on any one of the
principal thoroughfares without seeing a string of from six to a dozen white
topped wagons (“Prairie Schooners” they were called) winding their way
westward, each followed by its drove of cattle. Among others came the Welsh
settlers to fill the wide prairies of Judson and Butternut valley. Richard
Thomas from Pomeroy, O., and Rev. Joseph Rees from Cattaraugus, N. Y., had
arrived in 1862. In 1863 Rev. Rich. W. Jones, John Meredith and John R. Owens
came from Oneida county, N.Y. Hugh R. Hughes, Robert H. Hughes(,) Richard Lewis and
John P. Jones came from Wisconsin the same year. These were followed in 1864
by John J. Highes, Griffith Griffiths, Ellis Owens, Wm. H. and Wim. R.
Hughes; in 1865 by John James, James T. Davies, Richard Rowlands, Evan E.
Jones, John J. Evans, Rober Jones; and in 1886 by Humphrey E. Jones, Jabez
Lloyd, Rowland Pritchard, and a vast host too numerous to mention. At the
close of the Indian war in 1865 a very bitter church war broke out. It
started with a small matter of church discipline but grew until all the
settlements were involved. One faction formed Presbyterian churches and for a
few years this religious fight was furious, but it passed and religious
harmony once more prevailed.
·····
Then came the grasshopper war. For three years, 1875-6 and 7, the crops
of the entire country were completely devasted (sic). Every device for their destruction
failed. In April, 1887, a day of fasting and prayer
was proclaimed by the governor, which was generally observed. A few weeks
later the plague suddenly departed and no one to this day knows whither.
·····
Since then our Welsh settlements have grown and prospered until today they are among the wealthiest and the most beautiful
spots in our great commonwealth.
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