Sitting Bull,The Chief in Command at the Custer Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876.
Sitting Bull,The Chief in Command at the Custer Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876.
CHAPTER V.
FORT SNELLING.FROM E. D. NEILL’S RECOLLECTIONS.
On the 10th of February, 1819, John C. Calhoun, then secretary of war, issued an order for the Fifth regiment of infantry to rendezvous at Detroit, preparatory to proceeding to the Mississippi to garrison or establish military posts, and the headquarters of the regiment was directed to be at the fort to be located at the mouth of the Minnesota river.
It was not until the 17th of September that Lieutenant-Colonel Leavenworth, with a detachment of troops, reached this point. A cantonment was first established at New Hope, near Mendota, and not far from the ferry. During the winter of 1819-20, forty soldiers died from scurvy.
On the 5th of May, 1819, Colonel Leavenworth crossed the river and established a summer camp, but his relations with the Indian agent were not as harmonious as they might have been, and Colonel Josiah Snelling arrived and relieved him. On the 10th of September, the cornerstone of Fort St. Anthony was laid; the barracks at first were of logs.
During the summer of 1820 a party of Sisseton Sioux killed on the Missouri Isadore Poupon, a half-breed, and Joseph Andrews, a Canadian, two men in the employ of the fur company. As soon as the information reached the agent, Major Taliaferro, trade with the Sioux was interdicted until the guilty were surrendered. Finding thatthey were deprived of blankets, powder and tobacco, a council was held at Big Stone Lake, and one of the murderers, and the aged father of another, agreed to go down and surrender themselves.
On the 12th of November, escorted by friends and relatives, they approached the post. Halting for a brief period, they formed and marched in solemn procession to the center of the parade ground. In the advance was a Sisseton, bearing a British flag; next came the murderer, and the old man who had offered himself as an atonement for his son, their arms pinioned, and large wooden splinters thrust through the flesh above the elbow, indicating their contempt for pain; and in the rear followed friends chanting the death-song. After burning the British flag in front of the sentinels of the fort, they formally delivered the prisoners. The murderer was sent under guard to St. Louis, and the old man detained as a hostage.
The first white women in Minnesota were the wives of the officers of Fort St. Anthony. The first steamer to arrive at the new fort was the Virginia, commanded by Captain Crawford. The event was so notable that she was greeted by a salute from the fort.
In 1824, General Scott, on a tour of inspection, visited Fort St. Anthony, and suggested that the name be changed to Fort Snelling, in honor of Colonel Snelling, its first commander. Upon this suggestion of General Scott and for the reason assigned, the war department made the change and historic Fort Snelling took its place among the defenses of the nation; and from this date up to 1861, was garrisoned by regulars, who were quartered here to keep in check the Indians who were ever on the alert for an excuse to avenge themselves on the white settlers.
Fort Snelling in 1865.
Fort Snelling in 1865.
Author’s Note.
When visiting Fort Snelling during the occasion of the holding of the National Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic in St. Paul in September, 1896, I found such a change.The old stone quarters for the use of the rank and file during the war days were there, it is true, but are being used for purposes other than accommodating the soldiers. I found my old squad room, but the old associations were gone; the memories of the war days crowded upon me, and I thought of the boys whose names and faces I remembered well, but they are dead and scattered over the land. Some few were there, and we went over our war history, and in the recital, recalled the names of our comrades who have been finally “mustered out” and have gone beyond the river.The present commandant of the beautiful new fort is Colonel John H. Page of the Third United States Infantry. This officer has been continuously in the service since April, 1861. He was a private in Company A, First Illinois Artillery, and went through all the campaigning of this command until the close of the war, when he received an appointment in the Regular Establishment, and as Captain was placed on recruiting service in Chicago.His advancement in his regiment has been phenomenal, and to be called to the command of a regiment of so renowned a record as has the Third Infantry, is an honor to any man, no matter where he won his spurs.Colonel Page is a Comrade of U. S. Grant Post No. 28, Grand Army of the Republic, Department of Illinois, and is also a Companion of the Loyal Legion. He has an interesting family who live with him in the enjoyment of his well-earned laurels.
When visiting Fort Snelling during the occasion of the holding of the National Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic in St. Paul in September, 1896, I found such a change.
The old stone quarters for the use of the rank and file during the war days were there, it is true, but are being used for purposes other than accommodating the soldiers. I found my old squad room, but the old associations were gone; the memories of the war days crowded upon me, and I thought of the boys whose names and faces I remembered well, but they are dead and scattered over the land. Some few were there, and we went over our war history, and in the recital, recalled the names of our comrades who have been finally “mustered out” and have gone beyond the river.
The present commandant of the beautiful new fort is Colonel John H. Page of the Third United States Infantry. This officer has been continuously in the service since April, 1861. He was a private in Company A, First Illinois Artillery, and went through all the campaigning of this command until the close of the war, when he received an appointment in the Regular Establishment, and as Captain was placed on recruiting service in Chicago.
His advancement in his regiment has been phenomenal, and to be called to the command of a regiment of so renowned a record as has the Third Infantry, is an honor to any man, no matter where he won his spurs.
Colonel Page is a Comrade of U. S. Grant Post No. 28, Grand Army of the Republic, Department of Illinois, and is also a Companion of the Loyal Legion. He has an interesting family who live with him in the enjoyment of his well-earned laurels.
In 1861, and from that to 1866, the scene underwent a wondrous change, and volunteers instead of regulars became its occupants. All the Minnesota volunteers rendezvoused here preparatory to taking the field. Some years after the war the department determined to make this historic place one of the permanent forts, and commenced a series of improvements. Now it is one of the finest within the boundary of our country, and we find the grounds, 1,500 acres in extent, beautifully laid out, and extensive buildings with all the modern improvements erected for the accommodation of Uncle Sam’s soldiers.
The present post structures consist of an executive building, 93x64 feet, of Milwaukee brick, two stories and a basement, heated by furnaces and with good water supply. It contains offices for the commanding general and department staff. The officers’ quarters: a row of thirteen brick buildings with all the modern improvements, hot and cold water, and a frame stable for each building. Minnesota Row: Six double one-story frame buildings, affording twelve sets of quarters for clerks and employes. Brick Row: A two-story brick building, 123x31 feet, with cellars, having sixteen suites of two rooms each, for unmarried general service clerks and employes. Quartermaster’s employes have a one-story brick building, 147x30 feet, containing eight sets of quarters of two rooms each, also a mess-house, one story brick, 58x25 feet, containing a kitchen and dining room, with cellar 30x12 feet. Engineer’s quarters, school house, quartermaster’s corrals, brick stables, blacksmith shops, frame carriage house, granary and hay-house, ice house, etc., good water works, sewer system, and electric lights.
CHAPTER VI.
THE ALARM.
The Indians! The Indians are coming!
How the cry rang out and struck terror to the hearts of the bravest. It brought to mind the stories of early days, of this great Republic, when the east was but sparsely settled, and the great west an unknown country, with the Indian monarch of all he surveyed. The vast prairies, with their great herds of buffalo were like the trackless seas; the waving forests, dark and limitless; mountain ranges—the Alleghanies, the Rockies and the Sierra Nevadas, towering above the clouds; the countless lakes—fresh and salt, hot and cold; the great inland seas; the gigantic water falls, and the laughing waters; the immense rivers, little rivulets at the mountain source, accumulating as they flowed on in their immensity, as silently and sullenly they wend their way to the sea; the rocky glens and great canyons, the wonder of all the world. It was in the early day of our Republic, when the hardy pioneer took his little family and out in the wilderness sought a new home; a time when the Indian, jealous of the white man’s encroachment, and possessor by right of previous occupation, of this limitless, rich and wonderful empire, when great and powerful Indian nations—The Delawares, the Hurons, the Floridas, and other tribes in their native splendor and independence, said to the pale face, “Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther.” The terror-stricken people were obliged to flee to places of safety, or succumb to the tomahawk; and on throughout the Seminole, the Black Hawk and other wars, including the great Minnesota Massacre of 1862.
Squad Room at Fort Snelling.
Squad Room at Fort Snelling.
Reader accompany me. The atmosphere is surcharged with excitement, and the whole country is terror-stricken. The southland is drenched in blood, and the earth trembles under the tread of marching thousands.
The eyes of the nation are turned in that direction, and the whole civilized world is interested in the greatest civil war of the world’s history. The levies from the states are enormous, and the stalwarts, by regiments and brigades, respond to the call for “Six Hundred Thousand more.”
The loyal people of the frontier have long since ceased to look upon the Indians as enemies, and tearfully urge their husbands and sons to rally to the colors in the South. What is taking place in the land of the Dakotahs?
Their empire is fading away, their power is on the wane, their game is scarce, and they look with disgust and disfavor upon their unnatural environments. In poetry and in prose we have read of them in their natural way of living. They have been wronged; their vast empire has slipped away from them; they laugh, they scowl and run from tribe to tribe; they have put on the war-paint and broken the pipe of peace; with brandishing tomahawk and glistening scalping knife they are on the trail of the innocent.
“Turn out, the regulars are coming!” were the ringing words of Paul Revere, as he, in mad haste, on April 18,1775, on foaming steed, rode through the lowlands of Middlesex; so, too, are the unsuspecting people in Minnesota aroused by the cry of a courier, who, riding along at a break-neck speed shouts: “The Indians, the Indians are coming!” All nature is aglow; the sun rises from his eastern bed and spreads his warm, benign rays over this prairie land, and its happy occupants, as this terrific sound rings out on the morning air, are aroused and the cry: “Come over and help us” from the affrighted families, as they forsake their homes and flee for their lives, speeds on its way to ears that listen and heed their earnest, heart-piercing not, of despair, for the “Boys in Blue” respond.
The people had been warned by friendly Indians that the fire brands would soon be applied; and that once started, none could tell where it would end. They were implored to take heed and prepare for the worst; but unsuspecting, they had been so long among their Indian friends, they could not believe that treachery would bury all feelings of friendship; but alas! thousands were slain.
Go with me into their country and witness the sad results of a misguided people, and note how there was a division in their camp. The hot young bloods, ever ready for adventure and bloody adventure at that, had dragged their nation into an unnecessary war and the older men and conservative men with sorrowful hearts counselled together how best to extricate themselves and protect the lives of those who were prisoners among them. The campaign of 1862 is on.
CHAPTER VII.
SOME OF THE CAUSES OF THE WAR.
Lo! the poor Indian, has absorbed much of the people’s attention and vast sums of Uncle Sam’s money; and being a participant in the great Sioux war of 1862, what I write deals with facts and not fiction, as we progress from Fort Snelling, Minnesota, to “Camp Release,” where we found and released over four hundred white captives. But I will digress for a time and look into the causes leading up to this cruel Sioux war that cost so many lives and so much treasure. There is a great diversity of opinion on this question, and while not particularly in love with the Indian, I have not the temerity to criticise the Almighty because he puts his impress white upon some, and red upon others; neither shall I sit in judgment and say there are no good Indians—except dead ones. The Indian question proper is of too great a magnitude to analyze and treat with intelligence in this little book; but in the abstract, and before we enter upon the active campaign against them, let us look at it and see if the blame does not to a great extent rest more with the government than it does with these people. The Indians came from we know not where—legends have been written and tradition mentions them as among the earliest known possessors of this great western world. The biologist speculates, andit is a matter of grave doubt as to their origin. Certain it is, that as far back as the time of Columbus they were found here, and we read nothing in the early history of the voyages of this wonderful navigator to convince us that the Indians were treacherous;—indeed we would rather incline to the opposite opinion. The racial war began with the conquest of the Spaniards. In their primitive condition, the Indians were possessed of a harmless superstition—they knew no one but of their kind; knew nothing of another world; knew nothing of any other continent in this world. When they discovered the white men and the ships with their sails spread, they looked upon the former as supernatural beings and the ships as great monsters with wings. Civilization and the Indian nature are incompatible and evidences of this were soon apparent. The ways of the Europeans were of course unknown to them. They were innocent of the white man’s avaricious propensities and the practice of “give and take” (and generally more take than give) was early inaugurated by the sailors of Columbus and the nefarious practice has been played by a certain class of Americans ever since. Soon their suspicions were aroused and friendly intercourse gave place to wars of extermination. The Indian began to look upon the white man as his natural enemy; fighting ensued; tribes became extinct; territory was ceded, and abandoned. Soon after American Independence had been declared, the Indians became the wards of the nation. The government, instead of treating them as wards and children, has uniformly allowed them to settle their own disputes in their own peculiar and savage way, and has looked upon the bloody feuds among the different tribes much as PlugUglies and Thugs do a disreputable slugging match or dog-fight. A writer says:
“If they are wards of the nation, why not take them under the strong arm of the law and deal with them as with others who break the law? Make an effort to civilize, and if civilization exterminates them it will be an honorable death,—to the nation at least. Send missionaries among them instead of thieving traders; implements of peace, rather than weapons of war; Bibles instead of scalping knives; religious tracts instead of war paint; make an effort to Christianize instead of encouraging them in their savagery and laziness; such a course would receive the commendation and acquiescence of the Christian world.”
There is not a sensible, unprejudiced man in America to-day, who gives the matter thought, but knows that the broken treaties and dishonest dealing with the Indians are a disgrace to this nation; and the impress of injustice is deeply and justly engraven upon the savage mind. The lesson taught by observation was that lying was no disgrace, adultery no sin, and theft no crime. This they learned from educated white men who had been sent to them as the representatives of the government; and these educated gentlemen (?) looked upon the Indian as common property, and to filch him of his money by dishonest practices, a pleasant pastime. The Indian woman did not escape his lecherous eye and if his base proposals were rejected, he had other means to resort to to enable him to accomplish his base desire. These wards were only Indians and why respect their feelings? “Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.” The whirlwind came and oh, the sad results!
The Indians were circumscribed in their hunting grounds by the onward march of civilization which crowded them on every side and their only possible hopefrom starvation, was in the fidelity with which a great nation kept its pledges. ’Tis true, money was appropriated by the government for this purpose, but it is equally true that gamblers and thieving traders set up fictitious claims and the Indians came out in debt and their poor families were left to starve. Hungry, exasperated and utterly powerless to help themselves, they resolved on savage vengeance when the propitious time arrived.
“The villainy you teach me I will execute,” became a living, bloody issue. This did not apply alone to the Sioux nation, but to the Chippewas as well. These people have always been friends of the whites, and have uniformly counselled peace; but broken pledges and impositions filled the friendly ones with sorrow, and the others with anger. The commissioners, no doubt, rectified the wrong as soon as it was brought to their notice, but the Indians were plucked all the same and had sense enough to know it. Our country is cursed with politicians—the statesmen seem to have disappeared; but, the politician grows like rank weeds and the desire for “boodle” permeates our municipal, state and national affairs. Our Indian system has presented a fat field so long as these wards of the nation submitted to being fleeced by unprincipled agents and their gambling friends, but at last, the poor Indian is aroused to the enormity of the imposition and the innocent whites had to suffer. In some instances the vengeance of God followed the unscrupulous agent and the scalping knife in the hand of the injured Indian was made the instrument whereby this retribution came.
There has been a great deal said of Indian warriors—we have read of them in poetry and in prose and of the beautiful Indian maiden as well. The Sioux warriors aretall, athletic, fine looking men, and those who have not been degraded by the earlier and rougher frontier white man, or had their intellects destroyed by the white man’s fire-water, possess minds of a high order and can reason with a correctness that would astonish our best scholars and put to blush many of our so-called statesmen, and entirely put to rout a majority of the men who, by the grace of men’s votes hold down Congressional chairs. Yet they are called savages and are associated in our minds with tomahawks and scalping knives. Few regard them as reasoning creatures and some even think they are not endowed by their Creator with souls. Good men are sending Bibles to all parts of the world, sermons are preached in behalf of our fellow-creatures who are perishing in regions known only to us by name; yet here within easy reach, but a few miles from civilization, surrounded by churches and schools and all the moral influences abounding in Christian society; here, in a country endowed with every advantage that God can bestow, are perishing, body and soul, our countrymen—perishing from disease, starvation and intemperance and all the evils incident to their unhappy condition. I have no apology to make for the savage atrocities of any people, be they heathen or Christian, or pretended Christian; and we can point to pages of history where the outrages perpetrated by the soldiers of so-called Christian nations, under the sanction of their governments, would cause the angels to weep. Look at bleeding Armenia, the victim of the lecherous Turk, who has satiated his brutal, bestial nature in the blood and innocency of tens of thousands of men, women and children; and yet, the Christian nations of the world look on with indifference at these atrocities and pray: "Oh, Lord,pour out Thy blessings on us and protect us while we are unmindful of the appeals of mothers and daughters in poor Armenia!”
This royal, lecherous, murderous Turk, instead of being dethroned and held to a strict accountability for the horrible butcheries, and worse than butcheries, going on within his kingdom and for which he, and he alone, is responsible, is held in place by Christian and civilized nations for fear that some one shall, in the partition of his unholy empire, get a bigger slice than is its equitable share.
The “sick man” has been allowed for the last half century to commit the most outrageous crimes against an inoffensive, honest, progressive, and law-abiding people, and no vigorous protest has gone out against it. Shall we, then, mercilessly condemn the poor Indians because, driven from pillar to post, with the government pushing in front and hostile tribes and starvation in their rear, they have in vain striven for a bare existence? Whole families have starved while the fathers were away on their hunt for game. Through hunger and disease powerful tribes have become but a mere band of vagabonds.
America, as she listens to the dying wail of the red man, driven from the forests of his childhood and the graves of his fathers, cannot afford to throw stones; but rather let her redeem her broken pledges to these helpless, benighted, savage children, and grant them the protection they have the right to expect, nay, demand.
“I will wash my hands in innocency” will not suffice. Let the government make amends, and in the future mete out to the dishonest agent such a measure of punishment as will strike terror to him and restore the confidence ofthe Indians who think they have been unjustly dealt with. But to my theme.
The year of which I write was a time in St. Paul when the Indian was almost one’s next door neighbor,—a time when trading between St. Paul and Winnipeg was carried on principally by half-breeds, and the mode of transportation the crude Red river cart, which is made entirely of wood,—not a scrap of iron in its whole make-up. The team they used was one ox to a cart, and the creak of this long half-breed train, as it wended its way over the trackless country, could be heard twice a year as it came down to the settlements laden with furs to exchange for supplies for families, and hunting purposes. It was at a time when the hostile bands of Sioux met bands of Chippewas, and in the immediate vicinity engaged in deadly conflict, while little attention was paid to their feuds by the whites or the government at Washington.
CHAPTER VIII.
LITTLE CROW AT DEVIL’S LAKE.
It was in August, 1861, on the western border of Devil’s Lake, Dakota, there sat an old Indian chief in the shade of his wigwam, preparing a fresh supply of kinnikinnick.
The mantle of evening was veiling the sky as this old chief worked and the events of the past were crowding his memory. He muses alone at the close of the day, while the wild bird skims away on its homeward course and the gathering gloom of eventide causes a sigh to escape his breast, as many sweet pictures of past happy years “come flitting again with their hopes and their fears.” The embers of the fire have gone out and he and his dog alone are resting on the banks of the lake after the day’s hunt; and, as he muses, he wanders back to the time when in legend lore the Indian owned the Western world; the hills and the valleys, the vast plains and their abundance, the rivers, the lakes and the mountains were his; great herds of buffalo wended their way undisturbed by the white hunter; on every hand abundance met his gaze, and the proud Red Man with untainted blood, and an eye filled with fire, looked out toward the four points of the compass, and, with beating heart, thanked the Great Spirit for this goodly heritage. To disturb his dream the white man came, and as the years rolled on, step by step, pressed him back;—civilization brought its cunning and greed for money-getting. A generous government, perhaps too confiding, allowed unprincipled men to rob and crowd, and crowd and rob, until the Mississippi is reached and the farther West is portioned out to him for his future residence. The influx of whites from Europe and the rapidly increasing population demand more room, and another move is planned by the government for the Indians, until they are crowding upon the borders of unfriendly tribes.
Designed byA. P. Connolly.Little Crow Sitting Meditating on the Banks of Devil’s Lake, Dakota, August, 1862.
Designed byA. P. Connolly.Little Crow Sitting Meditating on the Banks of Devil’s Lake, Dakota, August, 1862.
Designed byA. P. Connolly.
This old chief of whom we speak awoke from his meditative dream, and in imagination we see him with shaded eyes looking afar off toward the mountain. He beholds a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand; he strains his eye, and eagerly looks, for he sees within the pent-up environments of this cloud all the hatred and revenge with which his savage race is endowed. The cloud that is gathering is not an imaginative one, but it will burst in time upon the heads of guilty and innocent alike; and the old chief chuckles as he thinks of the scalps he will take from the hated whites, and the great renown, and wonderful power yet in store for him. His runners go out visiting other bands and tell what the old chief expects. They give their assent to it, and as they talk and speculate, they too, become imbued with a spirit of revenge and a desire to gain back the rich heritage their fathers once held in possession for them, but which has passed from their control. They are not educated, it is true, but nature has endowed them with intelligence enough to understand that their fathers had bartered away an empire, and in exchange had taken a limited country, illy adapted to their wants andcrude, uncivilized habits. This old chief’s mind is made up, and we will meet him again—aye! on fields of blood and carnage.
The government had acted in good faith, and had supplied the Indians with material for building small brick houses, furnishing, in addition to money payments and clothing, farming implements and all things necessary to enable them to support themselves on their fertile farms; and missionaries, also, were among them, and competent teachers, ready to give the young people, as they grew up, an education, to enable them to better their condition and take on the habits and language of the white settlers.
But the devil among the Indians, as among the whites, finds “some mischief still for idle hands to do;” gamblers and other unprincipled men followed the agents, hob-nobbed with them, and laid their plans to “hold-up and bunko” the Indians, who, filled with fire-water and a passion for gambling, soon found themselves stripped of money, ponies and blankets, with nothing in view but a long, cold, dreary winter and starvation. A gambler could kill an Indian and all he had to fear was an Indian’s vengeance (for the civil law never took cognizance of the crime); but if an Indian, filled with rum, remorse and revenge, killed a gambler, he was punished to the full extent of the law. In this one thing the injustice was so apparent that even an Indian could see it; and he made up his mind that when the time came he would even up the account. The savage Indians were intelligent enough to know that in these transactions it was the old story of the handle on the jug—all on one side.
Those of the “friendlies” who were Christianized and civilized were anxious to bury forever all remains of savageryand become citizens of the nation, and if the government had placed honorable men over them to administer the law, their influence would have been felt, and in time the leaven of law and order, would have leavened the whole Sioux nation. The various treaties that had been made with them by the government did not seem to satisfy the majority, and whether there was any just cause for this dissatisfaction I do not propose to discuss; but, that a hostile feeling did exist was apparent, as subsequent events proved.
The provisions of the treaties for periodical money payments, although carried out with substantial honesty, failed to fulfill the exaggerated expectations of the Indians; and these matters of irritation added fuel to the fire of hostility, which always has, and always will exist between a civilized and a barbarous nation, when brought into immediate contact; and especially has this been the case where the savages were proud, brave and lordly warriors, who looked with supreme contempt upon all civilized methods of obtaining a living, and who felt amply able to defend themselves and avenge their wrongs. Nothing special has been discovered to have taken place other than the general dissatisfaction referred to, to which the outbreak of 1862 can be immediately attributed. This outbreak was charged to emissaries from the Confederates of the South, but there was no foundation for these allegations. The main reason was that the Indians were hungry and angry; they had become restless, and busy-bodies among them had instilled within them the idea that the great war in the South was drawing off able-bodied men and leaving the women and children at home helpless. Some of the ambitious chiefs thought it a good opportunityto regain their lost country and exalt themselves in the eyes of their people. The most ambitious of the lot was Little Crow, the old chief we saw sitting in the shade of his wigwam on Devil’s Lake. He was a wily old fox and knew how to enlist the braves on his side. After the battles of Birch Coolie and Wood Lake, Minnesota, in September, 1862, he deserted his warriors, and was discovered one day down in the settlements picking berries upon which to subsist. Refusing to surrender, he was shot, and in his death the whites were relieved of an implacable foe, and the Indians deprived of an intrepid and daring leader.
There was nothing about the agencies up to August 18, 1862, to indicate that the Indians intended, or even thought, of an attack. Everything had an appearance of quiet and security. On the 17th of August, however, a small party of Indians appeared at Acton, Minnesota, and murdered several settlers, but it was not generally thought that they left the agency with this in mind; this killing was an afterthought, a diversion; but, on the news of these murders reaching the Indians at the Upper Agency on the 18th, open hostilities were at once commenced and the whites and traders indiscriminately murdered. George Spencer was the only white man in the stores who escaped with his life. He was twice wounded, however, and running upstairs in the loft hid himself away and remained concealed until the Indians, thinking no more white people remained, left the place, when an old squaw took Spencer to her home and kept him until his fast friend, Chaska, came and took him under his protection. The picture of Spencer is taken from an old-time photograph.
George Spencer,Who was Saved by Chaska, August, 1862.
George Spencer,Who was Saved by Chaska, August, 1862.
The missionaries residing a short distance above the Yellow Medicine, and their people, with a few others, were notified by friendly disposed Indians, and to the number of about forty made their escape to Hutchinson, Minnesota. Similar events occurred at the Lower Agency on the same day, when nearly all the traders were butchered, and several who got away before the general massacre commenced were killed before reaching Fort Ridgely, thirteen miles below, or the other places of safety to which they were fleeing. All the buildings at both agencieswere destroyed, but such property as was valuable to the Indians was carried off.
The news of the outbreak reached Fort Ridgely about 8 o’clock a. m. on the 18th of August through the arrival of a team from the Lower Agency, which brought a citizen badly wounded, but no details. Captain John F. Marsh, of the Fifth Minnesota, with eighty-five men, was holding the fort, and upon the news reaching him he transferred his command of the fort to Lieutenant Gere and with forty-five men started for the scene of hostilities. He had a full supply of ammunition, and with a six-mule team left the fort at 9 a. m. on the 18th of August, full of courage and anxious to get to the relief of the panic-stricken people. On the march up, evidences of the Indians’ bloody work soon appeared, for bodies were found by the roadside of those who had recently been murdered, one of whom was Dr. Humphrey, surgeon at the agency. On reaching the vicinity of the ferry no Indians were in sight except one on the opposite side of the river, who endeavored to induce the soldiers to cross. A dense chaparral bordered the river on the agency side and tall grass covered the bottom land on the side where the troops were stationed. From various signs, suspicions were aroused of the presence of Indians, and the suspicions proved correct, for without a moment’s notice, Indians in great numbers sprang up on all sides of the troops and opened a deadly fire. About half of the men were instantly killed. Finding themselves surrounded, desperate hand-to-hand encounters occurred, with varying results, and the remnant of the command made a point down the river about two miles from the ferry, Captain Marsh being among the number. They evidently attempted to cross, but CaptainMarsh was drowned in the effort, and only thirteen of his command escaped and reached the fort alive. Captain Marsh, in his excitement, may have erred in judgment and deemed it more his duty to attack than retreat; but the great odds of five hundred Indians to forty-five soldiers was too great and the captain and his brave men paid the penalty. He was young, brave and ambitious and knew but little of the Indians’ tactics in war; but he no doubt believed he was doing his duty in advancing rather than retreating, and his countrymen will hold his memory and the memory of those who gave up their lives with him in warmer esteem than they would had he adopted the more prudent course of retracing his steps.
At a later date, in 1876, it will be remembered, the brave Custer was led into a similar trap, and of the five companies of the Seventh United States cavalry and their intrepid commanders only one was left to tell the tale.
After having massacred the people at the agencies, the Indians at once sent out marauding parties in all directions and covered the country from the northeast as far as Glencoe, Hutchinson and St. Peter, Minnesota, and as far south as Spirit Lake, Iowa. In their trail was to be found their deadly work of murder and devastation, for at least one thousand men, women and children were found brutally butchered, houses burned, and beautiful farms laid waste. The settlers, being accustomed to the friendly visits of these Indians, were taken completely unawares and were given no opportunity for defense.
Major Thomas Galbraith, the Sioux agent, had raised a company known as the Renville Rangers, and was expecting to report at Fort Snelling for muster and orders to proceed south to join one of the Minnesota commands;but upon his arrival at St. Peter, on the evening of August 18, he learned the news of the outbreak at the agencies, and immediately retraced his steps, returning to Fort Ridgely, where he arrived on the 19th. On the same day Lieutenant Sheehan, of the Fifth Minnesota Infantry, with fifty men, arrived also, in obedience to a dispatch received from Captain Marsh, who commanded the post at Fort Ridgely. Lieutenant Sheehan, in enthusiasm and appearance, resembled General Sheridan. He was young and ambitious, and entered into this important work with such vim as to inspire his men to deeds of heroic valor. Upon receipt of Captain Marsh’s dispatch ordering him to return at once, as “The Indians are raising hell at the Lower Agency!” he so inspired his men so as to make the forced march of forty-two miles in nine hours and a half, and he did not arrive a minute too soon. After Captain Marsh’s death he became the ranking officer at Fort Ridgely, and the mantle of authority could not fall on more deserving shoulders. His command consisted of Companies B and C of the Fifth Minnesota, 100 men; Renville Rangers, 50 men; with several men of other organizations, including Sergeant John Jones (afterwards captain of artillery), and quite a number of citizen refugees, and a party that had been sent up by the Indian agent with the money to pay the Indians at the agency.
Designed byA. P. Connolly.Siege of Fort Ridgely, August 20, 21 and 22.Indians fired the Fort with burning arrows, but were finally defeated by General Sibley’s Column.
Designed byA. P. Connolly.Siege of Fort Ridgely, August 20, 21 and 22.Indians fired the Fort with burning arrows, but were finally defeated by General Sibley’s Column.
Designed byA. P. Connolly.
CHAPTER IX.
FORT RIDGELY BESIEGED.
Fort Ridgely was a fort in name only. It was not built for defense, but was simply a collection of buildings built around a square facing inwards. The commandant’s quarters, and those of the officers, also, were two-story structures of wood, while the men’s barracks of two stories and the commissary storehouse were stone, and into these the families of the officers and soldiers and the refugee families were placed during the siege. On the 20th of August, 1862, about 3 p. m., an attack was made upon the fort by a large body of Indians, who stealthily came down the ravines and surrounded it. The first intimation the people and the garrison had of their proximity was a volley from the hostile muskets pouring between the openings of the buildings. The sudden onslaught caused great consternation, but order was soon restored.
Sergeant Jones, of the battery, who had seen service in the British army, as well as in our own regular army, in attempting to turn his guns on the Indians found to his utter astonishment that the pieces had been tampered with by some of the half-breeds belonging to the Renville Rangers who had deserted to the enemy. They had spiked the guns by ramming old rags into them. The sergeant soon made them serviceable, however, and brought hispieces to bear upon the Indians in such an effective way as to teach them a lesson in artillery practice they did not forget. The “rotten balls,” as they termed the shells, fell thick and fast among them, and the havoc was so great that they withdrew out of range to hold a council of war and recover from their surprise. The fight lasted, however, for three hours, with a loss to the garrison of three killed and eighteen wounded. On the morning of Thursday, the 21st of August, the attack was renewed by the Indians, and they made a second attack in the afternoon, but with less force and earnestness and but little damage to the garrison. The soldiers were on the alert and the night was an anxious one, for the signs from the hostiles indicated that they were making preparations for a further attempt to capture the fort. During the night barricades were placed at all open spaces between the buildings, and the little garrison band instructed, each man’s duty specified, and directions given to the women and children, who were placed in the stone barracks, to lie low so as not to be harmed by bullets coming in at the windows. On Friday, the 22d, Little Crow, the then Sioux commander in chief, had the fort surrounded by 650 warriors whom he had brought down from the agency. He had them concealed in the ravines which surrounded the fort, and endeavored by sending a few of the warriors out on the open prairie to draw the garrison out from the fort, but fortunately there were men there who had previously had experience in Indian warfare, and the scheme of this wily old Indian fox did not work. Little Crow, finding it useless to further maneuver in this way, ordered an attack. The showers of bullets continued for seven long hours, or until about 7 p. m., but the attack was courageously and bitterlyopposed by the infantry, and this, together with the skillfully handled artillery by Sergeant Jones, saved the garrison for another day. The Indians sought shelter behind and in the outlying wooden buildings, but well directed shells from the battery fired these buildings and routed the Indians, who in turn made various attempts by means of fire arrows to ignite the wooden buildings of the fort proper. But for the daring and vigilance of the troops the enemy would have succeeded in their purpose. The Indians lost heavily in this engagement, while the loss to the troops was one killed and seven wounded. Lieutenant Sheehan, the commander of the post, was a man of true grit, and he was ably assisted by Lieutenant Gorman of the Renville Rangers, and Sergeants Jones and McGrau of the battery. Every man was a hero and did his whole duty. Surrounded as they were by hundreds of bloodthirsty savages, this little band was all that stood between the hundreds of women and children refugees and certain death, or worse than death! Besides, the government storehouses were filled with army supplies, and about $75,000 in gold, with which they intended making an annuity payment to these same Indians.
The water supply being cut off, the soldiers and all the people, especially the wounded, suffered severely, but Post Surgeon Mueller and his noble wife heroically responded to the urgent calls of the wounded sufferers irrespective of danger. Mrs. Mueller was a lovely woman of the heroic type. During the siege, in addition to caring for the wounded, she made coffee, and in the night frequently visited all the men who were on guard and plentifully supplied them with this exhilarating beverage. An incident in relation to her also is, that during the siege the Indianshad sheltered themselves behind a haystack and from it were doing deadly work. Sergeant Jones could not bring his twenty-four pounder to bear on them without exposing his men too much, unless he fired directly through a building that stood in the way. This house was built as they are on the plantations in the South, with a broad hall running from the front porch clear through to the rear. In the rear of this hall were rough double doors, closed principally in winter time to keep the snow from driving through. The sergeant had them closed and then brought his piece around in front, and the Indians away back of the house could not see what the maneuvering was. He crept up and attached a rope to the handle of the door, and looking through the cracks got the range and then sighted his gun. Mrs. Mueller, sheltered and out of harm’s way, held the end of the attached rope. The signal for her to pull open the doors was given by Sergeant Jones, and this signal was the dropping of a handkerchief. When the signal came, with good nerve, she pulled the rope and open flew the doors. Immediately the gunner pulled the lanyard and the shell with lighted fuse landed in the haystacks, which were at once set fire to and the Indians dislodged. This lady died at her post, beloved by all who knew her, and a grateful government has erected an expensive monument over her remains, which lie buried in the soldiers’ cemetery at Fort Ridgely, where, with hundreds of others whose pathway to the grave was smoothed by her motherly hands, they will remain until the great reveille on the resurrection dawn.