CHAPTER IX.

MARY A. RIGGS.

1854-1856.—Simon Anawangmane.—Rebuilding after the Fire.—Visit of Secretary Treat.—Change of Plan.—Hazelwood Station.—Circular Saw Mill.—Mission Buildings.—Chapel.—Civilized Community.—Making Citizens.—Boarding-School.—Educating our own Children.—Financial Difficulties.—The Lord Provides.—A Great Affliction.—Smith Burgess Williamson.—“Aunt Jane.”—Bunyan’s Pilgrim in Dakota.

When, after the fire, we were somewhat comfortably domiciled in the adobe church, the time came for our regular communion. The disaster had made all our hearts tender, and the opportunity for helpfulness on the part of our native church members, which had been improved by many of them, had drawn us toward them. It was an appropriate time to remember what Christ had done for us. And just then we were made very glad by the return of Simon Anawangmane from his long wanderings. Some years before, he had broken away from strong drink, but he was so overcome with remorse and shame that he could not get up courage enough to come back and take again upon him the oath of fealty to the wounded Lord. He edged his way back. He had often come and sat on the door-step, not daring to venture in. Then he came in and sat down in a corner. By and by he took more courage. He had talked with Dr. Williamson at Yellow Medicine, who gave him a letter, saying, “I think Simon should nowbe restored to the church.” We did reinstate him. And for more than a score of years since his restoration, Simon has lived, so far as we can see, a true Christian life. For nearly all that time he has been a ruling elder in the church, and for ten years past a licensed exhorter.

We decided almost immediately to rebuild our burnt houses, and as soon as we had taken care of the potatoes in the cellars, that were not too much injured, we set about getting out timbers. It was a slow process to saw boards and timbers with the whip-saw, but up to this time this had been our only way of making material for building. This work had been pushed on so well that when, by the first of June, Secretary S. B. Treat, of the mission house in Boston, made us a visit, we had gotten out material for the frame of our house. His visit, at this time, was exceedingly gratifying and helpful to us all. It was good to counsel with such a sagacious, true, thoughtful, Christian counsellor as Mr. Treat.

The whole line of mission work was carefully reviewed. The result was that we gave up our plan of rebuilding at Lac-qui-parle and sought a new place. The reasons for this were: first, we had from the beginning been widely separated in our work, spreading out our labors and attempting to cultivate as much of the field as possible. This had obviously had its disadvantages. We were too far apart to cheer and help each other. Now, when we were reduced to two families, Mr. Treat advised concentrating our forces. That was in accordance with our own inclinations. And, secondly, the Yellow Medicine had been made the headquarters of the Indian Agency for the four thousand Upper Indians. The drift was down toward that point. It was found that we could take with us almost all the Christian part of our community.The idea was to commence a settlement of the civilized and Christianized Dakotas, at some point within convenient distance from the Agency, to receive the help which the government had by treaty pledged itself to give. And so we got on our horses and rode down to Dr. Williamson’s, twenty-five or thirty miles; and Mr. Treat and Dr. Williamson and Miss Spooner and Mary and I rode over the country above Pay-zhe-hoo-ta-ze, which was selected as the site for the new station, afterward called Hazelwood. At Dr. Williamson’s, we had a memorable meeting, at which Mr. Treat told our Dakota church members of a visit he had made to the Choctaws and Cherokees. We also had consultations on various matters; among which was that of getting out a new Dakota hymn-book, which should contain the music as well as the hymns. A new departure was thus inaugurated in our mission work, and, in after years, time was often counted from this visit of Secretary Treat.

The building materials we had prepared at Lac-qui-parle were partly hauled by land and partly floated down the river; and by the month of September our house was so far finished that we removed the family down. Also, we had erected a small frame which served for various purposes, as school-room and dwelling. But, while the work was progressing, Mary had quite a sudden and severe attack of sickness. It was nearly sundown when the messenger arrived, and Dr. Williamson and I had a night ride over the prairie. The shadows looked weird and ghostly—perhaps tinged by the mental state of the beholder. At midnight we reached the sufferer, who was, by wise doctoring and skilful nursing, restored in a week....

The Dakotas entered at once into the idea of the new settlement; and no sooner had we selected the spot for our building and set a breaking-plough to work in making a mission field, than they were at work in the same line. The desirable places were soon selected, and log cabins went up, the most of which were replaced by frame buildings or brick within a year or two. The frames were put up by themselves, with the assistance we could give them,—the brick houses were built by the government.

We had been long enough schooling ourselves in the use of the whip-saw. That was one of the processes of labor that, years before, I had determined not to learn. I had acquired some skill in the use of the broadaxe, and rather liked it. I had applied my knowledge of mathematics in various ways to the work of framing houses, and it became a pleasure. But I thought I should avoid the whip-saw. The time, however, came when I needed a sawyer greatly, and could obtain none, and so took hold myself.

But now we decided that it would be more economical to make boards by horse and ox power than by man power alone; and so the committee at Boston authorized the purchase of a small circular saw-mill. This proved quite a help in our civilized community. It enabled us to put up in the next season a house for a small boarding-school, and also a neat church building. This latter was erected and finished at a cost of about $700, only $200 of which was mission funds. At this time the Indians were receiving money annuities. It was paid them in gold, about $10 for each individual. So that the men received from thirty to fifty dollars. At a propitious time I made a tea-party, which wasattended by our civilized men largely, and the result was that, with some assistance from white people, they were able to raise about five hundred dollars. It was a success beyond my most sanguine expectations.

We had now such a respectable community of young men, who had cut off their hair and exchanged the dress of the Dakotas for that of the white man, and whose wants now were very different from the annuity Dakotas generally, that we took measures to organize them into a separate band, which we called the Hazelwood Republic. They elected their President for two years, and other needed officers, and were, without any difficulty, recognized by the agent as a separate band. A number of these men were half-breeds, who were, by the organic law of Minnesota, citizens. The constitution of the State provided that Indians also might become citizens by satisfying a court of their progress in civilization.

A few years after the organization of this civilized community, I took eight or ten of the men to meet the court at Mankato, but, the court deciding that a knowledge of English was necessary to comply with the laws of the State, only one of my men was passed into citizenship.

A part of the plan of our new community was a mission boarding-school. Almost from the beginning, we had been making trial of educating Dakota children in our own families. Mary had a little girl given her the first fall after we came to Lac-qui-parle; she was the daughter of Eagle Help, my Bible reader; but after she had washed and dressed her up she stayed only a month, and then ran away. The Messrs. Pond raised one or two in their families. Dr. Williamson had several Dakota children when at Kaposia, and afterward at Pay-zhe-hoo-ta-ze.Mr. Adams had at one time a boarding-school of a half-dozen at Lac-qui-parle, and we had two or three in our family. Now the work was to be attempted on a larger scale.

The Hazelwood boarding-school was for a while cared for by Miss Ruth Pettijohn, and afterward by Mr. and Mrs. H. D. Cunningham. Counting those in Dr. Williamson’s family and our own, the boarding scholars amounted to twenty. This was the extent of our ambition in that line at that time. A large boarding-school demands a large outlay for buildings, as well as for its continual support. The necessities of our mission work did not then demand the outlay, nor could it have been easily obtained from the funds of the Board. Connected with this school, as teachers, were Mrs. Annie B. Ackley and Miss Eliza Huggins and Isabella B. Riggs.

We had reached the time, in 1854, when it became necessary to enter upon some plan to educate our children beyond what we could give them in our Indian home. Three years before this, Alfred had been at school in Illinois, but that was only a temporary arrangement; now he was seventeen years old and prepared to enter college. Mary and I often discussed the question of ways and means. It was our desire to give our children as good an education as we possessed ourselves—at least, to give them a chance of obtaining such an education. We did not feel that our position as missionaries should make this impossible, and yet how it was to be accomplished we could not see. We had neither of us any patrimony. In this respect we were on an equality. She received $100 from her father’s estate, and I but a little more than that, and we did not know of any richfriends to whom we could apply for aid. Our salary had been small from the beginning. We entered the mission work at a time when the Board was cutting down everywhere. So that we started on a salary or allowance of about $250, and for the first quarter of a century it did not materially differ from the basis of a Methodist circuit rider in the West of olden times; that is, $100 apiece, and $50 for each child. At this time, when our family numbered eight, we had an allowance of $500. We were both close calculators, and we never ran in debt. We could live comfortably with our children at home, each doing something to carry the burdens of life. But how could we support one or more away at school? A third of the whole family allowance would not suffice to pay the expenses of one, at the most economical of our colleges or schools. To begin, the work required faith. We determined to begin, by sending Alfred to Knox College, at Galesburg, Illinois. From year to year, we were able to keep him there until he finished the course. Two years after sending Alfred, we sent Isabella to the Western Female Seminary, at Oxford, Ohio. This, however, we were enabled to do by the help which Mrs. Blaisdell and other Christian friends of the Second Presbyterian Church of Cincinnati gave.

With two away at the same time, “the barrel of meal did not waste, nor the cruse of oil fail.” In various ways the Lord helped us. One year our garden produced a large surplus of excellent potatoes, which the Indian agent bought at a very remunerative price. From year to year our faith was strengthened. “Jehovah Jireh” became our motto. He stood by us and helped us in the work of education all through thetwenty-threeyears that have followed, until the last of Mary’s eight children hasfinished at the Beloit high school. We have redeemed our promise and pledge made to each other. We have given, by the Lord’s help, each and all of our children a chance to become as good or better scholars than their father and mother were.

The 3d of March was associated in our minds with calamity from the burning of our houses at Lac-qui-parle. But two years later, or in the spring of 1856, the 3d of March brought a great shadow over Dr. Williamson’s household. Smith Burgess Williamson was just coming up to young manhood. He was large of his age, a very manly boy. On this 3d of March he was engaged in hauling up firewood with an ox-team. He probably attempted to get on his loaded sled while the oxen were in motion, and, missing his step, fell under the runner. He was dragged home, a distance of some rods, and his young life was entirely crushed out. We were immediately summoned over from Hazelwood. Human sympathy could go but a little way toward reaching the bottom of such a trouble. It was like other sorrows that had come upon us, and we were prepared to sit down in silence with our afflicted friends, and help them think out, “It is the Lord”; “I was dumb because thou didst it.” The family had been already schooled in affliction, and this helped to prepare them better for the Master’s work.

During these passing years, the educational work among the Dakotas was progressing beyond what it had done previously. Our boarding-school at Hazelwood, in charge of H. D. Cunningham, was full and doing good service. Our civilized and Christian community had come to desire and appreciate somewhat the education of their children. At Dr. Williamson’s, also, several were taken into thefamily, and the day-school prospered. Miss Jane S. Williamson, a maiden sister of the doctor, had come to the land of the Dakotas when Mary and I returned in 1843. From the association and connection of her father’s family with slavery in South Carolina, she had grown up with a great interest in the colored people. She had taught colored schools in Ohio, when it was very unpopular, even in a free state, to educate the blacks. When she came to the Dakotas, her enthusiasm in the work of lifting up the colored race was at once transferred to the red men, and she became an indefatigable worker in their education.

She often carried cakes and nuts in her pocket, and had something to give to this and that one, to draw them to her school. The present race of Dakotas remember Aunt Jane, as we called her, or Dowan Dootawin,Red Song Woman, as they called her, with tender interest, and many of them owe more to her than they can understand.

At this time, a translation of the first part of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim, which I had prepared, was printed by the American Tract Society, and at once became a popular and profitable reading-book for the Dakotas.

1857-1862.—Spirit Lake.—Massacres by Inkpadoota.—The Captives.—Delivery of Mrs. Marble and Miss Gardner.—Excitement.—Inkpadoota’s Son Killed.—United States Soldiers.—Major Sherman.—Indian Councils.—Great Scare.—Going Away.—Indians Sent After Scarlet End.—Quiet Restored.—Children at School.—Quarter-Century Meeting.—John P. Williamson at Red Wood.—Dedication of Chapel.

By the northern line of Iowa, where the head-waters of the Des Moines come out of Minnesota, is a lake, or group of lakes, called the “Minne Wakan,”Mysterious Water, or, as the name goes, Spirit Lake. Sometime in 1855, this beautiful spot of earth was found and occupied by seven or eight white families, far in advance of other white settlements. In the spring of 1857, there were in this neighborhood and at Springfield, ten or fifteen miles above on the Des Moines, and in Minnesota, nearly fifty white persons. During the latter part of that winter the snows in Western Iowa and Minnesota were very deep, so that traveling on the prairies was attended with great difficulty.

It appears that during the winter a few families of annuity Sioux, belonging to the somewhat roving band of Leaf Shooters, had, according to their habit, made a hunting expedition down into Iowa, on the Little Sioux.Inkpadoota, or Scarlet End, and his sons were the principal men. The deep snows made game scarce and hunting difficult, so that when, in the month of March, thisparty of Dakotas came into the Spirit Lake settlement, they were in a bad humor from hunger, and attempted at once to levy blackmail upon the inhabitants. Their wishes not being readily complied with, the Indians proceeded to help themselves, which at once brought on a conflict with the white people, and the result was that the Indians massacred almost the entire settlement, killing about forty persons and taking four women captive.

Some one carried the news to Fort Ridgely, and a company of soldiers was sent out to that part of the country, but with small prospect of finding and punishing the Indians. The deep snows prevented rapid marching, and the party of Scarlet End, who were still in the Spirit Lake country, managed to see the white soldiers, albeit the soldiers could not discover them.

Soon after this event, we, at the Yellow Medicine, heard of it by a courier who came up the Minnesota. It proved to be quite as bad as represented. But nothing could be done at that season of the year, either to obtain the captives or punish the perpetrators. So the spring passed. When the snows had melted away, and the month of May had come, there came a messenger from Lac-qui-parle to Dr. Williamson and myself, saying thatSounding HeavensandGray Foot, two sons of our friendSpirit Walker, had brought in one of the captive women taken by Scarlet End’s party, and asking us to come up and get her that she might be restored to her friends.

We lost no time in going up to Lac-qui-parle. At the trader’s establishment, then in the keeping ofWeeyooha, the father ofNawangmane win, who was the wife ofSounding Heavens, we found Mrs. Marble, rather a small but good-looking white woman, apparently notmore than twenty-five years old. She was busily engaged with the aforesaid Mrs. Sounding Heavens, in making a calico dress for herself. When I spoke to her in English, she was at first quite reserved. I asked if she wanted to return to her friends. She replied: “I am among my friends.”

She had indeed found friends in the two young men who had purchased her from her captors. They took her to their mother’s tent who had many years before become a member of the Lac-qui-parle church, and been baptized with the Christian name ofRebekah. They clothed her up in the best style of Dakota women. They gave her the best they had to eat. They brought her to their planting-place, and furnished her with materials with which to dress again like a white woman. It was no wonder she said, “I am among my friends.” But, after talking awhile, she concluded it would be best for her to find her white friends. She did not before understand that these Dakota young men had bought her, and carefully brought her in, with the hope of being properly rewarded.Theywere not prepared to keep her as a white woman, and really, with her six or seven weeks’ experience as an Indian, she would hardly care to choose that kind of life.

Mrs. Marble’s husband had been killed with those who were slain at Spirit Lake. Her story was that four white women were reserved as captives. They were made to carry burdens and walk through the melting snow and water. When they came to the Big Sioux, it was very full. The Indians cut down a tree, and the white women were expected to walk across on that. One of the woman fell off, and her captor shot her in the water. Her fellow-captives thought she was better offdead than alive. When Mrs. Marble was rescued from her captors, two others still lived, Mrs. Nobles and Miss Abbie Gardner. The Indians were then west of the Big Sioux, in the valley of the James or Dakota River.

We took Mrs. Marble down, accompanied bySounding Heavens,Gray Foot, and their father,Wakanmane. She remained a few days at our mission home at Hazelwood, and in the meantime Major Flandreau, who was then Indian agent, paid the young men $500 in gold, and gave them a promissory note for the like amount. This was a very creditable reward.

But what was most important to be done, just then, was to rescue the other two women, if possible. We had Dakota men whom we could trust on such a mission better than we could trust ourselves. There was Paul Mazakootamane, the president of the Hazelwood Republic. White people said he was lazy. There was truth in that. He did not like to work. But he was a real diplomatist. He could talk well, and he was skilled in managing Indians. For such a work there was no better man than he. Then, there was John Otherday, the white man’s friend. He could not talk like Paul; but he had rare executive ability, and he was a fearless fellow. There was no better second man than he. For the third man we secured Mr. Grass. These three we selected, and the agent sent them to treat for Miss Gardner and Mrs. Nobles. They took with them an extra horse and a lot of goods. In about three weeks they returned, but only brought Miss Gardner. Mrs. Nobles had been killed before they reached Scarlet End’s camp.

As a consequence of this Spirit Lake trouble, we lived in a state of excitement all the summer. At one time the report came that Inkpadoota’s sons, one or more ofthem, had ventured into the Yellow Medicine settlement. News was at once taken to Agent Flandreau, who came up with a squad of soldiers from Fort Ridgely, and, with the help of John Otherday and Enos Good Hail, and others, this son of a murderer was killed, and his wife taken prisoner. The excitement was very great, for Scarlet End’s family had friends among White Lodge’s people at the Yellow Medicine.

Then came up Maj. T. W. Sherman with his battery. The Spirit Lake murderers must be punished, but the orders from Washington were that the annuity Indians must do it. To persuade them to undertake this was not an easy task. It is very doubtful whether the plan was a wise one. There were too many Dakotas who sympathized with Inkpadoota. This appeared in the daring of a young Dakota, who went into Major Sherman’s camp and stabbed a soldier. He was immediately taken up and placed under guard, but it was a new element in the complication.

Council after council was held. Little Crow, and the chiefs and people generally of Red Wood, were at the Yellow Medicine. The Indians said to Superintendent Cullen and Major Sherman, “We want you to punish Inkpadoota; we can’t do it.” But they were told that the Great Father requiredthemto do it, as a condition of receiving their annuities. In the meantime, several hundred Yanktonais Sioux came over from the James River, who had complaints of their own against the government. One day there was a grand council in progress, just outside of Major Sherman’s camp. The Dakota who stabbed the white soldier managed to get his manacles partly off, and ran for the council. The guard fired, and wounded him in the feet and ankles, some shots passing into thecouncil circle. From the Indian side guns were fired, and the white people fled to the soldiers’ camp, the Dakota prisoner being taken into the keeping of his friends.

For a while it was uncertain whether we were to have war or peace. The hundreds of Sioux teepees, which covered the prairie between Dr. Williamson’s place and the agency, were suddenly taken down, and the whole camp was in motion. This looked like war. Dr. Williamson asked for a guard of soldiers. The request could not be granted. The doctor and his folks, they said, could come to the soldiers’ camp. But in an hour or two, when the good doctor saw the teepees going up again, a couple of miles off, he was content to remain without a guard—there would not be war just then. The Dakota prisoner could have been reclaimed, but it was thought best to let him go, as the white soldier was getting well.

That evening, when I returned home from the council, I found Aunt Ruth Pettijohn and our children in a state of alarm. Mary had gone down below on a visit. The Sioux camp was all around us, and we were five miles away from the soldiers’ camp. What might take place within a few days we could not tell. It seemed as if the nervous strain would be less if they could go away for awhile. And so the next morning we put our house in the charge of Simon, and we all started down to the Lower Sioux Agency. We had no settled plan, and when we learned that matters were being arranged, we were at once ready to return, having met Mary with a company of friends, who were on their way up to the mission. Alfred was coming home to spend his vacation, and had brought with him a college friend; and Mrs.Wilson, a sister of Dr. Williamson, and her daughter, Sophronia, and Miss Maggie Voris were come to make a visit.

When we reached home, the Yanktonais had departed, and Little Crow, with a hundred Dakota braves, was starting out to seek Inkpadoota and his band. They came upon them by a lake, and the attack was reported as made in the night, in the reeds and water. Afterward, when in Washington, Little Crow claimed to have killed a dozen or more, but the claim was regarded by the Indians as untrue. The campaign being over, the Indians returned and received their annuities, and thus was the Spirit Lake affair passed over. There was no sufficient punishment inflicted. There was no fear of the white soldiers imparted; perhaps rather a contempt for the power of the government was the result in the minds of White Lodge and other sympathizers with Inkpadoota. And even Little Crow and the Lower Sioux were educated thereby for the outbreak of five years later.

Isabella Burgess had been two years in the Western Female Seminary, at Oxford, Ohio, and Alfred Longley was completing his academical course at Knox College. Isabella came to see him graduate, and then together they started for their Indian home in Minnesota. It was about the first of July, 1858, and at midnight, when the steamboat on which they were traveling, having landed at Red Wing and discharged some freight, and pushed out again into the river, was found to be on fire. The alarm was given, and the passengers waked up, and the boat immediately turned again to the landing; but the fire, having caught in some cotton bales on the front deck, spread so rapidly that it was with difficulty the passengers made their escape, the greater part of them only intheir night-dress. Their baggage was all lost. But the good people of Red Wing cared for the sufferers, and started them homeward, with such clothing as could be furnished. Of the catastrophe we knew nothing, until I met the children at St. Peter, whither they came by steamboat. This, and what had gone before, gave us something of a reputation of being afieryfamily, and the impression was increased somewhat when, nearly two years later, Martha Taylor, in her second year at Oxford, escaped by night from the burning Seminary building.

After Alfred’s return, in the summer of 1858, he spent a year at Hazelwood, in teaching a government school, and then joined the Theological Seminary at Chicago. In the summer of 1860, the absent ones were all at home. During the six years we had been at Hazelwood, two other children had been given us, Robert Baird and Mary Cornelia Octavia, which made a very respectable little flock ofeight.

Twenty-fiveyears had passed since Dr. Williamson came to the Dakotas. Many changes had taken place. It was fitting that the two families which remained should, in some proper way, put up a quarter-century milestone. And so we arranged an out-door gathering, at which we had food for the body and food for the mind. Among other papers read at this time was one which I prepared with some care, giving a short biographical sketch of all the persons who up to that time had been connected with the Dakota mission; a copy of which was afterward placed in the library of the Historical Society of Minnesota.

Ever since the removal of the Lower Indians up to their reservation, there had been several members of Dr.Williamson’s church at Kaposia, living near the Red Wood Agency. They would form a very good nucleus of a church, and make a good beginning for a new station. This had been in our thought for several years, but only when, in 1861, John P. Williamson finished his theological studies at Lane Seminary, had we the ability to take possession of that part of the field. While we waited, Bishop Whipple came up and opened a mission, placing there S. D. Hinman. Still, it was thought advisable to carry out our original plan, and, accordingly, young Mr. Williamson took up his abode there, organized a church of ten or twelve members, and proceeded to erect a chapel. In the last days of the year 1861, I went down, by invitation, to assist in the dedication of the new church.

That journey, both going and returning, was my sorest experience of winter travel, but it helped to start forward this new church organization, which was commencing very auspiciously. Mr. Williamson had his arrangements all made to erect a dwelling-house early in the next season. And when the outbreak took place in August, 1862, as Providence would have it, he had gone to Ohio, as we all supposed, to consummate an engagement which he had made while in the seminary.

1861-1862.—Republican Administration.—Its Mistakes.—Changing Annuities.—Results.—Returning from General Assembly.—A Marriage in St. Paul.—D. Wilson Moore and Wife.—Delayed Payment.—Difficulty with the Sissetons.—Peace Again.—Recruiting for the Southern War.—Seventeenth of August, 1862.—The Outbreak.—Remembering Christ’s Death.—Massacres Commenced.—Capt. Marsh’s Company.—Our Flight.—Reasons Therefor.—Escape to an Island.—Final Leaving.—A Wounded Man.—Traveling on the Prairie.—Wet Night.—Taking a Picture.—Change of Plan.—Night Travel.—Going Around Fort Ridgely.—Night Scares.—Safe Passage.—Four Men Killed.—The Lord Leads Us.—Sabbath.—Reaching the Settlements.—Mary at St. Anthony.

When President Lincoln’s administration commenced, we were glad to welcome a change of Indian agents. But, after a little trial, we found that a Republican administration was quite as likely to make mistakes in the management of Indians as a Democratic one. Hardly had the new order of things been inaugurated, in 1861, when Superintendent Clark W. Thompson announced to the Sioux gathered at Yellow Medicine that the Great Father was going to make them all very glad. They had received their annuities for that year, but were told that the government would give them a further bounty in the autumn. At one of Thompson’s councils, Paul made one of his most telling speeches. He presented many grievances, which the new administration promised to redress. But when the superintendent was asked wherethis additional gift came from, he could not tell—only it was to be great, and would make them very glad.

By such words, the four thousand Upper Sioux were encouraged to expect great things. Accordingly, the Sissetons from Lake Traverse came down in the autumn, when the promised goods should have been there, but low water in the Minnesota and Mississippi delayed their arrival. The Indians waited, and had to be fed by Agent Galbraith. And when the goods came the deep snows had come also, and the season for hunting was past. Moreover, the great gift was only $10,000 worth of goods, or $2.50 apiece! While they had waited many of the men could have earned from $50 to $100 by hunting. It was a terrible mistake of the government at Washington. The result was that of the Upper Sioux the agent was obliged to feed more than a thousand persons all winter.

The Lower Sioux were suspicious of the matter, and refused to receive their ten thousand dollars’ worth of goods until they could know whence it came. By and by the Democrats in the country learned that the administration had determined on changing the money annuity into goods, and had actually commenced the operation, sending on the year before $20,000 of the $70,000 which would be due next summer. The knowledge of this planning of bad faith in the government greatly exasperated the annuity Indians, and was undoubtedly the primal cause which brought on the outbreak of the next summer. Men who were opposed to the Republican administration and the Southern war had now a grand opportunity to work upon the fears and the hopes of the Indians, and make them badly affected toward the government.And they seemed to have carried it a little too far, so that when the conflict came it was most disastrous for them.

As the summer of 1862 came on, the Washington government recognized their mistake, and sought to rectify it by replacing the $20,000 which had been taken from the money of the July payment. But to do this they were obliged to await a new appropriation, and this delayed the bringing on of the money full six weeks beyond the regular time of payment. If the money had been on hand the first of July, instead of reaching Fort Ridgely after the outbreak commenced, one can not say but that the Sioux war would have been prevented.

About the first of July, I returned from Ohio, whither I had been to attend the General Assembly in Cincinnati, and to bring home Martha Taylor, who had just completed the course at College Hill. After the fire at Oxford, she had accepted Rev. F. Y. Vail’s invitation to go to his institution near Cincinnati. There she remained until the end of the year. Then Isabella and Anna went on—the latter going to Mr. Vail’s seminary, and the former attending the senior class of the Western Female Seminary, under a special arrangement, before the seminary was rebuilt. So that now both the older girls had completed the course.

On our return this time, we had with us Marion Robertson, a young woman with a little Dakota blood, who had been spending some time in Ohio, and who was affianced to a Mr. Hunter, a government carpenter at the Lower Sioux agency. By arrangement Mr. Hunter met us in St. Paul, and I married them one evening, in the parlors of the Merchant’s Hotel. Six or seven weeks after this, Mr. Hunter was killed in the outbreak.

At that marriage in the hotel were present D. Wilson Moore and his bride from Fisslerville, New Jersey, near Philadelphia. Mr. Moore was of the firm of Moore Brothers (engaged extensively in glass-manufacturing), had just married a young bride, and they had come to Minnesota on their wedding trip. We had reached home only a few days before, when, to our surprise, Mr. Moore and his wife drove up to our mission. They had heard that the Indian payment was soon to be made, and so had come up; but, not finding accommodations at the agency, they came on to see if we would not take them in. We had a large family, but if they would be satisfied with our fare, and take care of themselves, Mary would do the best she could for them. This will account for the way in which Mrs. Moore lost all her silk dresses.

The whole four thousand Indians were now gathered at the Yellow Medicine. The Sissetons of Lake Traverse had hoed their corn and come down. It was the regular time for receiving their annuities, before the corn needed watching. But the annuity money had not come. The agent did not know when it would come. He had not sent for them and he could not feed them—he had barely enough provisions to keep them while the payment was being made. The truth was, he had used up the provisions on them in the previous winter. So he told them he would give them some flour and pork, and then they must go home and wait until he called them. They took the provisions, but about going home they could not see it in that way. It was a hundred miles up to their planting-place, and to trudge up there and back, with little or nothing to eat, and carry their tents and baggage and children on horse-back and on dog-back and on woman-back, was more than they cared to do. Besides, therewas nothing for them to eat at home. They must go out on the buffalo hunt, and then they might miss their money. And so they preferred to stay, and beg and steal, or starve.

But stealing and begging furnished but a very scanty fare, and starving was not pleasant. The young men talked the matter over, and concluded that the flour and pork in the warehouse belonged to them, and there could not be much wrong in their taking it. And so one day they marched up to the storehouse with axes in hand, and battered down the door. They had commenced to carry out the flour when the lieutenant with ten soldiers turned the howitzer upon them. This led them to desist, for the Dakotas were unarmed. But they were greatly enraged, and threatened to bring their guns and kill the little squad of white soldiers. And what made this seem more likely, the Sioux tents were at once struck and the camp removed off several miles. Agent Galbraith sent up word that he wanted help. And when Mr. Moore and I drove down, he said, “If there is anything between the lids of the Bible that will meet this case, I wish you would use it.” I told him I thought there was; and advised him to call a council of the principal men and talk the thing over. Whereupon I went to the tent of Standing Buffalo, the head chief of the Sissetons, and arranged for a council that afternoon.

The chiefs and braves gathered. The young men who had broken the door down were there. The Indians argued that they were starving, and that the flour and pork in the warehouse had been purchased with their money. It was wrong to break in the door, but now they would authorize the agent to take of their money and repair the door. Whereupon the agent agreed to givethem some provisions, and insisted on their going home, which they promised to do. The Sissetons left on the morrow, and so far as they were concerned the difficulty was over; for on reaching home they started on a buffalo hunt. Peace and quiet now reigned at the Yellow Medicine. Mr. Moore occupied himself in shooting pigeons, and we all became quite attached to Mrs. Moore and himself.

In the meantime an effort, was made at the agencies, among half-breeds and employés, to enlist soldiers for the Southern war. Quite a number were enlisted, and when the trouble came Agent Galbraith was below with these recruits. Several strangers were in the country. It was afterward claimed that there were men here in the interests of the South. I did not see any of that class. But some photographers were there. Adrian J. Ebell, a student of Yale College, was taking stereoscopic views, and a gentleman from St. Paul also.

The 17th of August was the Sabbath. It was sacramental Sabbath at Hazelwood. As our custom was, both churches came together to celebrate the Lord’s death. Our house was well filled, and we have always remembered that Sabbath as one of precious interest, for it was the last time we were to meet in that beautiful little mission chapel. A great trial of our faith and patience was coming upon us, and we knew it not. But the dear Christ knew that both we and the native Christians needed just such a quiet rest with him before the trials came.

While we at Hazelwood and Pay-zhe-hoo-ta-ze were thus engaged on that Sabbath of August 17th, the outbreak was commenced in the border white settlementsat Acton, Minn. As usual, the difficulty was commenced at a grog-shop. Some four or five Indians made demands which were not complied with, whereat they began to kill the whites. That night they reached the villages at the Lower Sioux Agency, and a council of war was called.

Something of this kind had been meditated, and talked of, and prepared for undoubtedly. Some time before this, they had formed theTee-yo-tee-pe, or Soldiers’ Lodge, which is only organized on special occasions, for the hunt or for war. Some negotiations were probably going on with the Winnebagoes and Ojibwas. But they were not perfected. Several Winnebagoes were at this time at the Lower Agency, but they do not appear to have been there for the purpose of the outbreak. In the council held that night, Little Crow is reported to have expressed his regret that the matter was precipitated upon them, but he yielded to the argument that their hands were nowbloody.

The attack was commenced in the early morning at the stores, Mr. James W. Lynd, at Myrick’s store, being the first white man shot down. So the ball rolled. Many were killed and some escaped. Word of the rising was carried to Fort Ridgely, and Captain Marsh was sent up to quell it. The Indians met his company of fifty men at the ferry, and killed half of them there, the rest making their escape with difficulty. These things had been going on during the day, forty miles from us, but we knew it not. Five miles below, at the Yellow Medicine, they had heard of it by noon. The Indians gathered to consult what they would do. Some, we learned, gave their voice for killing the white people, but more were in favor of only taking the goods and property. The physician atthe Yellow Medicine was absent, and a young man started down that day with the doctor’s wife and children in a buggy. Before they reached Red Wood, they were met by two Dakota men—the white man was killed and the woman and children taken captive.

The sun was getting low Monday evening when we at Hazelwood heard of what was going on. Mr. Antoine Renville, one of the elders of my church, came running in much excited, and said the Indians were killing white people. We thought it must be only a drinking quarrel. The statement needed to be repeated and particularized somewhat before we could believe it. Soon others came in and told more. Blackness seemed to be gathering upon all faces. The parents came to the boarding-school and took away their children. For several years Mary had kept Angélique and Agnes Renville. At this time, the older one was in Ohio, and the younger one went home with her mother.

Jonas Pettijohn, an old associate in mission work at Lac-qui-parle, had been for some years a government teacher at Red Iron’s village, about fifteen miles above us. He had now been released, and was removing his family. Mrs. Pettijohn and the children had reached our house. Mr. Pettijohn came in the dusk of the evening with his last load, which he was bringing with my horse team. The Indian men who had brought down his goods, when they heard of theémeute, started back immediately, and, meeting Mr. Pettijohn, took the horses. They justified themselves by saying that somebody would take them.

Thus, as the darkness came on, we became sure that our Dakota friends believed the reports. In the gloaming, strange men appeared at our stables, and others of ourhorses were taken. A dozen of our neighbor men came, and said they would stand guard with their guns. As the evening progressed, we sent a messenger down to the Yellow Medicine, who brought word that the stores were surrounded by Indians, and would be broken in soon. Mr. Givens, the sub-agent, sent up a note asking me to come down very early in the morning. Some of the Christian Dakota women gathered into our house, and we prayed, and sang “God is the refuge of his saints.”

It was after midnight before we thought of leaving. The young folks had lain down and slept awhile. By and by Paul came, and asked me to give him some blue cloth I had on hand—he must dress like an Indian, to be safe. And they evidently began to feel thatwemight not be safe, and that our staying would endanger them. This was made the more serious because of Mrs. Moore and our three grown daughters. Indian men would kill us to get possession of them. Thus the case was stated by our neighbors. Afterward we had good reason to know that they reasoned rightly.

And so we waked up the children and made preparations to depart. But it was only to be temporary. The plan was to go down to an island in the Minnesota River, and remain until the danger was overpast. Mr. Moore looked to his revolver, the only reliable weapon among us. Thomas and Henry got their double-barrel shot-gun. Mary put up a bag of provisions, but, unfortunately, we forgot it when we departed. Fortunately again, it was brought to us in the morning by Zoe, a Dakota woman. Each one had a little baggage, but there was not enough extra clothing in the company to make them comfortable at night. When the daylight came, we were all over on the island, but our team was left, and was stolen,with the exception of one horse. So we were in rather a helpless condition as regards further escape.

On this little island we were away from the excitement and present danger; but how long it would be safe for us to remain there was quite uncertain. We could trust our own Indians that we should not be personally injured; but how soon strange Indians would find our hiding-place, we could not tell. During the forenoon I crossed back and went to the village, to learn the progress of events. They did not seem to be encouraging. The stores at the Yellow Medicine had been sacked. The white people had all left in the early morning, being convoyed by John Otherday. The only safe course open to us appeared to be in getting away also. It was after midday when we learned that Andrew Hunter and Dr. Williamson’s young folks had succeeded in coming away with both a horse team and an ox team. They had some flour and other provisions with them, and had driven along the doctor’s cattle. Moreover, they had succeeded in crossing the Minnesota at a point a mile or two below where we then were. From the island we could wade over to the north side. This we proceeded to do, leaving the only trunk that had been brought this far, by Mr. Cunningham’s sister.

Andrew Hunter drove one of his wagons around on the prairie to meet our party as we emerged from the ravine, each carrying a little bundle. The women and children who could not walk were arranged with the bundles in the wagon. Mr. Cunningham was successful in getting one of his horses—the other had been appropriated by an Indian, together with mine. His one horse he attached to my buggy and brought it over the river, and we proceeded to join the rest of Mr. Hunter’s party.Two or three families of government employés from the saw-mill had found their way to our missionary company. Thus constituted, we started for the old crossing of Hawk River, some six or eight miles distant.

While we were still in sight of the river bluffs, we discovered a man coming after us. He was evidently a white man, and hobbled along with difficulty, as though he were wounded. We stopped until he overtook us. It proved to be a man by the name of Orr, whose comrades had been killed up near the mouth of the Chippewa, and he escaped in a crippled condition. Our wagons were more than full, but we could make room for a wounded white man. About this time a rain shower came upon us, which was a Godsend in many ways, although it made camping that night rather unpleasant.

When night overtook us, we were across the stream,—Hawk River,—and we lay down to rest and consider what should be our course on the morrow. In the morning, we had decided to cross the country, or endeavor to do so, toward Hutchinson or Glencoe. But the country was not familiar to us. We frequently found ourselves stopped in our course by a slough which was not easy to cross. Still, we kept on our way during Wednesday, and in the afternoon there fell to us four men from Otherday’s party. These men all had guns which were not of much account. They belonged at New Ulm, and did not want to go to Hutchinson. But they continued with us that day.

The evening came with a slow continued rain. The first night we were out, the smaller children had cried for home. The second night, some of the older children would have cried if it had been of any use. We had no shelter. The wagons were no protection against the continuedrain, but it was rather natural to crawl under them. The drop,drop,drop, all night long from the wagon-beds, on the women and children, who had not more than half covering in that cold August rain, was not promotive of cheerfulness. Mrs. Moore looked sad and disheartened, and to my question as to how she did she replied that one might as well die as live under such circumstances.

Thursday morning found us cold and wet, and entirely out of cooked food. Since the first night we had not been where we could obtain wood. And then, and since, we should have been afraid to kindle a fire, lest the smoke should betray us. But now it was necessary that we should find wood as soon as possible. And so our course was taken toward a clump of trees which were in sight. When we came into their neighborhood, about noon, we found them entirely surrounded by water. But the men waded in and brought wood enough for the purposes of camping. There we spent the afternoon and night. There we killed one of the cows. And there we baked bread and roasted meat on the coals, having neither pot nor kettle nor pan to do it in. And while we were eating, Mr. Ebell fixed up his apparatus and took a very good stereoscopic picture of the party.

We had discovered from surveyor’s stakes that we were making slow progress, and so we decided, as we started Friday morning, to abandon our plan of going to Hutchinson, and turn down to the old Lac-qui-parle road, which would lead us to Fort Ridgely. This road we reached in time to take our noon rest at Birch Coolie, nearly opposite the Lower Sioux Agency, where the massacres had commenced. We were not much posted in what had taken place there. Mr. Hunter rode over tosee his house, only a couple of miles distant. There he met Tatemema (Round Wind), an old Indian whom he knew, who told him to hurry on to the fort, as all the white people had been killed or had fled. Just as we were starting from this place, a team came in sight, which proved to be Dr. and Mrs. Williamson and Aunt Jane with an ox team. They had remained until Wednesday morning, and thought to stay through the trouble, but finally concluded it was best to leave and follow us. Our company now numbered over forty, but it was a very defenceless one.

We were sixteen miles from Fort Ridgely, and our thought was to go in there under cover of the night. The darkness came on us when we were still seven or eight miles away; and then in the gloaming there appeared on a little hill-top two Indians on horseback. They might bring a war-party upon us. And so we put ourselves in the best position for defence. Martha and Anna had generally walked with the boys. Now they piled on the wagons, and the men and boys, with such weapons as we had, marched by their side. As the night came on, we began to observe lights as of burning buildings, and rockets thrown up from the garrison. What could the latter mean? We afterward learned they were signals of distress!

In our one-horse buggy, Mr. and Mrs. Hunter drove ahead of the party, and he crawled into the garrison. He found that the Indians had beleaguered them, had set fire to all the out-buildings of the fort, appropriated all their stock, had been fighting all day, and had retired to the ravine as the night came on. The fort was already crowded with women and children, and scantily manned by soldiers. We could come in, they said, butour teams would be taken by the Indians. They expected the attack would be renewed the next day.

When Mr. Hunter returned, we stopped in the road and held ahastyconsultation, as we were in a good deal of fear that we were even now followed. We had just passed a house where the dogs alone remained to bark, which they did furiously. And just then some of the party, walking by the side of our wagons, stumbled over the dead body of a man. There was no time to lose. We decided not to go in, but to turn out and go around the fort and its beleaguering forces, if possible. The four men who had fallen to our company—three Germans and an Irishman—dissented. But we told them no one should leave us until we were past the danger. And, to prevent any desertion in this our hour of trial, Mr. Moore cocked his revolver and would shoot down the man who attempted to leave.

It was ten o’clock, and the night was dark. We turned square off the road, and went up northward to seek an old ford over the little stream that runs down by the fort. The Lord guided us to the right place, but while we were hunting in the willows for the old unused road, there was a cry heard so much like a human cry that we were all quite startled. We thought it was the signal of an attack by the Indians. Probably it was only the cry of a fox. Just then Dr. Williamson came to me and said perhaps he had counselled wrongly, and that, if it was thought best, he was quite willing to go back to the fort. But I replied that we were now almost around it, and it would be unwise to go back. And so we traveled on over the ravine and up on the broad prairie beyond, and received no harm. Our pulses began to beat less furiously as we traveled on toward three o’clock in themorning, and felt that we were out of sight and hearing of the Sioux warriors. So we stopped to rest our weary cattle. Some slept for an hour, but the greater part kept watch.

As we were around the fort, and around the danger so far as we knew, it was understood that the four men who wanted to leave in the night, might leave us in the morning. And as it was possible they might have an opportunity to send a letter to Governor Ramsay before we should, Dr. Williamson and I attempted to write something by starlight. But nothing came of that letter. When the light began to dawn in the east, our party was aroused and moving forward. We had been guided aright in the night travel, for here we were at the old Lac-qui-parle crossing of Mud River. Here the four men left us, and as the sun arose we saw the sheen of their guns as they were entering a little wood two or three miles away. And only a little while after that we heard the report of guns; the poor fellows had fallen in with the Sioux army, which in that early morning were on their march to attack New Ulm. We did not know their fate until afterward.

Our party now fell into the road that leads to Henderson, and traveled all that Saturday in safety. But on the St. Peter road, five or six miles to our right, we saw the burning stacks and houses, and afterward knew that the Sioux were on that road killing white people all that day. It was the middle of the afternoon when we came to a deserted house. The dishes were on the table. We found cream and butter in the cellar and potatoes and corn in the garden. We stopped and cooked and ate a good square meal, of which we were greatly in need. Then we pushed on and came to another housesome time after nightfall, which was deserted by the humans, but the cattle were there. Here we spent the night, and would have been glad to rest the Sabbath, but as yet there was too much uncertainty. Three or four hours’ travel, however, brought us to a cross-roads, where the whole settlement seemed to have gathered. We there learned that a company of troops had passed up, and had turned across to St. Peter. This seemed to be a guarantee of safety, and so we rested the remainder of the day, gathering in the afternoon to worship Him who had been and was our deliverer and guide.

All the events of the week past appeared so strange. We had hardly found any time to consider them. But often the thought came to us, What will become of our quarter-century’s work among the Dakotas? It seemed to be lost.Wecould see no good way out of the difficulties. As we came into the settlements, we began to learn something of the terribleness of theémeute, how the Indians had spread terror and death all along the frontier. And still their deadly work was going on. In the dusk of the Sabbath evening we talked over matters a little, as we planned to separate in the morning. Some pecuniary adjustments were made, D. Wilson Moore being the only one who had any money. But all the party exchanged promises.

In the morning of Monday, Dr. Williamson and his part of the company started across to St. Peter. There remained only Mr. Moore and wife, and Adrian J. Ebell and my family, and we had the use of an ox team to take us to Shakopee. It was twelve miles to Henderson. When we came to the brow of the hill above the town, we were met by several women who were strangers to us.They rushed up and grasped our hands. I asked what they knew of us. They said, “We have white hearts, and we heard you were all killed.” Our young folks had worn out their shoes, and their feet also, by walking through the sharp grass, and needed something to wear. When these wants were attended to, and we all had partaken of a good dinner at the hotel, we started on—Mr. and Mrs. Moore taking the little steamboat to St. Paul. When they arrived there, Mr. Shaw, of the Merchant’s Hotel telegraphed back to Mr. John Moore of Philadelphia of their arrival. He had just before received an urgent telegram, “Get the bodies at any cost.”

On our way to Shakopee we were met by our old friend S. W. Pond, who had been trying for days to ascertain whether the report of our being killed was true or not. He gave Mary and the children a cordial welcome to his home. They remained there a few days, and then went on to G. H. Pond’s, and from thence to St. Anthony, where Mary found an old personal friend in Mrs. McKee, the wife of the pastor of the Presbyterian church. They also found friends in all the good families, and soon rented a house and commenced living by themselves, the neighbors helping them to many articles which they needed.

On hearing of the outbreak, Alfred, who had been preaching a few months at Lockport, Ill., furnished himself with a revolver, and hastened up to see what could be done. But, meeting the family at Shakopee, he returned to Illinois without making any demonstration of prowess, taking with him Anna, and, after she was somewhat recruited, sending her to Rockford Female Seminary.

1862.—General Sibley’s Expedition.—I Go as Chaplain.—At Fort Ridgely.—The Burial Party.—Birch Coolie Defeat.—Simon and Lorenzo Bring in Captives.—March to Yellow Medicine.—Battle of Wood Lake.—Indians Flee.—Camp Release.—A Hundred Captives Rescued.—Amos W. Huggins Killed.—We Send for His Wife and Children.—Spirit Walker Has Protected Them.—Martha’s Letter.

When Mary and the children had safely reached friends and civilization at Mr. Pond’s, I was pressed in spirit with the thought that I might have some duty to perform in the Indian country. At Lac-qui-parle, twenty-five miles beyond our station at Hazelwood, were Amos W. Huggins, with wife and children, and Miss Julia La Framboise. They had been in the employ of the government as teachers at Wakanmane’s village. What had befallen them, we knew not; but we knew that white men had been killed between our place and Lac-qui-parle. Then, our native church members—they might need help. And so I took a boat at Shakopee, and went down to St. Paul, and offered my services to Governor Ramsay, in whatever capacity he chose to put me. He immediately commissioned me as chaplain to General Sibley’s expedition. The last day of August I was at St. Peter, where I learned from Mr. Huggins’ friends the story that he had been killed, and that his wife and children were captives. In regard to them I received a special charge from Mrs. Holtsclaw, and I conceived a plan of immediately sending for Mrs. Huggins. But circumstancesmade it impossible to carry out that plan for several weeks.

The next day, Sabbath though it was, I rode up with Colonel Marshall and others to Fort Ridgely, where General Sibley’s command was encamped. He was waiting for reinforcements and ammunition supplies. At the first news of the massacres, a large number of citizens had impressed their neighbors’ horses, and had started for the Indian country. Many of them were poor riders, and they were all poorly armed. They were without military organization and drill, and were felt to be an element of weakness rather than strength. A night or two before I reached the camp, a couple of shots had been fired, supposed to have been by Indians. The drum beat the “long roll,” and the men that formed this “string-bean cavalry,” as they were called, crawled under the wagons. The next morning many of them had had a clairvoyant communication with their families at home, and learned that their wives were sick. They were permitted to depart.

Three days before, a detachment of cavalry and infantry had been sent up as far as the Lower Sioux Agency, to find and bury the dead. They had done their work, as they supposed, and crossed back to the north side of the Minnesota, without seeing any Indians. As the sun was setting on that Sabbath evening, they ascended the hill and made their camp on the top of the Birch Coolie bluff. But the Sioux had discovered them, and that night they were surrounded by twice their own number of the enemy. In the early morning the attack was made and kept up all day. The report of the musketry was heard at General Sibley’s camp, eighteen miles away, but the reverberation made by the Minnesota hills placed theconflict apparently within six or eight miles. A detachment sent to their relief soon returned, because, after they had gone a short distance, they could hear nothing. But the firing still continued, and another detachment, with a howitzer, was sent, with orders to go on until the absent ones were found.

The sun was low when a messenger came from the troops last sent. The Indians were in such large force that they did not dare risk a conflict, and so had retired to the prairie. General Sibley’s whole force was then put in readiness, and we had a night march up to Birch Coolie. The relief detachment was reached, and an hour or two of rest obtained before the morning light.

When our camp was in motion, the Indians came against us and surrounded us; but, soon perceiving that the force was not what they had seen the night before, they commenced making their escape, and we marched on to the original camp. It was a sad sight—dead men and dead horses lying in the hastily dug breastworks. Twelve men were found dead, whom we buried in one grave. Thirty or forty were wounded, and nearly the whole of the ninety horses were lying dead. The camp had suffered greatly for want of water, as the Indians had cut them off entirely from the stream.

This defeat showed more clearly than before the necessity of being well prepared before an advance was made upon the hostile Sioux. It also served to rouse Minnesota thoroughly—a number of the killed and wounded in this battle were St. Paul men. But the middle of September had come and gone before General Sibley felt ready to move up the river. In the meantime, while we were still at Ridgely, Simon Anawangmane came down by land, and brought Mrs. Newman and her children toour camp. And Lorenzo Lawrence brought in canoes Mrs. De Camp and children and others.

Mrs. Newman had been taken captive by the Lower Sioux, and when they reached the Yellow Medicine, she was apparently allowed by those who had her to go where she pleased. One day she came to Simon’s tent, and, hearing them sing and pray, she felt like trusting herself and children rather to Simon than to the others. When the camp started to go farther north, Simon stayed behind, and then, placing Mrs. N. and her children in his one-horse wagon, and hitching to his horse, he and his son brought them down. Mrs. De Camp’s husband had been severely wounded in the battle of Birch Coolie, and had died only a couple of days before she and the children were brought in. Lorenzo also brought with him a large English church Bible, and my own personal copy of Dakota grammar and dictionary, which I prized very highly.

The 21st of September, or five weeks after the outbreak commenced, we were marching by the Lower Sioux Agency and Red Wood, and getting an impression of what theémeutehad been, in occasionally finding a dead body, and seeing the ruins of the buildings. The Sioux were now watching our movements closely. Indeed, they had kept themselves informed of our motions all along. It was this day, at the Red Wood, John Otherday went into a plum-orchard and left his horse a little way out. One of the hostiles who had been hidden there jumped on it and rode off. This made Otherday greatly ashamed. The night of the 22d we camped on the margin of Wood Lake, within three miles of the Yellow Medicine. Here we were to rest the next day and wait for a train that was behind.

At the Yellow Medicine were fields of corn and potatoes, and some of our men mere anxious to add to their store of provisions. Accordingly, before our breakfast was over at General Sibley’s tent, some soldiers in a wagon were fired upon and two of them killed by Sioux concealed in a little ravine about a half a mile from our camp. This brought on the battle. Almost immediately the hills around were seen to be covered with Indians on foot and on horseback. The battle lasted for two or three hours. The Sioux had compelled every man in their camp, which was twenty miles above, to come down, except John B. Renville. They were playing their last card, and they lost. When it was over, we gathered up and buried sixteendeadandscalpedIndians, and four of our own men. Besides, we had a large number of wounded soldiers. This battle made H. H. Sibley a brigadier-general.

Thus the Indians were beaten and retired. During the fight John Otherday captured a Dakota pony, and so made good the loss of his stolen horse. Simon Anawangmane was wounded in the foot in passing out to the hostile Sioux and back to our camp; and the younger Simon was brought in wounded, and died some days afterward. The day following this battle, our camp was removed to a point beyond the mission station at Hazelwood. As I rode down to see the ruins of our buildings, some of our soldiers were emptying acachenear where our house had stood. The books they threw out I found were from my own library. A part of these and some other things which were in good condition I secured. They had been buried by our friends.

The next day was the 26th of September, when we pushed on to Camp Release, where the friendly Dakotaswere encamped. The hostiles and such as feared to remain had fled to the British Possessions. The friendly Indians had by some means come into the possession of almost all the captive white women and children. One of our chief objects in pursuing the campaign had been to prevent the killing of these captives. Little Crow had written to General Sibley that he had many captives; and General Sibley had replied, “I want the captives.”

Now they came into our hands, nearly a hundred, besides half-breeds, many of whom had been in a kind of captivity. The white women had dressed up as well as they could for the occasion, but many of them only showed their white relationship by the face and hands and hair—they were dressed like Indians. It was a time of gladness for us. White men stood and cried for joy. We took them all to our camp, and wrapped them up as well as we could. Some of the women complained because we did not furnish women’s clothing; but that was unreasonable. This wasCamp Release.

Mr. Amos W. Huggins was the eldest child of Alexander G. Huggins, who had accompanied Dr. Williamson to the Sioux country in 1835. Amos was born in Ohio, and was at this time over thirty years old. He was married, and two children blessed their home, which, for some time before the outbreak, had been at Lac-qui-parle, near where the town of that name now stands. It was then an Indian village and planting place, the principal man being Wakanmane,—Spirit Walker, or Walking Spirit. If the people of the village had been at home, Mr. Huggins and his family, which included Miss Julia La Framboise, who was also a teacher in the employ of the government, would have been safe. But in the absence of SpiritWalker’s people three Indian men came—two of them from the Lower Sioux Agency—and killed Mr. Huggins, and took from the house such things as they wanted.

The women and children were left uninjured. But after they had, in a hasty manner, buried the father and husband, whither should they go for protection? At first they thought to find safety with a French and half-breed family, living across the Minnesota, where our old mission-house had been. But there, for some reason, they were coldly received. Soon the brother of Julia La Framboise came up from Little Crow’s camp and took her down. Spirit Walker had now returned, and Mrs. Huggins took refuge in his friendly teepee, where she found a welcome, and as good a home as they could make for her and her fatherless children.

Spirit Walker would probably have attempted to take them to the white soldiers’ camp if she had been decided that that was the wisest course. But Mrs. Huggins was timid, and preferred rather that her Dakota protector should decide which was the best way. And so it happened that when the flight took place, Spirit Walker’s folks generally were drawn into the swirl, and Mrs. H. found herself on the journey to Manitoba.

Immediately after we had reached Camp Release, and had learned the state of things, I presented the matter to General Sibley, whereupon, the same night, he authorized the selection of four Dakota young men to be sent after Mrs. Huggins. Robert Hopkins, Daniel Renville, Enos Good Hail, and Makes Himself Red were sent on this mission, which they fulfilled as expeditiously as possible. In a few days we were gladdened by the sight of Mrs. Huggins and her two children, and a child of a Germanwoman, which they also brought in. The mother was with us, and was overjoyed to find her little girl.

While these things were taking place on the Upper Minnesota, Martha, now Mrs. Morris, still under the inspiration of the events, was in St. Anthony, writing the following letter to the CincinnatiChristian Herald:—

“In fancied security we had dwelt under our own vine and fig-tree, knowing naught of the evil which was to come upon us, until the very night of the 18th of August, 1862. Friendly Indians, who knew something of the evil intent of chiefs and braves, had given Miss Jane Williamson hints concerning it during that day. More than that theydarednot tell. But few of our own Indians had known much more respecting the coming storm than ourselves. When intelligence came of the bloody work which that morning’s sun had looked upon, at the Lower Sioux Agency, thirty-five miles below, our good friends came to us, and, in an agony of fear for our lives and for theirs, besought us to flee. We would certainly be killed, and they would be in danger on account of our presence. Some believed, but more doubted. We had heard Indian stories before; by morning light we were confident this too would prove nothing but a drunken frolic, and we would only lose our worldly possessions if we should depart. The believing ones made ready a little clothing and provision, in case of need. The principal men gathered in council.Couldthey protect us? They wouldtry, at least until the morning. We sang ‘God is the Refuge of his Saints,’ commended ourselves to our Father’s safe-keeping, and most of us retired to rest. An hour or two passed in peaceful slumber by some—in nervous anxiety by others.“One o’clock had passed: a heavy knock at the door. Our friends had learned more of the extent of the outbreak, and felt that their protection would be worse than useless. ‘If you regard your own lives or ours, you must go.’ To their entreaties we yielded, and made hasty preparations to depart. In a quarter of an hour we had left our homes forever. Our company consisted of my father’s family, Mr. Cunningham’s, and Mr. Pettijohn’s, and a Mr. and Mrs. Moore from New Jersey; in all twenty-one persons. Mr. Cunningham had charge of the Hazelwood boarding-school, and Mr. Pettijohn, a former missionary under the American Board, had been recently a government teacher, twelve miles farther up the river. He had been moving his family down that day, on their way to St. Peter. As he drove my father’s team along, with the last of his goods, early in the evening, he was met by two Indians, who took the horses from him, and set him on an inveterately lazy horse belonging to another Indian. Consequently our family had but a light buggy and one horse left, which was to aid Mr. Cunningham’s two-horse team in carrying theallof the party. Room was found in the conveyances for the smaller children and all the women, except my sister Anna and myself. We walked with the men and boys. Our Indian friends guided us through the woods, the thick and tangled underbrush, the tall, rank grass drenched with dew, to the river side, where we were quickly and carefully conveyed to a wooded island, and then our guides left us. One of them, Enos Good-Voice-Hail, was in the East some three or four years since—a brave, handsome man, whose eye you could not buttrust. Our teams could not cross at that place, so they were kept for us until the morning. All the rest of that weary night we sat on the damp grass,cold and dreary, wondering what the day-dawn would bring. At length the morning came. My father and Mr. Cunningham paddled across the river to learn the state of affairs. We found we had neglected to bring the most of the provisions prepared, and wondered what we should do, even if permitted to go back home after a day or so spent on that island. While still talking, a woman hailed us from the opposite bank, who, as we found shortly, had brought several loaves of bread and some meat on her back, all the way from our houses. We received it as a Godsend, and soon after, my father, returning, brought some more provision, which another friend had secured for us. A longer, drearier day was never passed,—its every hour seemed a day. The rain came down and drenched us. My father went back and forth from the island to a village where the friendly Indians were mostly gathered, to find out what had been and what could be done. We learned that Dr. Williamson had sent away the most of his family, considering it his duty still to remain; that his wife and sister were with him; but the others, with a number of cattle for future need, were secreted in the woods, a mile or two below us.“By noon our houses had been rifled, and gradually the idea fixed itself upon us that wemustleave if possible. We made arrangements to join Dr. Williamson’s family, and about three o’clock took up our line of march, each carrying some bundles, having left on the island the only trunk belonging to the party. For more than a mile we walked along, with difficulty keeping our footing on the side-hills, which we chose for safety. When fairly out on the bluffs, we came up with one of the two teams, in charge of Mr. Hunter, Dr. Williamson’s son-in-law. The baggage being transferred from our shoulders to thewagon, the feebler ones were provided with seats, while the stronger marched on. Soon we came up with the remainder of the party,—Dr. Williamson’s family, and half a dozen persons from one of the government mills, who had cast in their lot with them. We struck out on the prairie to save ourselves if there was any chance. Our march was shortly rendered unpleasant by a fiercely driving rain-storm, from the soaking effects of which we did not recover until the next day, though it had the good effect of obliterating our path. Our company was increased by the arrival of a Mr. Orr, who had been engaged in trading among the Indians, near the place Mr. Pettijohn had resided, and who had been shot and stabbed that morning. It seemed a marvel that he should ever have been able to walk that far, and room was immediately made for him in a wagon, though it curtailed that of others. Toward night we were overtaken by Mr. Cunningham, bringing one of his horses and our buggy, which he had succeeded in getting hold of, and which was the only vehicle belonging to twenty-one out of the thirty-eight. Night came on, and we lay down on the hard earth, with bed and covering both scant and wet, torest. In the morning dawn, after our usual remembrance of Him who ruleth earth and sea, we went on our way, having had but little food, as cooked provisions were scarce, and we dared not kindle a fire, for fear of attracting attention.“Our day’s march was slow but steady—only stopping when necessary to rest the teams; and although we considered ourselves in danger, we found it quite enjoyable, more particularly afterweand thegrassgot dry, so that we could walk with ease. We had counted on having a fine night’s rest in spite of our scant bed-clothing, as wewere alldry, but we were disappointed. A slow, steady rain fall through all the long night, completely saturating almost every article of bed-clothing, and every person in the company. In that comfortless rain we drank some milk, ate a crust or two, and traveled on through the long, wet swamp grass, and the swamps themselves, in wading which two or three of us became quite accomplished. By noon of that day, which was Thursday, we came to a wood, fifteen or sixteen miles east from a settlement on the river, which was about twenty miles from home.“Our progress had been very slow—without any road, the grass so wet and the teams so heavily loaded. Still we could not but feel that the God who had led us during these long days, would neither suffer us to perish in this prairie wilderness nor be taken by savages. At this place we stopped for the remaining half day, killed a beef, and luxuriated on meat roasted on sticks held over the fire. We also baked bread in quite a primitive style. The dough being first mixed in a bag—flour, water, and salt the only ingredients—and moulded on a box, it was made into thin cakes about the size of a hand-breadth, placed on forked sticks over the fire, to bake if possible, and to be smoked most certainly.“Here our party was immortalized by a young artist—a Mr. Ebell—who had gone up into our region of country a few days previous to our flight, for the purpose of taking stereoscopic views. The next day we struck for the river, coming in not far from a settlement called Beaver, about six miles from the Lower Agency. Mr. Hunter had formerly resided at the place, and as we had not at the time the remotest idea of the extent of the massacres, he drove in to ascertain the whereabouts ofthe settlers. He saw no signs of any dead bodies, but two or three Indians employed in pillaging, informed him that all the people had gone to Fort Ridgely, and advised him to hasten there, or some other Indians would kill him. When just starting on after our noon rest, some one spied a team in the distance, which soon proved to be Dr. Williamson’s, containing himself, wife, and sister. Previously, some of us fancied that we might have been unwise in fleeing, but when we saw them, weknew we had not started too soon. They left on Tuesday evening, being assisted to depart by two of the Christian Indians, Simon Anawangmane and Robert Chaske, at the peril of their own lives. They said they would gladly protect them longer, but it was impossible.“After holding council, we pursued our journey with the intention of reaching Fort Ridgely that night; and when within nine or ten miles, Mr. Hunter drove on to ascertain how matters stood there. We felt ourselves in danger, but thought if we were only inside the fort walls, we would be safe. The men shouldered their arms, the daylight faded, and we marched on. In the mysteriously dim twilight, every taller clump of grass, every blacker hillock, grew into a blood-thirsty Indian, just ready to leap on his foe. All at once, on the brow of the hill, appeared two horsemen gazing down upon us.Indians!Every pulse stopped, and then throbbed on more fiercely. Were those men, now galloping away, sent by a band of warriors to spy out the land, or had they seen us by accident? We could not tell. The twilight faded, and the stars shone out brightly and lovingly. As we passed along we came suddenly on a dead body, some days cold and stiff. Death drew nearer, and as we marched on, we looked up to the clear heavens beyond which God dwells,and prayed him to keep us. When within a mile and a half of the fort, we met Mr. Hunter returning, who reported as follows: He left the buggy in his wife’s charge, outside the barracks, and crawled in on his hands and knees. Lieut. Sheehan, commander of the post, informed him they had been fighting hard for five days; that the Indians had withdrawn at seven that evening, it being then between nine and ten, and that, if not reinforced, they could hold out but little longer. Some of the buildings had been burnt; they had then five hundred women and children inside, and if wecouldgo on—go!Wewent, striking away out on the prairie.“Several of us girls had been mostly walking for the ten miles back, but now, to give the least trouble, we climbed on the wagons wherever we might find room to hold on, and sat patiently with the rest. Ah! if a night of fear and dread was ever spent, that was one. Every voice was hushed except to give necessary orders; every eye swept the hills and valleys around; every ear was intensely strained for the faintest noise, expecting momentarily to hear the unearthly war-whoop, and see dusky forms with gleaming tomahawks uplifted. How past actions came back as haunting ghosts; how one’s hopes of life faded away, away, and the things of earth seemed so little and mean compared to the glorious heaven beyond! And yet life was so sweet, so dear, and though it be a glorious heaven, this was such a hard way to go to it, by the tomahawk and scalping-knife! Oh, God!ourGod!mustit be? Then came something of resignation to death itself, but such a sore shrinking from the dishonor which isworsethan death; and we could not but wonder whether it would be a greater sin to take one’s life than thus to suffer. So the night woreon until two hours past midnight, when, compelled by exhaustion, we stopped. Some slept heavily, forgetful of the danger past and present, while others sat or stood, inwardly fiercely nervous and excited, but outwardly calm and still. Two hours passed; the weary sleepers were awakened by the weary watchers, and as quietly as possible the march was renewed. It was kept up until about nine in the day, when we struck the Fort Ridgely and Henderson road.“Having traveled thus far without being pursued, we felt ourselves comparatively safe. I am sure there was not one who did not in heart join in the song and prayer of thanksgiving which went up from that lone prairie land, however much we may have forgotten or murmured since. ‘Jehovah hath triumphed; his people are free, arefree,’ seemed to ring through the air. As we pursued our journey, we noticed dense columns of smoke springing up along the river with about the same rapidity we traveled, which we afterwards learned were grain-stacks fired by Indians. We rested for the night near a house, some fifteen miles from Henderson, from which the people had fled. Here we felt safe; but subsequently learned that we were not more than five or six miles from the Norwegian grove, where that same day a party of warriors had done their bloody work. Surely,God led us and watched over us.“The next day being the Sabbath, we went on only as far as we deemed necessary for perfect safety. Toward evening my father held divine service, which was almost the only outward reminder that it was the Lord’s Day. People coming and going—bustle here, there, and everywhere—so different from our last quiet Sabbath at home, the last time we and our dear Indians gatheredtogether around the table of our Lord, and perhaps the last time we ever shall, until we meet in the kingdom. The next morning our party separated, our family, with Mr. and Mrs. Moore, Mrs. Williamson and second daughter, and two or three others, continuing on the Henderson road, and the rest striking across to St. Peter, where Dr. Williamson has found abundant work in the hospitals. Near there his family expect to remain during the winter.“We arrived that afternoon in Henderson, a town a hundred miles from home, and we had been a week on the way. ‘Why, I thought you were all killed!’ was the first greeting of every one. A shoe store was hunted up before we proceeded to Shakopee, having first bidden a Godspeed to our friends, Mr. and Mrs. Moore. By this time some of us ‘young folks’ had acquired such a liking for walking that we consider it superior to any other mode of locomotion to this day; and if it had not been that we were so ragged and dirty and foot-sore, we should have preferred to continue our journey. During that week our ideas of paradise grew very limited, being comprised in having an abundance of water, some clean clothes, plenty to eat, and a nice bed to sleep in.“Since our entering Shakopee, we have visited among kind friends, until two weeks since, when we endeavored to set up house-keeping in this town of St. Anthony. Notwithstanding the kindness of friends and strangers, we, in common with others, find it difficult to dosomethingwithnothing, especially as my father is with the expedition against the Indians. It cannot but be that we should look back lovingly to the homes we have left, which are all, even ‘our holy and beautiful house,’wherein we have worshiped, destroyed by fire; but I trust that we all endeavor to ‘take joyfully the spoiling of our goods.’ ‘We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.’ Among our many causes for thankfulness, one is suggested by the verse ‘Pray ye that your flight be not in the winter.’ Another cause is that there was so little loss of life among those connected with the mission. We mourn for our dear friend, Mr. Amos Huggins, son of a former missionary, and government teacher at Lac-qui-parle. His young wife and two small children were, at last accounts, in the hands of the Indians, as also Miss Julia La Framboise, an assistant teacher who resided in their family. Because of the influential relatives Miss La Framboise has among the Dakotas, we hope for her, while for Mrs. Huggins we can onlypray.“It was not my intention, when I began this article, to enter at all into the causes of this outbreak; but what I have written will excite your indignation against all Dakotas, and I cannot bear that it should be so. It must be remembered that thechurch members, as a whole, have hadno hand in it. One, John Otherday, guided a party of sixty-two across the prairies. Two others, Lorenzo Lawrence and Simon Anawangmane, have recently brought into Fort Ridgely three captive women and eleven children; and we doubt not that others will also ‘lettheirlight shine’—at the peril of their lives, remember.“The Indians have not been without excuse for their evil deeds. Our own people have given them intoxicating drinks, taught them to swear, violated the rights of womanhood among them, robbed them of their dues, and then insulted them! What more would be necessary to cause one nation to rise against another? Whatmore? I ask. And yet there are many who curse this people, and cry ‘Exterminate the fiends.’Darewe, as a nation,thusbring a curse upon ourselves and on future generations?“Martha T. Riggs.”

“One o’clock had passed: a heavy knock at the door. Our friends had learned more of the extent of the outbreak, and felt that their protection would be worse than useless. ‘If you regard your own lives or ours, you must go.’ To their entreaties we yielded, and made hasty preparations to depart. In a quarter of an hour we had left our homes forever. Our company consisted of my father’s family, Mr. Cunningham’s, and Mr. Pettijohn’s, and a Mr. and Mrs. Moore from New Jersey; in all twenty-one persons. Mr. Cunningham had charge of the Hazelwood boarding-school, and Mr. Pettijohn, a former missionary under the American Board, had been recently a government teacher, twelve miles farther up the river. He had been moving his family down that day, on their way to St. Peter. As he drove my father’s team along, with the last of his goods, early in the evening, he was met by two Indians, who took the horses from him, and set him on an inveterately lazy horse belonging to another Indian. Consequently our family had but a light buggy and one horse left, which was to aid Mr. Cunningham’s two-horse team in carrying theallof the party. Room was found in the conveyances for the smaller children and all the women, except my sister Anna and myself. We walked with the men and boys. Our Indian friends guided us through the woods, the thick and tangled underbrush, the tall, rank grass drenched with dew, to the river side, where we were quickly and carefully conveyed to a wooded island, and then our guides left us. One of them, Enos Good-Voice-Hail, was in the East some three or four years since—a brave, handsome man, whose eye you could not buttrust. Our teams could not cross at that place, so they were kept for us until the morning. All the rest of that weary night we sat on the damp grass,cold and dreary, wondering what the day-dawn would bring. At length the morning came. My father and Mr. Cunningham paddled across the river to learn the state of affairs. We found we had neglected to bring the most of the provisions prepared, and wondered what we should do, even if permitted to go back home after a day or so spent on that island. While still talking, a woman hailed us from the opposite bank, who, as we found shortly, had brought several loaves of bread and some meat on her back, all the way from our houses. We received it as a Godsend, and soon after, my father, returning, brought some more provision, which another friend had secured for us. A longer, drearier day was never passed,—its every hour seemed a day. The rain came down and drenched us. My father went back and forth from the island to a village where the friendly Indians were mostly gathered, to find out what had been and what could be done. We learned that Dr. Williamson had sent away the most of his family, considering it his duty still to remain; that his wife and sister were with him; but the others, with a number of cattle for future need, were secreted in the woods, a mile or two below us.

“By noon our houses had been rifled, and gradually the idea fixed itself upon us that wemustleave if possible. We made arrangements to join Dr. Williamson’s family, and about three o’clock took up our line of march, each carrying some bundles, having left on the island the only trunk belonging to the party. For more than a mile we walked along, with difficulty keeping our footing on the side-hills, which we chose for safety. When fairly out on the bluffs, we came up with one of the two teams, in charge of Mr. Hunter, Dr. Williamson’s son-in-law. The baggage being transferred from our shoulders to thewagon, the feebler ones were provided with seats, while the stronger marched on. Soon we came up with the remainder of the party,—Dr. Williamson’s family, and half a dozen persons from one of the government mills, who had cast in their lot with them. We struck out on the prairie to save ourselves if there was any chance. Our march was shortly rendered unpleasant by a fiercely driving rain-storm, from the soaking effects of which we did not recover until the next day, though it had the good effect of obliterating our path. Our company was increased by the arrival of a Mr. Orr, who had been engaged in trading among the Indians, near the place Mr. Pettijohn had resided, and who had been shot and stabbed that morning. It seemed a marvel that he should ever have been able to walk that far, and room was immediately made for him in a wagon, though it curtailed that of others. Toward night we were overtaken by Mr. Cunningham, bringing one of his horses and our buggy, which he had succeeded in getting hold of, and which was the only vehicle belonging to twenty-one out of the thirty-eight. Night came on, and we lay down on the hard earth, with bed and covering both scant and wet, torest. In the morning dawn, after our usual remembrance of Him who ruleth earth and sea, we went on our way, having had but little food, as cooked provisions were scarce, and we dared not kindle a fire, for fear of attracting attention.

“Our day’s march was slow but steady—only stopping when necessary to rest the teams; and although we considered ourselves in danger, we found it quite enjoyable, more particularly afterweand thegrassgot dry, so that we could walk with ease. We had counted on having a fine night’s rest in spite of our scant bed-clothing, as wewere alldry, but we were disappointed. A slow, steady rain fall through all the long night, completely saturating almost every article of bed-clothing, and every person in the company. In that comfortless rain we drank some milk, ate a crust or two, and traveled on through the long, wet swamp grass, and the swamps themselves, in wading which two or three of us became quite accomplished. By noon of that day, which was Thursday, we came to a wood, fifteen or sixteen miles east from a settlement on the river, which was about twenty miles from home.

“Our progress had been very slow—without any road, the grass so wet and the teams so heavily loaded. Still we could not but feel that the God who had led us during these long days, would neither suffer us to perish in this prairie wilderness nor be taken by savages. At this place we stopped for the remaining half day, killed a beef, and luxuriated on meat roasted on sticks held over the fire. We also baked bread in quite a primitive style. The dough being first mixed in a bag—flour, water, and salt the only ingredients—and moulded on a box, it was made into thin cakes about the size of a hand-breadth, placed on forked sticks over the fire, to bake if possible, and to be smoked most certainly.

“Here our party was immortalized by a young artist—a Mr. Ebell—who had gone up into our region of country a few days previous to our flight, for the purpose of taking stereoscopic views. The next day we struck for the river, coming in not far from a settlement called Beaver, about six miles from the Lower Agency. Mr. Hunter had formerly resided at the place, and as we had not at the time the remotest idea of the extent of the massacres, he drove in to ascertain the whereabouts ofthe settlers. He saw no signs of any dead bodies, but two or three Indians employed in pillaging, informed him that all the people had gone to Fort Ridgely, and advised him to hasten there, or some other Indians would kill him. When just starting on after our noon rest, some one spied a team in the distance, which soon proved to be Dr. Williamson’s, containing himself, wife, and sister. Previously, some of us fancied that we might have been unwise in fleeing, but when we saw them, weknew we had not started too soon. They left on Tuesday evening, being assisted to depart by two of the Christian Indians, Simon Anawangmane and Robert Chaske, at the peril of their own lives. They said they would gladly protect them longer, but it was impossible.

“After holding council, we pursued our journey with the intention of reaching Fort Ridgely that night; and when within nine or ten miles, Mr. Hunter drove on to ascertain how matters stood there. We felt ourselves in danger, but thought if we were only inside the fort walls, we would be safe. The men shouldered their arms, the daylight faded, and we marched on. In the mysteriously dim twilight, every taller clump of grass, every blacker hillock, grew into a blood-thirsty Indian, just ready to leap on his foe. All at once, on the brow of the hill, appeared two horsemen gazing down upon us.Indians!Every pulse stopped, and then throbbed on more fiercely. Were those men, now galloping away, sent by a band of warriors to spy out the land, or had they seen us by accident? We could not tell. The twilight faded, and the stars shone out brightly and lovingly. As we passed along we came suddenly on a dead body, some days cold and stiff. Death drew nearer, and as we marched on, we looked up to the clear heavens beyond which God dwells,and prayed him to keep us. When within a mile and a half of the fort, we met Mr. Hunter returning, who reported as follows: He left the buggy in his wife’s charge, outside the barracks, and crawled in on his hands and knees. Lieut. Sheehan, commander of the post, informed him they had been fighting hard for five days; that the Indians had withdrawn at seven that evening, it being then between nine and ten, and that, if not reinforced, they could hold out but little longer. Some of the buildings had been burnt; they had then five hundred women and children inside, and if wecouldgo on—go!Wewent, striking away out on the prairie.

“Several of us girls had been mostly walking for the ten miles back, but now, to give the least trouble, we climbed on the wagons wherever we might find room to hold on, and sat patiently with the rest. Ah! if a night of fear and dread was ever spent, that was one. Every voice was hushed except to give necessary orders; every eye swept the hills and valleys around; every ear was intensely strained for the faintest noise, expecting momentarily to hear the unearthly war-whoop, and see dusky forms with gleaming tomahawks uplifted. How past actions came back as haunting ghosts; how one’s hopes of life faded away, away, and the things of earth seemed so little and mean compared to the glorious heaven beyond! And yet life was so sweet, so dear, and though it be a glorious heaven, this was such a hard way to go to it, by the tomahawk and scalping-knife! Oh, God!ourGod!mustit be? Then came something of resignation to death itself, but such a sore shrinking from the dishonor which isworsethan death; and we could not but wonder whether it would be a greater sin to take one’s life than thus to suffer. So the night woreon until two hours past midnight, when, compelled by exhaustion, we stopped. Some slept heavily, forgetful of the danger past and present, while others sat or stood, inwardly fiercely nervous and excited, but outwardly calm and still. Two hours passed; the weary sleepers were awakened by the weary watchers, and as quietly as possible the march was renewed. It was kept up until about nine in the day, when we struck the Fort Ridgely and Henderson road.

“Having traveled thus far without being pursued, we felt ourselves comparatively safe. I am sure there was not one who did not in heart join in the song and prayer of thanksgiving which went up from that lone prairie land, however much we may have forgotten or murmured since. ‘Jehovah hath triumphed; his people are free, arefree,’ seemed to ring through the air. As we pursued our journey, we noticed dense columns of smoke springing up along the river with about the same rapidity we traveled, which we afterwards learned were grain-stacks fired by Indians. We rested for the night near a house, some fifteen miles from Henderson, from which the people had fled. Here we felt safe; but subsequently learned that we were not more than five or six miles from the Norwegian grove, where that same day a party of warriors had done their bloody work. Surely,God led us and watched over us.

“The next day being the Sabbath, we went on only as far as we deemed necessary for perfect safety. Toward evening my father held divine service, which was almost the only outward reminder that it was the Lord’s Day. People coming and going—bustle here, there, and everywhere—so different from our last quiet Sabbath at home, the last time we and our dear Indians gatheredtogether around the table of our Lord, and perhaps the last time we ever shall, until we meet in the kingdom. The next morning our party separated, our family, with Mr. and Mrs. Moore, Mrs. Williamson and second daughter, and two or three others, continuing on the Henderson road, and the rest striking across to St. Peter, where Dr. Williamson has found abundant work in the hospitals. Near there his family expect to remain during the winter.

“We arrived that afternoon in Henderson, a town a hundred miles from home, and we had been a week on the way. ‘Why, I thought you were all killed!’ was the first greeting of every one. A shoe store was hunted up before we proceeded to Shakopee, having first bidden a Godspeed to our friends, Mr. and Mrs. Moore. By this time some of us ‘young folks’ had acquired such a liking for walking that we consider it superior to any other mode of locomotion to this day; and if it had not been that we were so ragged and dirty and foot-sore, we should have preferred to continue our journey. During that week our ideas of paradise grew very limited, being comprised in having an abundance of water, some clean clothes, plenty to eat, and a nice bed to sleep in.

“Since our entering Shakopee, we have visited among kind friends, until two weeks since, when we endeavored to set up house-keeping in this town of St. Anthony. Notwithstanding the kindness of friends and strangers, we, in common with others, find it difficult to dosomethingwithnothing, especially as my father is with the expedition against the Indians. It cannot but be that we should look back lovingly to the homes we have left, which are all, even ‘our holy and beautiful house,’wherein we have worshiped, destroyed by fire; but I trust that we all endeavor to ‘take joyfully the spoiling of our goods.’ ‘We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.’ Among our many causes for thankfulness, one is suggested by the verse ‘Pray ye that your flight be not in the winter.’ Another cause is that there was so little loss of life among those connected with the mission. We mourn for our dear friend, Mr. Amos Huggins, son of a former missionary, and government teacher at Lac-qui-parle. His young wife and two small children were, at last accounts, in the hands of the Indians, as also Miss Julia La Framboise, an assistant teacher who resided in their family. Because of the influential relatives Miss La Framboise has among the Dakotas, we hope for her, while for Mrs. Huggins we can onlypray.

“It was not my intention, when I began this article, to enter at all into the causes of this outbreak; but what I have written will excite your indignation against all Dakotas, and I cannot bear that it should be so. It must be remembered that thechurch members, as a whole, have hadno hand in it. One, John Otherday, guided a party of sixty-two across the prairies. Two others, Lorenzo Lawrence and Simon Anawangmane, have recently brought into Fort Ridgely three captive women and eleven children; and we doubt not that others will also ‘lettheirlight shine’—at the peril of their lives, remember.

“The Indians have not been without excuse for their evil deeds. Our own people have given them intoxicating drinks, taught them to swear, violated the rights of womanhood among them, robbed them of their dues, and then insulted them! What more would be necessary to cause one nation to rise against another? Whatmore? I ask. And yet there are many who curse this people, and cry ‘Exterminate the fiends.’Darewe, as a nation,thusbring a curse upon ourselves and on future generations?

“Martha T. Riggs.”

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