Meeker County, Minnesota - Chapter 7: How the Boys Got Out of Acton, 1877

When Captain Strout was informed that a par¬ ty of Indians were camped about three miles off there was considerable excitement among the boys, -but few slept that night. The old condemned Bel¬ gian guns furnished Captain Strout's men by Uncle Sam to scare the red men with, and which most of the men thought they would have no use for, were quickly examined, and it was found that only about one in five had ammunition that would fit, and the boys were kept busy till daylight preparing ammunition that might soon be needed.

By the time it was fairly daylight, breakfast was called, and while they were yet eating, they heard the firing of guns about two miles off, and knowing that they were the only white men near- ( 69 )

Strout had but five mounted men and these were ordered to advance and keep a half a mile in advance of the company and teams. Albert Sper¬ ry one of the five was to keep about two hundred yards in advance of the other four.

The mounted men had proceeded about two miles in a southerly direction, when they discov¬ ered the bright barrels of guns glistening on a hill about a mile ahead, and on the farm pre-empted by the widow Baker just opposite Kelley's Bluff. Our men continued to advance until within a quar¬ ter of a mile when they halted, and sent word back to Captain Strout that the Indians were just ahead and to prepare for a fight.

As soon as the company came up the men were formed in open line and ordered to advance, which they did until they came within about two hundred yards of where the Indians had been seen, when the Indians opened fire on the company, which the company promptly returned.

this time a party of mounted Indians were discovered approaching us in the rear, on the road we had just trav eled, and as they came down over the rolling prairie single file w r ith horses and po¬ nies at full speed, whooping and yelling as only wild Indians can, it made a picture long to be re¬ membered by those who saw it.

Fearing to make a charge most of the mounted Indians rode around and formed on the right of the company, and a lake being on the left, Strout with his little band of sixty three men were corn-* pletely surrounded.

After fighting some time, without any particular damage to either party, reminding the comman¬ der of what the Frenchman said of some of the first great battles of the rebellion, where nobody was killed on either side, "that it was one very civil war" but fearing Mr. Sioux Indians would soon receive reinforcements from another band known to be less than five miles off, the captain ordered a charge in tire direction of Hutchinson with fixed bayonets.

This was probably the bravest act of the day - when we take into consideration that Captain Strout's company was mostly made up of business and commercial men and dapper-fingered clerks from Minneapolis and St. Paul, many of them hardly knowing enough about fire arms to load their own pieces, but the red men on the south did not like close quarters, and scattered in all direc¬ tions, and for a time it seemed as though the little unpleasantness had ceased, and the teamsters think¬ ing the road clear, started their teams on the run Yor Hutchinson, leaving all the company that were not fortunate enough to climb behind, and the boys thinking it would be a poor show for broken¬ legged men, all hands started pell-mell after the teams, and for a short time it seemed as though it was a "Bull Run" on a small scale, and that, too, after they had beat the red man on a bayonet charge.

The men did not want it understood that they were running away from the Indians, at all, at all, but when they made the bayonet charge they came very near not stopping till they got to Hutch¬ inson, which reminds us again of an incident at "Bull Run," when one of the boys of a Vermont

Regiment was ordered to retreat; he obeyed or¬ ders and (no counter order being received,) he kept on retreating until he reached the north Der¬ by line and only halted then, in order that he might not do violence to international law.

The Captain and his few mounted men soon t brought the boys to a halt, and order was restored in less time than it usually took McClellan to re¬ organize the army of the Potomac.

The Indians seeing the Company on the run, put after them in full uniform, that is to say, they divested themselves of all that makes the man, towit, "good clothing."

Before proceeding any further in the descrip¬ tion of the "days doings," we wish to mention one bright and noble oasis in the catalogue of Indian character usually made up of ambush and tr eachery.

While the skirmish was hottest and just before the charge was made, one of the Indians, supposed to have been Little Crow, deliberately stepped upon the top of a fence, about one hundred and fifty yards in front of the Company, and waving his blanket, gave some orders to the Indians in our rear.

Strout asked for some good marksman to take him oft. Two or three of his boys tried and all missed him, when the whole Company was ordered to fire at him, but it seems to have been fore-ordered that he was not to die on that fence, for he stood ^the torrent of, and received the whole volley of sixty-three old Belgian bullets unscathed, where¬ upon Mr. Indian coolly stepped down from the fence, made a graceful bow, with a waive of the hand, as much as to say "thank you gentlemen."

About this time order was restored among the men, private Jesse V. Branham Jr., one of the three volunteer scouts from Forest City the night before, having stopped to load his gun, was shot from behind, the ball passing through his left lung. Fortunately he did not fall, but had strength enough to walk until he overtook the teams. He was supposed to be mortally wounded, but on the contrary he is now on his pegs and in fact healthy, residing at Litchfield. From this time a running fight was kept up for about seven miles, during which time Stone of Minneapolis and another pri¬ vate whose name we do not now recollect, were killed, and about one third of the entire company wounded.

When the company halted at Cedar Mills for water and a little rest for the wounded, they found they had lost three men killed and left on the ground.

There were eighteen wounded, Captain Strout in his official report says: "The loss of the com¬ pany in this encounter was three men killed and fifteen wounded, some of them severely, all were, howe' er, brought from the field."

The reader wifi notice a material discrepancy in regard to the dead. That the 3d Regiment boys did not bury them, or Strout did not take them with him, requires no proof.

Captain Strout continues, "in addition to this, they lost most of their rations, cooking utensils, tents, and a portion of their ammunition and arms. Some of their horses became unmanageable and ran away. Some were abandonded, making with those killed by the enemy, an aggregate loss of nine. The loss inflicted on the enemy could not be determined with any degree of certainty, but Captain Strout was of the opinion that their killed and wounded was two or three times as great as ours,," - doubtful.

on large fine horses, plundered from the settle¬ ments, and partly on Indian ponies. The latter were so well trained, that their riders would drive them at a rapid rate to within any desirable dis¬ tance, when both pony and rider would instantly lie down in the tall grass and thus conceal them¬ selves from the sharp-shooters of the Company, (of which there must have been many, judging from the effect of the volley fired at the Indian on the fence.)

From Mr. Cross of Cedar Lake our men pro¬ cured lint for the wounded, and proceeded on their way to Hutchinson, arriving at that point Wednes¬ day afternoon.

On arriving at Hutchinson, the wounded were placed in the Sumner House, where they received all the kind attention from both men and women ot Hutchinson that could be asked or desired, for all of which the boys united in a "God bless them with long life and plenty of this world's goods to make theni happy both here and hereafter."

Our report is made up partly from the official report of Captain Strout, but principally, and more reliably from the vivid recollection of Jesse V. Branham, Jr. Esq. one of the Forest City scouts sent out to head off Strout, and who was with him the day of the battle and supposed to have been mortally wounded by an Indian bullet. Strout's official report was a mixture of truth and folly, inconsistent with a just regard for the character of his soldiers, who cheerfully volunteered to take the field under all the adverse circumstances atten¬ dant on a hasty collection of men from work shops and the counter, totally ignorant of the art of war, and unused to the discipline of a military camp.

Branham says the teamsters ran with their teams and the men ran "pell-mell to keep up" and when Strout adds, in his report, that he had lost, during the battle, most of their rations, cooking utensils, tent's, ammunition and arms, and nine or ten hor¬ ses, it certainly looks as though Branham had the truth on his side.

It pains us deeply to feel compelled, in the light of historical truth, to speak of Capt. Strout as we do, well remembering the old adage, that to avoid speaking ill of those of whom we have but little reason to speak well, is the temperance of aversion, and seldom found in ordinary minds.