Rice County, Minnesota - Chapter with an unread heading (no. 29 of those read), 1882

Battle Of Birch Coolie Battle Of Wood Lake

The ninssaere being the main design of this history, the movement of the troops, in the pursuit and pimishment of the Indians connected witli the atrocious murders initiated on the 18th of August, 1862, must especially, in this abridgement, be exoeedingl}' brief.

On the day after the outbreak, August 19th, 1862, an order was issued by the comman^lpr-in-cliief to Colonel H. H. Sibley, to proceed, with four corapa,uies, then at Fort SneUing, and such other forces as miglit join his command, to the protection of the frontier coimties of the State. The entire force, increased by the separate commands of Colonels Marshall and McPhail, reached Fort Ridgeiy, August 28tb, 1862. A detachmcut made up of Company A, 6th Regiment Minnesota Volunteers, imder Captain H. P. Grant, some seventj mounted men under Captain JosepTi Andeison, and a fatigue party, aggregating in all a force of over one hundred and fifty men, were sent in advance of the main army, to protect the settlements from further devastation, and at the same time collect and bury the dead yet lying on the field of the recent slaughter. On the first of September, near the Beaver Creek, Captain Grant's party found .Justina Krieger, who had escaped alive from the murders committed near Sacred Heart. Mrs Krieger had been shot and dreadfvJly butchered. During this day this detachment buried fifty-five victims of savage barbarity, and in the evening went into camp at Birch Coolie. The usual precautions were taken, and no immediate fears of Indiaus were apprehended; yet at half-past four o'clock on the morning of the second of September, one of the guards shouted "Indians!" Instantly thereafter a sh iwer of bullets was poured into the encampment. A most fearful and terrible battle ensued, and for the numbers engaged, the most bloody of any in which our forces had been engaged during the war. The loss of men, in proportion to those engaged, was extremely large; twenty-three were killed outright, or mortally wounded, and forty-five so severely wounded as to require surgical aid, while scarce a man remained whose dress had not been pierced by the enemies' bullets. On the evening of the 3d of September the besieged camp was

This battle, in all probability, saved the towns of Mankato and St. Peter from the destruction intended by the savages. They had left Yellow Medicine with the avowed object of attacking these towns on the Minnesota. The signal defeat of the forces of Little Crow at Birch Coolie, not only saved the towns of Mankato and St. Peter, but in effect ended his efforts in subduing the whites on the borders.

After the battle of Birch Coolie aU the marauding forces under the direction of Little Crow were called in, and a retreat was ordered up the valley of the Minnesota toward Yellow Medicine; and on the 16th day of September Colonel Sibley ordered an advance of his whole column in pursuit of the fleeing foe; his forces now increased by the 3d Minnesota Volunteers, paroled prisoners returned from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, under command of Major Abraham E. Welch.

On the evening of the 22d Colonel Sibley arrived at Wood Lake. On the morning of the 23d, at about seven o'clock, a force of three hundred Indiaus suddenly appeared before his camp, yelling as savages only can yell, and firing with great rapidity. The troops under Colonel Sibley were cool and determined, and the 3d Regiment needed no urging by officers. All our forces engaged the enemy with a will that betokened quick work with savages who had outraged every sentiment of humanity, and earned for themselves an immortality of infamy never before achieved by the Dakota nation. The fight lasted about two hours. We lost in killed four, and about fifty wounded. The enemy's loss was much larger; fourteen of their dead were left on the field, and an unknown number were carried off the field, as the Indiana are accustomed to do.

The battle of Wood Lake put an end to all the hopes of the renowned chief. His warriors were in open rebellion against his schemes of warfare against the whites. He had gained nothin"-. Fort Ridgeiy was not taken. New Ulm was not in his possession. St. Peter and IMankato were intact, and at Birch Coolie and Wood Lake he had suffered defeat. No warrior would longer follow his fortunes in a war so disastroii;!. On the same day of the buttle at Wood Lake a deputation from the Wapeton band appeared under a flag of truce, asking terras of peace. The response of Colonel Sibley was a demand for the delivery of aU the white captives in the possession of these savages. Wabasha, at the head of fifty lodges, immediately parted company with Little Crow, and established a camp near Lao qui Parle, with a view of surrendering his men on the most favorable terms. A flag of truce announced his action to Colonel S'ibley, who soon after, imder proper military guard, visited Wabasha's camp. After the formalities of the occasion were over. Colonel Sibley I'eceived the captives, in all, then and thereafter, to the number of 107 pure whites, and about 162 half-breeds, and conducted them to his headquarters. The dilTerent emotions of these captives at their release can easily be imagined by the reader. This place well deserved the name given it, "Camp Release."

A MrwTARY Commission was soon after inaugurated to try the parties charged with the murder of white persons. The labors of this commission continued until about the 5th of November, 1862. Three hundred and twenty-one of the savages and their allies had been found guilty of the charges preferred against them; three hundred and three of whom were recommended for capital punishment, the others to suffer imprisonment. These were immediately removed, under a guard of 1,500 men, to South Bend, on the Minnesota river, to await further order.i from the United States Government.

PoRSDiT OF THj; Desertsrs. - After the disaster met with at Wood Lake, Little Crow retreated, with those who remained with him, in the direction of Big Stone Lake, some sixty miles to the On the 5th of October, Colonel Sibley had sent a messenger to the principal camp of the deserters, to inform them that he expected to be able to pursue and overtake all who remained in arms against the Government; and that the only hope of mercy that they need expect, even for their wives and children, would be their early return and surrender at discretitm. By the 8th of October the prisoners who had come in and surrendered amounted to upwards of 2,000. On the 14th of October, Lieutenant Colonel Marshall, with 252 men, was ordered to go out upon the frontier as a scouting party, to ascertain whether there were any hostile camps of savages located within probable striking distance, from which they might be able, by sudden marches, to fall upon the settlements before the opening of the campaign in the coming sprLag. About this time. Colonel Sibley, hitherto acting under State authority, received

The scouting party under Lieutenant-Colonel Marshall followed up the line of retreat of the fugitives, and near the edge of the Coteau de Prairie, about forty-five miles from Camp Eelease, found two lodges of straggling Indians. The males of these camps, three young men, were made prisoners, and the women and children and an old man were directed to deliver themselves ujj at Camp Release. From these Indians here captured they received information of twenty-seven lodges encamped near Chanopa (Two Wood) lakes. Al these lakes they found no Indians; they had left, but the trail was followed to the north-west, towards the Big Sioux river. At noon of the 16th, Lieutenant-Colonel Marshall took with him fifty mounted men and the howitzer and started in pursuit, without tents or supjjlies of any kind, but leaving the infantry and supply wagons to follow after. Tliey crossed the Big Sioux river, passing near and on the north side of Lake Kamjieska.

By following closely the Indian trail, they arrived at dark at the east end of a lake some six or eight miles long, and about eight miles in a northwestwardly direction from Lake Kampeska. Here they halted, without tents, fire or food, until near daylight, when reconnoitering commenced, and at an early hour in the morning they succeeded in surprising and capturing a camp composed of ten lodges, and thirteen Indians and their families. From those captured at this place information was received of another camp of some twelve or fifteen lodges, located at the distance of about one day's march in the direction of James river.

Placing a guard over the captured camp, the remaining portion of the force pressed on in the direction indicated, and at the distance of about ten miles from the first camp, and about midway be tween the Big Sioux and James rivers they came in sight of the second party, just as they were moving out of camp. The Indians attempted to make their escape by flight, but after an exciting chase for some distance they were overtaken and captured, without any armed resistance. Twentyoue men were taken at this place. Some of them had separated from the camp previous to the capture, and were engaged in hunting at the time. On the return march, which was shortly after commenced, six of these foDowed the detachment, and, after making ineffectual efforts to recover their families, came forward and surrendered themselves

Indian Sympathizers

The men of this detachment, officers and privates, evinced to a large degree the bravery and endurance that characterizes the true soldier. They willingly and cheerfully pressed on after the savages, a part of them without food, fire or shelter, and all of them knowing that they were thereby prolonging the period of tlieir absence beyond the estimated time, and subjecting themselves to the certain necessity of being at least one or two days without r.'itions of any kind before the return to Camp Release could be effected.

On the 7th of November, Lieutenant-Colonel Marshall, with a guard of some fifteen hundred men, started for Fort Snelling in charge of other captured Indians, comprising the women and children, and such of the men as were not found guilty of any heinous crime by the Military Commission, and arrived safely at their destination on the 13th.

Prom the commencement of hostilities until the 16th day of September the war was carried on almost entirely from the resources of the State alone, and some little assistance from our sister States in the way of arms and ammunition. On this latter date Major-General John Pope, who had been appointed by the President of the United States to take command of the Dapartment of the North-west, arrived and established his headquarters in the city of St. Paul, in this state. The principal part of the active service of the season's campaign had previously been gone through with; but the forces previously under the command of of the State authorities were imnrediately turned over to his command, and the after-movements were entirely under his control and direction.

He brought to the aid of the troops raised in the State the 25th Wisconsin and the 27th Iowa Regiments, both infantry. These forces were speedily distributed at different points along the frontier, and assisted in guarding the settlements during the autumn, but they were recalled and sent out of the State before the closing in of the winter.

It was contemplated to send the 6th and 7th Regiments Minnesota Volunteers to take part in the war against the rebels in the Southern States, . and orders to this effect had already been issued, but on the 6th of November, in obedience to the expressed wish of a large portion of the inhabitants of the State, these orders v/ere countermanded. They were directed to remain in tha state, and the 3d Regiment was ordered off instead.

All the forces then remaining in the state were assigned to winter quarters at such p)int9 as it was thought expedient to keep guarded during the winter, and on the 2.'')th of November Major-General Pope removed his headquarters to Madison, in the State of Wisconsin. Brigadier-General Sibley then remained in the immediate command of the troops retained in service against the Indians, and established his headquarters in the city of St. Paul.

"Considering the many serious disadvantages uniler which General Sibley has labored - a deficiency of arms and ammunition, scarcity of jirovisious, and the total absence of cavalry at a time when he could have successfully pursued and cap. tnred Little Crow and his followers - the expedition has been successful beyond the most sanguine anticipations. Of the three hundred white captives in the hands of the Indians at the commencement of the war, all, or nearly all, have been retaken and returned to their friends. Much private property has been secured, and some fifteen hundred Indians, engaged directly or indirectly in the massacres, have been captured; and those who have actually stained their hands in the blood of our frontier settlers are condemned to suffer death. Their sentence will be carried into execution, unless countermanded by authorities at Washington."

Missouri

INDIAN SYMPATHIZERS - MEMOBI.tl, TO THE PRESIDENT - THE HANGING OP THJRTV-EIQHT ANNULLING THE TREATIES WITH CERT.AIN SIOUX REMOVAL OF WINNEBAGOES AND SIOITSTOTHE UPPER MISSOURI.

After the campaign of 1862, and the guilty parties were confined at Camp Lincoln, near Mendota, the idea of executing capitally, three hundred Indians, aroused the sympathy of those far removed from the scenes of their inhuman butcheries. President Lincoln was importuned, principally by parties in the East, for the release of these savages. The voice of the blood of innocence crymg from the ground, the wailings of mothers bereft of their children was hushed in the tender cry of sympathy for the condemned. Even the Christian ministers, stern in the belief that, "Whosoever sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed," seemed now the most zealous for the pardon of these merciless outlaws, who, without cause had shed the blood of innocent women and children in a time of peace.

Senator M. S. Wilkinson and Congressmen C. Aldrich and William Windom, made an urgent appeal to the President for the proper execution of the sentence in the case of these Indians. From this appeal the following extract will be sufficient to indicate its character:

"The people of Minnesota, Mr. President, have stood firmly by you and your Administration. They have given both you and it their cordial support. They have not violated any law. They have borne these sufferings with patience, such as few people have ever exhibited under extreme trials. These Indians now are at their mercy; but our people have not risen to slaughter, because they believed their President would deal with them jitstly.

"We are told, Mr. President, that the committee from Pennsylvania, whose families are living happily in their pleasant homes in that state, have called upon you to pardon these Indians. We protest against the pardon of these Indians; because if it is done, the Indians w;U become more insolent and cruel than they ever were before, believing, as they certainly will, that their Great Father at Washington either justifies their acts or B afi-aid to punish them for their crimes.

"We protest against it, because, if the President does not permit the execution to take place under the forms of law, the outraged people of Minnesota will dispose of these wretches without law. These two people cannot live together. We do not wish to see mob law inaugurated in Minnesota, as it certainly, will be, if you force the people to it. We tremble at the approach of such a condition of things in our state.

"You can give us peace, or you can give us lawless violence. We pray you, as in view of all we have suffered, and of the danger which still awaits us, let the law be executed. Let justice be done to our people."

The press of Minnesota, without a single exception, insisteil that the condemned Indians should expiat« their dreadful crime upon the gallows, while the Eastern press, with some few exceptions, gave vent to the deep sympathy of the sentimental philosophers and the fanciful strains of the imaginative poets. It seemed to our Eastern neighbors that Minnesotians, in their contact with savage Ufe, had ceased to appreciate the that they had looked upon the modem race of savages in their criminal degradation until they had well-nigh forgotten the renoun of Massasoit, and his noble sons Alexander and Philip.

But two hundred years never fails to change somewhat the character and sentiments of a great people, and blot from its memory something of its accredited history. This may have happened in the case of our fellow-kinsmen in the Eastern and Middle States. They may not now fully enter into the views and sentiments of those who witnessed the outrages of Philip and his cruel warriors in their conspiracies against the infant colonies; in their attacks upon Springfield, Hatfield, Lancaster, Medfield, Seekong, Groton, Warwick, Marlborough, Plymouth, Taunton, Scituate, Bridgewater, and Northfield. They seem not fully now to appreciate the atrocities of the savages of these olden times. The historian of the times of Philip was not so sentimental as some of later days.

"The town of Springfield received great injury from their attacks, more than thirty houses being burned; among the rest one containing a 'brave library,' the finest in that part of the country, which belonged to the Rev. Pelatiah Glover."

" This," says Hubbard, "did, more than any other, discover the said actors to be the children of the devil, full of all subtilty and malice." And we of the present can not perceive why the massacre of innocent women and children should not as readily discover these Minnesota savages, under Little Crow, to be children of the devil as the burning of a minister's library two hundred years ago. Minnesotians lost by these Indians splendid, not to say hrave libraries; but of this minor evil they did not complain, in their demand for the execution of the condemned murderers.

Indians are the same in all times. Two hundred years have wrought no change upon Indian character. Had King Philip been powerful enough, he would have killed all the white men inhabiting the New England Colonies. "Once an Indian, always an Indian," is fully borne out by their history during two hundred years' contact with the wliite race.

try spoke and felt in regard to Indians very rnucli us Minnesotians now speak and feel. Wlieu Wcetauiore, queen of Pocasset, and widow of Alexander, Pbilii)'s eldest brother, in attempting to escape from the pursuit of Captain Church, had lost her life, her head was cut oil' by those who discovered her, and fixed upon a pole at Taunton ! Here, being discovered by some of her loving subjects, then in captivity, their unrestrained grief at the shocking sight is characterized by Mather as "n most horrid and diabolical lamentation!" Have Minnesotians exhibited a more unfeeling sentiment than this, even agamst condemned murderers ? Mather lived, it is true, amid scenes of Indian barbarity. Had he lived in the present day and witnessed these revolting cruelties, he would have said with Colonel H. H. Sibley, "Bly heart is steeled against them." But those who witnessed the late massacre could truly say, in the language of an Eastern poet,

Early in December, 1862, while the final decision of the President was delayed, the valley towns of Minnesota, led off by the city of St. Paul, held primary meetings, addressed by the most intelligent speakers of the different localities. An extract from a memorial of one of the assemblages of the people is given as a sample of others of similar import. The extract quoted is from the Si. Paul meeting, drawn up by George A. Nourse, United States District Attorney for the District of Minnesota:

"To the President of the United States: We, the citizens of St. Paul, in the State of Minnesota, respectfully represent that we have heard, with regret and alarm, through the public press, reports of an intention on the part of the United States Government to dismiss without punishment the Sioux warriors captured by our soldiers; and further, to allow the several tribes of Indians lately located upon reservations within this State to remain upon the reservations.

"Against any such policy we respectfully but firmly protest. The history of this continent presents no event that can compare with the late Sioux outbreak in wanton, unprovoked, and fiendish cruelty. All that we have heard of Indian warfare in the early history of this country is tame in contrast with the atrocities of this late massacre. Without warning, in cold blood, beginning with ' the murder of their best friends, the whole body of the Annuity Sioux commenced a deliberate scheme to exterminate every white person upon the land once occupied by them, and by them long since sold to the United States. In carrying out I his bloody scheme they have spared neither ago nor sex, only reserving, for the gratification of tlieir brutal lust, the few white women whom the rille, the tomahawk and thescalping-knife spared. Nor did their fiendish barbarities cease with d"ath, as the mutilated corpses of their victims, disemboweled, cut limb from limb, or chopped into fragments, will testify. These cruelties, too, were in many cases preceded by a pretense of frieudsliip; and in many instances the victims of tliese more than murderers were shot down in cold blood as soon as their backs were turned, after a '-urdial shaking of the hand and loud professions of friendship on the part of the murderers.

"We ask that the same judgment should be passed and exei-uted upon these deliberate murderers, these ravisliers, these mutilators of tlieir murdered victims, that would be passed upon white men guilty of the same offense. The blood of hundreds of our murdered and mangled fellowcitizens cries from the ground for vengeance. 'Veugeance is mine; I will rejiay, .saith the Lord;" and the authorities of the United States are, we believe, the cho.sen instruments to execute that vengeance. Let them not neglect their plain duty.

"Nor do we ask alone for vengeance. We demand security for the future. There can be no safety for us or for our families unless an example shall be made of those who have committed the horrilile murders and barbarities we have recited. Let it be once understood that these Indians can commit such crimes, and be pardoned upon surrendering themselves, and there is henceforth a torch for every white man's dwelling, a knife for every white man's heart upon our frontier.

"Nor will even the most rigorous punishment give perfect security against these Indians so long as any of them are left among, or in the vicinity of our border settlements. The Indian's nature can no more be trusted than the wolf's. Tame him, cultivate him, strive to Christianize him as you will, and the sight of blood will in an instant call out the savage, wolfish, devili.sh instincts of the race. It is notorious that among the earliest and most murderous of the Sioux, in perpetrating their late massacre, were many of the 'civiHzed Indiana,' so called, with their hair cut sliort, wear-

"We respecthilly ask, we demand that the captive Indians now in the hands of our military forces, proved before a military commission to be guUty of murder, and even worse crimes, shall receive the punishment due those crimes. This, too, not merely as a matter of vengeance, but much more as a matter of future security for our bordej settlers.

"We ask, further, that these savages, proved to be treacherous, unreliable, and dangerous beyond example, may be removed from close proximity to our settlements, to sucli distance and such isolation as shall make the people of this State safe from their future attacks."

Djsappoiktment Op The People In Minnesota

The final decision of the President, on the 1 7th of December, 1862, ordering the execution of thirty-nine of the three hundred condemned murderers, disappointed the people of Mmnesota. These thirty-nine were to be hung on Friday, the 26th of December.

It was not strange that the people of Minnesota were disappointed. How had New England looked upon her Indian captives in her eaiiy history? Her history says:

" King Philip was himted like a wild beast, his body quartered and set on poles, his head exposed as a trojDhy for twm'^y years on a gibbet, hi Plymouth, and one of his hands sent to Boston; then the ministers returned thanks, and one said that they had prayed a bullet into Philip's heart. In 1677, on a Simday, in Marblehead, the women, as they came out of the meeting-house, fell upon two Indians that bad been brought in as captives, and, in a very tumultuous way, murdered them, in revenge for the death of some fishermen."

These Paritan ideas have greatly relaxed in the descendants of the primitive stock. But, as the sepidchers of the fathers are garnished by their children as an indorsement of theii' deeds, shall we not hojje that those who ha e in this way given vidence of their paternity will find some palliation for a people who have sinned in the similitude of their fathers?

On the 2'ith of December, at the request of the citizens of Mankato of a previous date. Colonel Miller, (Ex Governor Stephen Miller, whose death at Worthington, Minn., took place in August, 1881 ), in order to secure the public peace, declared

On Monday, the 21st, the thirty-nine had been removed to apartments separate and distinct from the other Indians, and the death-warrant was made known to them through an interpreter - the Kev. Mr. Kiggs, one of the Sioux missionaries. Through tlie interjjreter. Colonel Miller addressed the prisoners in substance, as follows:

" The commanding oiKcer at this place has called to speak to you upon a very serious subject thit afternoon. Tour Great Father at Washington, after carefully reading what the witnesses have testified in your several trial.?, has come to the conclusion that you have each been guilty of wantoulj and wickedly murdering his white children; and, for this reason, he has directed that you each be hanged by the neck until you are dead, on next Friday, and that order will be carried into effect on that day at ton o'clock in the forenoon.

" Good ministers, both Catholic and Protestant, are here, from among whom each of you can select your spiritual adviser, who will be permitted to commune with you constantly during the few days that you are yet to live."

Adjutant Arnold was then instructed to read to them in English the letter of President Lincoln, which, in substance, stated the number and names of those condemned for execution, which letter was also read by Rev. S. R. Riggs, in Dakota.

The Colonel further instructed Mr. Riggs to tell them that they had so sinned again.st their fellowmen that there is no hope of . clemency except in the mercy of God through tlie merits of the Blessed Redeemer, and that he earnestly exhorted them to apply to Him as their only remaining source of consolation.

The number condemned was forty, but one died before the day fixed for the execution, and one, Henry Milord, a half breed, had his sentence commuted to imprisonment for life in the penitentiary ; so that thirty-eight only were hung.

On the 16th of February, 1863, the treaties before that time existing between the United States and these annuity Indians were abrogated and annulled, and all lands and rights of occupancy within the state of Minnesota, and all annuities and claims then existing in favor of ^said Indians were declared forfeited to the United States.

These Indians, in the language of the act, had, in the year 1862, "made unprovoked aggression and most savage war upon the United States, and massacred a large number of men, women and children within the state of Minnesota;" and as in this war and massacre they had "destroyed and damaged a hxrge amount of projierty, and thereby forfeited all just claims" to their "monies and annuities to the United Sfcites," the act provides that "two-thirds of the balance remaining unexpended" of their annuities for the fiscal year, not exceeding one hundred thousand dollars, and the further sum of one hundred thousand dollars, being two-thirds of the annuities becoming due, and payable during the next fiscal year, should be apjiropriated and paid over to three commissioners appointed by the President, to be by them apportioned among the heads of families, or their survivors, who suffered damage by the depredations of said Indians, or the troops of the United States in the war against them, not exceeding the sum of two hundred dollars to any one family, nor more than actual damage sustained. All claims for damages were required, by the act, to be presented at certain times, and according to the rules prescribed by the commissioners, who should hold their first session at St. Peter, in the state of Minnesota, on or before the first Monday of April, and make and return their finding, and all the J3apers relating thereto, on or before the first Monday in December, 1863.

The President appointed tor this duty, and with the advice and consent of the Senate, the Hons. Albert S. White, of the state of Indiana, Eli R. Chase, of Wisconsin, and Cyrus Aklrich, of Minnesota.

The duties of this board were so vigorously prosecuted, that, by the 1st of November following their appointment, some twenty thousand sheets of legal cap paper had been consumed in reducing to writing the testimony under the law requiring the commissioners to report the testimony in writing, and proper decisions made requisite to the payment of the two hundred dollars to that class of sufferers designated by the act of Congress. Such dispatch in Government agents gives abundant evidence of national vigor and integrity.

It was, no doubt, the object of this act of Congress to make such an appropriation as would relieve the sufferings of those who had lost all present means of supjiort, and for the further purpose of ascertaining the whole amonut of claims for damages as a necessary pre-requisite to future legislation. Regarded in this light, the act is one of wisdom and economy.

On the 21st of February following the annulling of the treaty with the Sioux above named. Congress passed "An act for the removal of the Winnebago Indians, and the sale of their reservation in Minnesota for their benefit." The money arising from the sale of their lands, after paving their uidobtedness, is to be paid into the treasury of the United States, and expended, as the same is received, under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, in necessary improvements upon their new reservation. The lands in the new reservation are to be allotted in severalty, not exceeding eighty acres to each head of a family, except to the chiefs, to whom larger allottments may be made, to be vested by patent in the Indian and his heirs, without the right of alienation.

These several acts of the General Government moderated to some extent the demand of the people for the execution of the condemned Sioux yet in the mihtary prison at Mankato awaiting the iinal decision of the President. The removal of the Indians from tlie borders of Minnesota, and the opening up for settlement of over a million of acres of superior land, was a prospective benefit to the State of immense value, both in its domestic quiet and its rapid advancement in material wealth.

In pursuance of the acts of Congress, on the 22d of April, and for the purpose of carrying them into execution, the condemned Indians were first taken from the State, on board the steamboat Favorite, carried down the Mississippi, and confined at Davenport, in the e tate of Iowa, where they remained, with only such privileges as are allowed to convicts in the penitentiary.

On the 4th of May, A. D. 18G3, at "six o'clock in the afternoon, certain others of the Sioux Indians, squaws and pappooses, in all about seventeen himdred, left Fort Snelling, on board the steamboat Davenport, for their new reservation on the Upper Missouri, above Fort Randall, accompanied by a strong guard of soldiers, and attended by certain of the missionaries and emiJoyes, the whole beinounder the general direction of Supermtendent Clark W. Thompson. By these two shipments, some two thousand Sioux had been taken from the State and removed far fi-om the borders of Minnesota. The expedition of 1863, fitted out against the scattered bands of the Sioux yet remainino- on the borders of the State, or still further removed into the D.ikota Territory, gave to the border settlements some assurance of protection and security

Death Of Little Crow

On Friday evening, July 3, 1863, Mr. Lampson and his son Chauncey, while travehng along the road, about sis miles north of Hutchinson, discovered two Indians in a little prairie openmg in the woods, interspersed with clumps of bushes and vines and a few scattering poplars, picking berries. These two Indians were Little Crow and his son Wowinapa.

Statement By His Son

"I am the son of Little Crow; my name is "Wowinapa; I am sixteen years old; my father had two wives before he took my mother; the first one had one son, the second one a son and daughter; the third wife was my mother. After taking my mother he put away the first two; he had seven children by my mother - six are dead; I am the only one living now; the fourth wife had four children bom; do not know whether any died or not; two were boys and three were girls; the fifth wife had five children - three of them are dead, two are living; the sixth wife had three children; a'.l of them are dead; the oldest was a boy, the olher two were girls; the last four wives were sisters.

"Father went to St. Joseph last spring. When we were coming back he said he could not fight the white men, but would go below and steal horses from them, and give them to his children, so that they could be comfortable, and then he would go away oif.

"Father also told me that he was getting old, and wanted me to go with him to carry his bundles. He left his wives and his other children behind. There were sixteen men and one squaw in the party that went below with us. We had no horses, but walked all the way down to the settlements. Father and I were picking red-berries, near Scattered Lake, at the time he was shot. It was near night. He was hit the first time in the side, just above the hip. His gun and mine were lying on the ground. He took up my gun and fired it first, and then fired his own. He was shot the second time when he was firing his own gun. The ball struck the stock of his gun, and then hit him in the sidi\ near the shoulder. This was the shot that kiUed him. He told me that he was killed, and asked me for water, which I gave him. He died immediately after. When I heard the

"A short time before father was killed an Indian named Hiuka, who married the daughter of my father's second wife, came to him. He had a horse with him - also a gray-colored coat that he had taken from a man that he had killed to. the north of where father was killed. He gave the coat to father, telling him he might need it when it rained, as ho had no coat with him. Hiuka said he had a horse now, and was going back to the Indian country.

"The Indians that went down with us separated. Eight of them and the squaw went north; the other eight went further down. I have not seen any of them since. After father was kiUed I took botli guns and the ammunition and started to go to Devil's Lake, where I expected to find some of my friends. When I got to Beaver creek I saw the tracks of two Indians, and at Standing Buffalo's village saw where the eight Indians that had gone north had crossed.

"I carried both guns as far as the Sheyenne river, where I saw two men. I was scared, and threw my gun and the ammunition down. After that I traveled only in the night; and, as I had no ammunition to kill anything to eat, I had not strength enough to travel fast. I went on until I arrived near Devil's Lake, when I staid in one place three days, being so weak and hungry that I - could go no further. I had picked up a cartridge near Big Stone Lake, which I still had with me, and loaded father's gun with it, cutting the ball into slugs. With this charge I shot a wolf, ate some of it, which gave me strength to travel, and went on up the lake until the day I wa.s captured, which was twenty-six days from the day my father was killed."

Here ends this wonderful episode in our contact with the Indian race in Minnesota. It commenced with Little Crow, in this instance, and it is proper that it should end with his inglorious life. With the best moans for becoming an exponent of Indian civilization on this continent, he has driven the missionaries from his people and become a standing example of the assertion: "Once .an Indian always an Indi.an."

Little Crow has indeed given emphasis to the aphorism of Ferdousi, "For that which is unclean by nature, thou cans't entertain no hope; no wash- I ing will make the gypsy white."