HOMEWARD BOUND.
“We start for home to-morrow morning,” were the gladsome words passed around the camp-fire on the evening of the 22d of October. The nights were getting chilly, and the shortening days indicated that the autumn was fast passing away, and that warmer quarters than our tents would soon be an absolute necessity. The contemplation of the homeward march was a pleasure, for there were ties of friendship there that forbade procrastination. A sad thought came over us as we remembered the poor fellows who had given up their lives—their waiting ones at home would wait in vain.
“Reveille.”
Reveille sounded early one morning, and after a hurried breakfast of coffee and hard tack, the headquarters bugle sounded “strike tents,” and the city of canvas was soon razed to the ground. With the captives and prisoners we took up our line of march for Yellow Medicine, where the commission appointed by the General tried and condemned 305 Indians to hang.
The morning we left Camp Release the sun shone brightly, the sky was clear, but there was frost in the air; and, as we were on very short rations and only one blanket each, we were in high glee as we marched out to the music of the band. I think our steps were more than the regulation twenty-eight inches, for we were headed towards God’s country—home. About four p. m. the fierce fall wind veered around in our faces, and coming as it did off the burnt prairie, our faces soon presented the appearance of men from the interior of Africa. We were black in the face. At five o’clock we went into camp. It was pitch dark, with the wind blowing a hurricane, and in the darkness, infantry, cavalry, and artillery were one interminable mass of troops and order was impossible. So the orders were: “By company, left wheel, halt;” “stack arms;” “break ranks,” with orders to pitch tents and get under cover. To make fires and cook supper was impossible, so we supped on raw salt pork, hard tack, and cold water. The Sibley tents blew down as fast as put up, and in this condition we crawled under them to get the best protection possible from the fierce northern blast. Some of the men had found potato cellars that had been dug in the hillside by the Indians, and taking possession of them were thus afforded good, warm quarters and plenty of potatoes to eat. In this respect they were much more fortunate than the rest of us who were on the outside and had all we could do to keep from freezing to death. The storm abated somewhat by morning, so we could make our fires, which we did, and availed ourselves of the Indian potatoes, and with salt pork, hard tack and coffee made a hearty breakfast and were soon on the march again.
The exposure of that night gave many of us the rheumatism, and it took several hours’ march to get ourselves limbered up, but the day was bright and we were homeward bound. We made a good day’s march, and pitched our tents in the valley of the Red Wood.
The Indian camp, consisting principally of women and children, had been previously removed to this place from Yellow Medicine, where the quartermaster had erected a large board prison to hold the captive red men, who had all been condemned by the Commission. The papers had been sent on to President Lincoln for his final decision, and we were here awaiting developments.
The condemned Indians were sent under strong guard to Camp Sibley, on the banks of the Red Wood River. They were chained together and kept in a structure built for the purpose, and their squaws, who were camped on the outside, were allowed to cook for them under the supervision of a guard, to prevent them from smuggling knives or a weapon of any kind on the inside of the enclosure.