“I am getting old and cannot fight the white men, but will go below, steal horses from them for you children, so you may be comfortable, and then I can go away where they cannot catch me.”
The whole party that went with the fallen chief numbered sixteen men and one squaw.
Crow, Jr., whose Indian name was Wa-wi-nap-a (one who appeareth), was with his father near Hutchinson, Minn., picking berries to “stay their stomachs,” when they were discovered by a Mr. Lamson and his son Chauncey. This was Friday evening, July 3, 1863, and the skirmish that followed between Crow, his son, and the Lamsons prevented the Sioux chief from celebrating the Fourth of July in any sort of patriotic manner, for two shots from the trusty rifle of Mr. Lamson sent Crow’s soul on its eternal mission to the happy hunting ground of his fathers. Mr. Lamson and his son were out in the country and they saw two Indians picking berries in an “opening” in the woods. The Indians did not discover the white men, who were taking aim at them. Mr. Lamson had crept cautiously forward among the vines and rested his gun against a tree and fired. His first shot took effect, but not a deadly one, as evinced by the loud yell of his victim, who fell to the ground severely wounded.
With prudence and caution Mr. Lamson retreated a short distance, where he could obtain shelter from behind some bushes.
The wounded Indian, not to be foiled, crept after him, and thus they were brought face to face. Another shot from the white man and the Indian was dead. His companions, his own son and another Indian, mounted a horse and fled.
The Indian’s shot, however, had not gone amiss, for it lodged in Mr. Lamson’s shoulder, and he being some distance from his son, was supposed by him to be killed. The son returned to town to give the alarm. A quick response brought men to the scene of conflict, where they found the dead Indian, but Mr. Lamson was missing. A singular thing about it was that Crow was laid out, his head resting on his rolled-up coat, and he had a new pair of moccasins on. It would appear as though his son returned to make sure of his father’s death, and finding him dead, he performed this last deed.[A]
[A] Brown’s Valley, Minn., Nov. 30.—Nathan Lamson, the man who, during the Indian outbreak in Minnesota in 1862, killed Little Crow, the famous Sioux chieftain, died to-day on his farm across the line in South Dakota, aged 96.—[Chicago Times-Herald, Dec. 1, 1896.
Mr. Lamson’s wound was a severe one, but he made his way back to his home, which he reached about two o’clock the next morning. Little Crow’s body was brought to town, and the coat he had on was recognized as belonging to a man who had been found murdered some weeks before.
