Let us now return to follow for a little the fortunes of those in the camp at Fort Snelling. The winter of suspense had worn away, and in the month of April, soon after the Mankato prisoners passed down into Iowa, those at Snelling were placed on a steamboat, and floated down to St. Louis and up the Missouri to Crow Creek, where they were told to make homes. Mr. J. P. Williamson went with them, and remained with them, during those terrible years of suffering and death. Who can tell the story better than he?
“As they look on their native hills for the last time, a dark cloud is crushing their hearts. Down they go to St. Louis, thence up the Missouri to Crow Creek. But this brings little relief, for what of the men; and can the women and children ever live in this parched land, where neither rain nor dew was seen for many weeks?
“The mortality was fearful. The shock, the anxiety, the confinement, the pitiable diet, were naturally followed by sickness. Many died at Fort Snelling. The steamboat trip of over one month, under some circumstances, might have been a benefit to their health, but when 1300 Indians were crowded like slaves on the boiler and hurricane decks of a single boat, and fed on musty hardtack and briny pork, which they had not half a chance to cook, diseases were bred which made fearful havoc during the hot months, and the 1300 souls that were landed at Crow Creek June 1, 1863, decreased to one thousand. For a time a teepee where no one was sick could scarcely be found, and it was a rare day when there was no funeral. So were the hills soon covered with graves. The very memory of Crow Creek became horrible to the Santees, who still hush their voices at the mention of the name.
“Meetings, always an important means of grace, were greatly multiplied. Daily meetings were commenced at Fort Snelling; the steamboat was made a Bethel for daily praise, and the Crow Creek daily prayer-meetings were held each summer under booths, which plan was continued the first summer at Niobrara. Women’s prayer-meetings were commenced at Crow Creek, deaconesses being appointed to have charge of them. The children also had meetings, conducted by themselves. All these means were blessed of the Holy Spirit to the breaking of the Herculean chains of Paganism.”
Soon after reaching Crow Creek, Mr. Williamson called to his assistance Mr. Edward R. Pond and his wife, Mrs. Mary Frances Pond—born Hopkins—both children of the old missionaries, who continued with these people until the year 1870.
For the security of the Minnesota frontier, and to further chastise the Sioux, military expeditions were organized in the spring and summer of 1863. The one that went from Minnesota was in command of Gen. H. H. Sibley. Attached to this expedition was a corps of scouts, forty or fifty of them being Dakota men, who had in some way, and to some extent, showed themselves to be on the side of the white people, at the time of the outbreak. In this expedition I had the position of interpreter.
The families of these Sioux scouts were sent out to the frontier, and maintained by the government, not only during that summer, but for several years. This was known as the “Scouts’ Camp,” and the church among them was called by the same name, until 1869, when several churches were formed out of this one, as they began to scatter and settle down on the new Sisseton Reservation.
In the summer of 1864, I visited their camp at the head of the Red Wood. The next summer I was with them for a short time at the Yellow Medicine. At each of these visits quite a number of additions was made to the roll of church members—infants and grown persons were baptized, marriages were solemnized, and ruling elders were ordained. During these years we had licensed and ordained as an evangelist John B. Renville, who accompanied me on each of the visits mentioned.