Early in the winter of 1854 at nine at night I was crossing the unfinished bridge one evening with a schoolmate named Russell Pease. We had been over to see his father who lived on the west side of the river. When we had reached the middle, Russell slipped and fell through onto the ice beneath. I ran back and down the bank to where he was lying, but he was unconscious and I could not lift him, so I ran back for help, found some men and they carried him home.
One day, before there was a bridge of any kind across the river, my father carried two calves over on the ferry, to pasture on the west shore. Several days later as he stood on the river bank, he noticed something moving on Spirit Island, the small island below the falls. Going out in a boat he found the two calves running about seeking a way to reach the east bank. They had evidently become homesick and started to swim across above the falls, and in some miraculous manner had been carried over the falls and landed safely on the island. Father rescued them, bringing them to shore in a boat.
I remember the greatest excitement each summer was the arrival of the caravans of carts from the Red River of the North. They would come down to disperse their loads of furs, go into camp in St. Anthony and remain three or four weeks while selling their furs and purchasing supplies. The journey and return required three months.
In the spring of 1853 our family moved from St. Anthony to a farm in Brooklyn Center, about nine miles out from town. Roving bands of Indians often used to camp near our home. We never enjoyed these visits, but neither did we wish them to think we were afraid, so we never locked our doors or refused them anything they demanded in the way of food. Often my mother has fed a troop of those hideously painted fellows.
In those days the only means of communication between the settlers was a messenger, going from house to house. The people of our community wished to have some way of signaling each other in case of danger. So a number of tin horns were purchased, each family being given one, with the understanding that if a blast was heard from one of these horns, the men would ride as fast as possible to the home giving the signal for help. Among the settlers was an old German who was given his horn along with the rest. After a few days, this old fellow became curious to know what sort of a sound the horn would make. Not wishing to give any alarm, he went into his cellar, thinking to be out of hearing, and blew a tremendous blast to test the power of the horn. The effect was far from what he had anticipated. The neighbors hearing the signal came from all directions, expecting to find serious trouble. My brother, Nathan, with his friend Will Fisher, mounted their horses as quickly as they could and rushed to the scene. In about an hour the boys came back disgusted, and what the settlers said and did to the old German, I leave to your imagination.
This same German figured in another amusing incident. When my father was building one of the roads in Brooklyn, he hired this man to work for him. One Sunday morning the old fellow reported for duty. My father informed him they did not work on Sunday. The man threw up his hands and exclaimed "Mine Gott! is this Sunday? My ole woman is at home washing; she tinks it is Monday too!"
I enlisted in '62 expecting our regiment would be ordered immediately to the Army of the Potomac, but within a week after the formation of the regiment, news was received of the Sioux outbreak on the frontier. We were ordered to report at once to St. Peter where we arrived August 24. Four days later we were hurried across country forty miles to Fort Ridgely which was then in a state of siege. After a sharp skirmish with the Indians, we drove them off on the second of September. We were ordered to Birch Cooley, sixteen miles away. Capt. Grant, with his command had been sent out to bury the victims of the Indian massacre, including twenty-seven men of Capt. Marsh's Fifth Minnesota troops. He had gone into camp at Birch Cooley when the Indians attacked him. The firing was heard across the plain at Fort Ridgely and we were sent to his relief. We arrived early in the morning and the command was halted to wait for daylight. With the break of day the Indians opened fire, but after a hard fight we drove them off and made our way into the camp. It was a sickening sight. Twenty-three men lay dead with fifty or sixty wounded. In the camp was a woman lying in a wagon. She had been picked up on the prairie where the Indians had left her for dead. After the Indians had gone she had managed to crawl to a rock which had a cleft in it, and there had fainted. One of our boys jumped up on this rock and noticing what seemed to be a bundle of rags lying in the opening, poked his gun into it. To his horror he found it was a woman's body. He called and another of the boys, Comrade Richardson, now living in Champlin, Minn., sprang up beside him and together they lifted her out and she was placed in a wagon. When the Indians attacked the camp, the wagons were drawn around in a circle with the camp inside and this poor woman laid there for thirty-six hours all through the fight. The wagon was riddled with bullets and she herself had been hit in the arm, though she was scarcely conscious of what was going on, having not yet rallied from her terrible experience in the massacre. I understand she afterwards recovered and lived in Minnesota.
At Wood Lake, I also helped to bury the dead, among them sixteen Indians killed in the fight there. At Camp Release situated on the west side of the Mississippi river opposite where Montevideo is now located, we surrounded an Indian camp and compelled them to give up over one hundred captive women and children. We were also sent out with a small squad and surrounded and captured another camp of hostile Indians, bringing them in to our camp. Col. Crooks, of our regiment, was appointed Judge Advocate and I was present at the trial of over one hundred of these Indians. All were found guilty and sentenced to be hung. President Lincoln commuted the sentence of all but thirty-nine, the rest being sent to the government prison at Rock Island where they were kept as prisoners of war. At that time my wife who was then Olive Branch, was attending High School in Moline, and she went with some friends to see these Indians in the Rock Island prison. She recalls distinctly the interest the people felt in seeing the savages who had been the authors of such atrocities.
In February of 1863, our regiment was sent to Forest City to build a stockade for the protection of the settlers. From there we marched across country to Camp Pope, where the main forces were being assembled, preparatory to our expedition across the plains to the Missouri river a few miles below where Bismarck now stands. We had no fresh water on this trip and were also on half rations for two months. When we finally reached the river we rushed in to fill our canteens, when the Indians suddenly opened fire on us from the opposite bank. Fortunately they fired over our heads with but few casualties. While we were halted at the river, Gen. Sibley, who had remained at his headquarters, two miles in our rear, sent a message to Col. Crooks, carried by an officer with his orderly. Col. Crooks received the message, wrote his answer leaning on his saddle, and the messengers started back to Gen. Sibley with the reply. On our return trip we found the bodies of this officer and his orderly horribly mutilated. The Indians had come up in our rear and encountered them as they rode back to camp.