It so happened that a portion of the volunteers recruited for the Union army had not yet been ordered out of the State. Though poorly equipped and supplied, they were at once sent into the field against the Indians, and they served as a nucleus around which the irregular organizations could rally. Every old gun, pistol, knife, or other weapon was cleaned up; every pound of powder and lead was bought and distributed; and horses were impressed by military authority, with which to extemporize cavalry companies. The surrounding States promptly sent what aid they could in men, guns, and cartridges. The Governor by proclamation authorized the formation of companies of scouts and rangers in the threatened neighborhoods. Very soon after the outbreak, Colonel H. H. Sibley, an experienced frontiersman, having a thorough knowledge of Indian habits and character, was on the march against them, with about one thousand men. The General Government augmented these forces as rapidly as possible, and sent Major-General Pope to assume command of the Indian Department.
Hearing of Colonel Sibley's approach, Little Crow retreated to Yellow Medicine, taking with him a large baggage train of plunder, and about one hundred white prisoners, chiefly women and children, whom he had captured at different places, and whom, with a few exceptions, they did not specially maltreat, but compelled to labor at camp drudgery.
Colonel Sibley pushed on with his forces, sending in advance a cavalry detachment, which reached and relieved Fort Ridgely on the 27th of August, after it had been besieged for nine days. He himself arrived at that post with the remainder of his troops on the following day. On the 31st, he sent out a detachment of two companies, one mounted, a fatigue party of twenty men, and seventeen teams and teamsters, to reconnoitre the neighboring settlements and to bury the dead. They proceeded to the Minnesota river opposite the Lower Agency, and found and buried sixteen corpses the first day. The next day they continued their search, finding and burying fifty-four. That night they encamped on the open prairie, near the upper timber of the Birch Coolie creek, three miles from the Lower Agency. At about four o'clock of the next morning, September 2, one of their sentinels shouted, "Indians!" and almost immediately, a shower of balls rained upon the camp. From this first fire, and during the confusion attending it, the detachment suffered severely. They soon, however, gained the shelter of their wagons, and from behind them and the piles of dead horses which literally covered the ground, they returned a vigorous fire upon their assailants, meanwhile digging a rifle pit as they fought. It was a fierce morning's battle, and the foe, in largely superior numbers, had nearly surrounded and captured them when reënforcements arrived. So hot was the attack, that one of the tents was found to have one hundred and forty bullet holes through it.
The boldness and severity of this attack, demonstrated to Colonel Sibley the necessity for an increase of force and very cautious movements, and accordingly he fell back to the neighborhood of Fort Ridgely. Anxious also to obtain the release of the white prisoners in Little Crow's camp, and fearing that if he won a decided success in battle they would be murdered, he determined to resort to negotiation. He therefore wrote the following note and left it fastened to a stake, on the ground where the last battle had taken place:
'If Little Crow has any propositions to make to me, let him send a halfbreed to me, and he shall be protected in and out of my camp.
H. H. Sibley,
Col. Com. Military Expedition.'
A day or two afterward, two halfbreeds came into his camp under a flag of truce, bringing a note signed 'Little Crow, his mark,' excusing and justifying his attack on the whites. Colonel Sibley replied, 'Little Crow, you have murdered many of our people without cause. Return me the prisoners under a flag of truce, and I will talk with you like a man.' After the lapse of a few days, another message came from Little Crow, stating that he had one hundred and fifty-five prisoners, and asking what he could do to make peace. Colonel Sibley replied that his young men had been committing more murders, and that was not the way to make peace.
Having learned from several sources that serious dissensions had broken out in the Indian camp, and having also received the needed reënforcements, Colonel Sibley left Fort Ridgely on the 12th of September, and marched up the Minnesota river to Wood Lake, near Yellow Medicine, arriving there on the 22d following. Little Crow was encamped in the vicinity with his braves. The savages, however, had become demoralized, and he could no longer control them. Little Crow desired to make an attack that night, but his opponents told him in council that if he was a brave Indian he would fight the white man by daylight. Accordingly, next morning he attacked Colonel Sibley's forces with three hundred of his warriors, the others refusing to join in the fight. After a sharp two-hours' battle the Indians were completely routed, losing thirty killed, and a proportionate number of wounded. The whites lost four killed, and forty wounded.
This battle substantially ended the war. The Indians retreated, and the whites pursued them to Lac Qui Parle. Four days afterward, a camp of about one hundred and fifty lodges of Indians and halfbreeds separated from Little Crow's party, met Colonel Sibley in council, surrendered themselves, and formally delivered up to him ninety-one white prisoners, and over one hundred halfbreeds, whom they had obtained. Other parties came in afterward, surrendering themselves unconditionally, until between two and three thousand Indians, of all sexes and ages, were in the hands of the troops as prisoners of war. A military commission was appointed to try the ringleaders and worst offenders, and over three hundred of them were convicted and sentenced to death. Before this paper is printed, some, at least, of these, will have expiated their crimes on the gallows. Little Crow, with a small but desperate band of followers, succeeded in making his escape to Devil's Lake in Dakota Territory.
The future disposition of the Indians of the State of Minnesota is one of the most perplexing minor questions of the day. In their present location, the feud of race engendered by the insurrection will only die with the generation that witnessed its beginning. Humanitarian impulses and humanitarian duties are forgotten in the fierce thirst for private vengeance. With one voice, the people of that State demand the removal or threaten the extermination of their dangerous neighbors. But whither shall they go? The swallowing tides of civilization encompass them on the east, the north, and the south; and the only other avenue, the west, is guarded by the gaunt wolf starvation.