The mounted citizens who had rallied so promptly on Governor Ramsey’s call began to disappear as soon as there was “a prospect of meeting the red-skins.” In the middle of the month (September 14) Sibley reported to Governor Ramsey that he had but twenty-eight of that “description of force,” and would not be surprised at a stampede among them. Elsewhere he speaks of it as “base desertion.” These men returning to their homes were able to correct a widespread feeling of dissatisfaction with Colonel Sibley for needless delay in chasing Little Crow to his lair. Some newspapers threw out the vile insinuation that he did not pursue and destroy the Indians because he had so many friends among them.
On the Birch Coulie battlefield Colonel Sibley left in a split stick this writing for Little Crow: “If Little Crow has any proposition to make, let him send a half-breed to me, and he shall be protected in and out of camp.” To this the chief replied in a diplomatic note in which he complained of the agent and the traders, and asked to have Governor Ramsey informed of their ill-doings. He closed it with an adroit reference to the great many prisoners, women and children, in his hands, as if to suggest that Colonel Sibley might desire to make him a proposition. Sibley sent back the curt message: “Return me the prisoners, and I will talk with you like a man.” On September 12 Little Crow sent in another letter, in which he harped upon his prisoners, covertly intimating that he would surrender them on guaranty of immunity for himself and associates. He appealed to Colonel Sibley as an old friend to suggest a way to make peace.
The messenger who brought this letter brought also, unknown to Crow, another from Wabashaw, head chief of the lower Sioux, to say that, if Colonel Sibley would appoint a safe and proper place, he and his friends opposed to Little Crow and the war would come in and bring as many of the prisoners as they could assemble. With this leaven working in the Indian camp, Colonel Sibley could well afford to wait for reinforcements, subsistence, and ammunition, his troops in the mean time being drilled by their officers. Despite the insufficiency of all these, he issued his order for an advance into the Indian country on September 14. A violent rainstorm set in that day, and it was not till the 19th that he was able to ferry his little army across the Minnesota. It had been reinforced by two hundred and seventy enlisted men of the Third Minnesota, paroled after the surrender of Murfreesboro’ and sent home to assist in the Indian war. The cavalry force consisted of twenty-five troopers. Three days of easy marching brought the command to a point on the government road between the agencies about three miles south of the Yellow Medicine, where it went into camp behind a small lake and a stream issuing from it, which curving southward emptied into the Minnesota. Little Crow’s camp had been opposite the mouth of the Chippewa River since the 10th of September. In the councils there held the leader made the best use of his oratorical gift. He flattered, he implored, he bullied; at length he got the chiefs to consent to a stand against the white man’s army. How many of the upper chiefs and their men he prevailed upon to join him is a matter of dispute, but it is certain that some of both did.
In the afternoon of the 22d Crow’s army of some seven hundred and fifty warriors left their camps and marched down to the Yellow Medicine. In the following night they were arranged principally in a line on the east of the road, between the river and Sibley’s camp. A party was placed in the ravine through which flowed the outlet of the little lake mentioned, and still another west of the road, behind a hillock on the prairie. On that Little Crow took his stand. Day dawned, and not an Indian was in sight; all were hid in the timber or tall grass of the prairie. It was Crow’s expectation that Sibley would take the road, and that he would not have flankers far out from his column. When his advance should be near the Yellow Medicine and abreast of the Indian right it was to be attacked in flank, the party concealed in the coolie would close in on the rear, and that behind the hillock would give the finishing blow. All that might have happened, but for an accident. Some men of the Third Minnesota left the camp with teams to bring in potatoes from the gardens about the upper agency. They passed so near the Indian line that the warriors could not be restrained from firing. Several men were wounded, one mortally. Major Welch, commanding the Third, got his men into line, and without orders took them forward on the double-quick and precipitated the fight. Although forced to retire from an advanced position, he held the centre firmly. Lieutenant-Colonel William R. Marshall led the companies of the Seventh into the ravine and cleared it. A detachment of the Sixth dispersed a party attempting to turn its left. The battery of Captain Hendricks, advantageously posted, swept the field generally. After two hours of desultory firing the Sioux warriors disappeared behind the Yellow Medicine, and the “Battle of Wood Lake” was over. Only four white soldiers were killed outright, and thirty-three severely wounded. The Sioux left fourteen dead on the field, all of whom were scalped by savages under white skins. Colonel Sibley, in an order published the following day, expressed his extreme mortification, and threatened severe punishment for any repetition of the brutality. Colonel Sibley’s advices from the Indian camps were such as to convince him that a precipitate march on them might bring on a slaughter of the white prisoners. To give time for the friendly element to obtain possession of them he tarried a day below the Yellow Medicine, and took two days of easy marching to reach those camps opposite the mouth of the Chippewa River. His judgment was fully justified. Little Crow returned from the battle, upbraided his chiefs for cowardice and stupidity, took his family and a small body of adherents and departed for the distant northwest. Other hostile chiefs followed his example. There were others still who had been engaged in the murders and battles who thought it best to go over to the friendly camp and take their chances of being treated as prisoners of war. Colonel Sibley had found a camp of 150 lodges which the friendlies had fortified against the hostiles, who on their dispersion had sent over to it the greater number of their captives; 91 whites and 150 breeds were turned over to him on the afternoon of September 26. The total number was presently increased to 269, 107 whites and 162 mixed bloods. A few had been humanely treated through the interposition of Christian Indians, but the experiences of many may be left to the imagination of the reader.
CHAPTER XIII
SEQUEL TO THE INDIAN WAR
A week after the Wood Lake affair the President appointed Colonel Sibley a brigadier-general. His confirmation by the Senate was long delayed, but he exercised the command of that rank from the date of appointment. Up to the time of leaving Fort Ridgely for the upper country Colonel Sibley had been carrying on a state war. On the 6th of September Governor Ramsey sent this peremptory telegram to the President: “These Indian outrages continue.... This is not our war. It is a national war. Answer me at once. More than five hundred whites have been murdered.” That very day the Secretary of War ordered Major-General John Pope to take command of the Department of the Northwest. That officer had seen service in the Indian country and was at the time not otherwise employed. His first order to Colonel Sibley was received September 19, the day of his departure from Fort Ridgely. It made no change in the dispositions of the subordinate commander, but urged him to push forward, and promised all the support he could control. General Pope, persuaded that Sibley had some twenty-six hundred Sioux warriors in his front, made requisitions for troops and supplies on a scale which called out a rebuke from the secretary. His demand for mounted troops rather than infantry was reasonable. His stay in the department was brief, and at its close Brigadier-General Sibley was put in command of a distinct district of Minnesota. That Sibley was thus promoted and assigned was possibly due to a remonstrance addressed by Pope to Halleck against the appointment of Senator Henry M. Rice as major-general to be assigned to the department. It is remarkable that Sibley, writing to his wife, expressed his preference for Rice, if any stranger was to be placed over him. It was not till after the close of the campaign that the Sixth and Seventh regiments were mustered into the service of the United States.
The line of forts maintained by Colonel Flandrau from the big bend of the Minnesota southward effectively protected Sibley’s left; and it restrained the Winnebagoes from breaking out of their reserve, if they had any such intention, which was very doubtful, although so believed at the time. The right flank of the expedition was not for some time protected. Here were two dangers. Fort Abercrombie had been occupied since spring by Company D of the Fifth Minnesota, under command of Captain John Van der Horck. A newspaper clipping received on August 20 gave him warning of the outbreak of the lower Sioux. He immediately called in his outpost and the few settlers of the Red River valley, proceeded to surround the separate buildings which formed the post with breastworks, and placed three howitzers in the salients. On the last day of the month but one a party of Indians stampeded a herd of stock which had been sent out in anticipation of a treaty with the Red Lake and Pembina Chippeways. On September 3 an Indian force, considerable in number, appeared about the post and maintained a desultory fire for some hours. On the 6th a still larger force made a determined but vain attack, charging with boldness unusual for Indians, first one quarter of the inclosure and then another. The command suffered a loss of two killed and three wounded in the two days’ actions. The Indians were not driven from the neighborhood till September 23, when Captain Emil Burger arrived from below with a relieving force of five hundred men. The mooted question whether these attacks at Abercrombie were made by upper Sioux, lower Sioux, Yanktonnais, or by a mixture of all these, has not been conclusively answered. The capture of this post would have exposed a wide territory to Indian slaughter and depredation.
A disturbance of the habitual quiet of the Chippeways of northern Minnesota gave countenance to a rumor which spread throughout the state, that those Indians were about making common cause with their ancient foes against the white man, equally hated. On the very day of the Sioux outbreak the Pillagers seized seven whites, mostly traders, at Leech Lake, and the Gull Lake Chippeways drove some horses and cattle from the agency on the Crow Wing River. The acts and threats made against his safety so alarmed the agent, Lucius C. Walker, that he fled the Indian country for his home, and, probably in a state of temporary insanity, took his life, by means of a loaded pistol, near Monticello. Hole-in-the-day, the head chief of the Chippeways of the Mississippi, called an assemblage of braves, and a few hundred gathered. A trustworthy person, the missionary Emmegabowh, reported that this chief had declared in council that a league had been made with the Sioux. The Chippeway braves, however, had no desire to take the warpath, and dispersed to their homes. These transactions, reported in the St. Paul newspapers, naturally excited alarm. Three companies of infantry were sent to Fort Ripley, martial law was declared at that post, and the settlers were notified to come in for protection. When the legislature assembled in extra session on September 9, Governor Ramsey called their attention to the Chippeway ruction. Unconcerned about constitutional restrictions, that body appointed a board of commissioners to proceed to the Indian country to adjust the difficulties. Although the Chippeways had dispersed and the excitement had disappeared, the plenipotentiaries had the chiefs assembled in council, and negotiated with them a treaty which was solemnly signed and sealed. This agreement bound the high contracting powers to eternal peace, to an arbitration of all existing differences, and exempted the Chippeways from payment of damages for the expenses they had put the government to by their late misbehavior. The legislature memorialized the President to carry out these provisions. In evidence of full restoration of peace fifty Chippeway chiefs and braves came down to St. Paul to offer their services in punishing the Sioux. It would have given them great pleasure to take Sioux scalps in so lawful a manner.
Had it been possible to furnish General Sibley with a sufficient cavalry force, it would have been feasible for him, after the battle of Wood Lake, to overtake and impound the greater number of Indians concerned in their disastrous campaign. Infantry expeditions sent out to Lac qui Parle, to Goose Nest Lake, and elsewhere, brought in a few hundred people. More came in response to a proclamation distributed by runners. Bands which had squandered their plunder and wasted their food had no other resource. In the course of a few days nearly two thousand Indians were under guard, the greater part being women and children. Some five thousand or more were at large. The disposition of those in hand now occupied the attention of the authorities. Major-General Pope in a dispatch of September 28 probably voiced the sentiment of the great majority of the white people of the Northwest. “Make no treaty with the Indians,” he wrote Sibley; “the horrible massacre and outrages call for punishment beyond human power to inflict. It is my purpose to exterminate the Sioux, if I have the power to do so.” General Sibley was too humane and judicious to give serious regard to so insane a proposal. He had already appointed a committee of inquiry to ascertain what Indians under his guard had probably been guilty of murder and outrage. The Rev. Dr. Riggs, who held the place of chaplain on the staff of Sibley, gave such valuable assistance that Heard, the contemporary historian, declares him to have been a virtual grand jury. Sixteen Indians were at once picked out by the sifting committee and duly arraigned before a military commission of five officers. Additional arrests were made from day to day, and by October 7 General Sibley was able to report that he had twenty under sentence of death, and that he should probably approve the sentences and hang the villains, despite some doubt as to the extent of his powers and the formal correctness of the trials. This moderate number of convictions evidently did not satisfy the superior authority, which called for arrests and trials on a greater scale. On the night of October 11 Sibley placed 81 warriors in irons at Camp Release and ordered a similar “purging” at Yellow Medicine, where he had sent 1250 of his prisoners to subsist on the corn and potatoes of the Indian gardens. By a “piece of justifiable strategy” 236 men were “fixed” in the same way. The military commission now had abundance of material and applied themselves diligently to duty. They completed it on November 5, having tried 392 prisoners, of whom they found 323 guilty and sentenced 307 of them to death. The proceedings of the military commission, approved by General Sibley, were forwarded to the department commander. That officer informed Governor Ramsey with unconcealed satisfaction that the sentences would all be executed unless forbidden by the President. The trials completed, General Sibley sent the principal body of his Indian prisoners, 1648 in number, under guard to Fort Snelling. The interpreter accompanying the column relates that as it passed through Henderson the prisoners were assaulted with arms and missiles. One infant died from its injuries and was “buried” Indian fashion in the crotch of a roadside tree. On November 9 the troops with the convicted prisoners were marched to South Bend, a western suburb of Mankato. As the column was passing through New Ulm a crowd of exasperated citizens of both sexes showered brickbats and other missiles on the prisoners in such profusion that a bayonet charge was necessary to restrain them. Fifteen or twenty men were arrested, but after a march of twelve miles were reprimanded and allowed to take a walk to their homes. General Sibley turned over the command to Colonel Miller of the Seventh Infantry and proceeded to St. Paul, to take up his duty as district commander.