THE SIOUX WAR
It was not till Wednesday the 20th that Little Crow could muster and
hold together a body of warriors sufficient to undertake regular
warfare and carry out a well-laid plan to capture Fort Ridgely. He was
aware, of course, that its little garrison had lost its commander and
fully half of its men. He probably did not know of the arrival of two
reinforcements: one, Sheehan’s detachment recalled by Captain Marsh
before beginning his fatal march; the other, the party of recruits,
enlisted at the agencies and taken by Agent Galbraith as far as St.
Peter. They took and kept the name of “Renville Rangers.” The
information brought to Agent Galbraith at St. Peter on the evening of
the outbreak indicated Fort Ridgely as the point where his recruits
would be most needed. He had therefore led them thither at daylight of
Tuesday, armed with some Harper’s Ferry muskets belonging to a local
militia company. He had to give bonds to the exacting custodian. What
with these troops and with male refugees from the agencies and the
surrounding farms, Lieutenant Sheehan, the ranking officer, had not
more than one hundred and eighty combatants. Upon the withdrawal of the
regular garrison the year before, six pieces of artillery of various
patterns had been left behind with Ordnance-Sergeant John Jones in
charge. Of this the Indians may not have been informed. The so-called
fort consisted of buildings grouped on the sides of a square of three
hundred feet, one of them of stone. Outside were small log houses for
civilian employees, stables, and stacks of hay and grain. The site was
on the bluff separated from the river (Minnesota) by a bottom a half
mile in width. Ravines of erosion cut the hillside into excellent
places of approach and cover.
Without warning, at one o’clock on Wednesday afternoon a volley was
poured into the central inclosure. Two soldiers fell, one dead, the
other badly wounded. One citizen was killed soon after. The fire was
returned from such points of advantage as the structures afforded.
Sergeant Jones had already made up three gun detachments, partly from
citizens who had seen service and partly from soldiers whom he had
instructed. It was not long before he had his guns in action, to the
great surprise of Little Crow, who presently drew off his men. Thursday
was a day of rain, and seems to have been spent by the Sioux chiefs in
consultation and in preparing for a stronger assault. The time was well
spent by the besieged in fitting ammunition, building barricades of
cordwood, covering roofs with earth, and other practicable
strengthening of defenses.
At one o’clock P. M. of Friday, Little Crow delivered his main attack,
with a force largely increased, on the south and west of the post. From
the cover of ravines he kept up a lively fire till late in the day. His
last move, unusual in Indian warfare, was that of massing a body of
warriors in a ravine running up toward the southwest angle of the
inclosure, for a charge on the garrison. Sergeant Jones thereupon had
his twenty-four pound cannon pointed down that “coolie,” and landed a
single shell which sent Crow’s warriors flying off the field. In the
two half days’ fighting there had been three persons killed and
thirteen wounded within the post.
As refugees, many wounded, came pouring in to New Ulm on Monday, the
need of outside help was felt and no second thought was necessary to
suggest the one man to whom the townsmen should appeal. Charles Eugene
Flandrau, for many years resident at old Traverse des Sioux, who had
been Sioux agent, member of the constitutional convention, and a judge
of the state supreme court, was the best known man all up and down the
Minnesota valley. His name was a household word. At four o’clock on
Tuesday morning a messenger brought him the summons of the people of
New Ulm. Riding into St. Peter he found the citizens awake and alert,
but without organization. In a public meeting in the courthouse he was
elected captain of the relieving party to be formed. About noon a
detachment of eighteen mounted men was put upon the road, which arrived
in New Ulm in time to reassure the citizens after their repulse of the
Indians. Early in the afternoon Flandrau’s company marched and was
swelled to one hundred and twenty-five men by accessions along the
route. It was late in the evening when he arrived. Early on Wednesday
morning Captain Bierbauer arrived from Mankato with one hundred men,
and other squads came in that day.
In a public meeting Captain Flandrau was promoted to colonel, and
proceeded with dispatch and excellent judgment to form a staff, to
organize the fighting force, and to fortify a central stronghold for
non-combatants. Choosing three blocks of the main street, he threw up
barricades across the ends and connected the rear walls of abutting
buildings with bullet-proof constructions, and loopholed the walls of
the brick buildings. On Thursday parties were sent out to the
neighboring hamlets and farms to bury the dead and bring in the wounded.
No Indians appeared on that day or the next. Early on Saturday (August
23) the smoke of scattered fires was seen off to the eastward beyond
the Minnesota. Had Little Crow captured the fort, and were his warriors
burning the farmsteads? To ascertain, Colonel Flandrau sent over a
detachment of seventy-five men, which soon encountered a fire from its
left front and was obliged to retreat to the eastward to meet
reinforcements expected from that quarter. Crow’s real attack came from
the northwest, over the terraced plain stretching along the river above
the town. Flandrau had left some three hundred and fifty men, ill-armed
and undisciplined. When aware of the approach of the Indians, he moved
them out and posted them upon the slope of one of the terraces, with a
line of skirmishers to the front. At eight o’clock Crow’s warriors in a
long line with flanks curved forward moved on in silence till within
about a half mile of the line of defenders. Then raising such a shout
as only savages can, they broke into a run, firing as they ran. The
skirmishers fell back in alarm, and the whole line, spite of the
exhortations, polite and other, of Flandrau and his officers, retreated
to the barricades. The Sioux did not follow in, but stopped and sought
cover in the emptied outer buildings of the town.
The fire returned from the barricades discouraged the Sioux from
attempting an assault. Late in the afternoon a demonstration was made
below the town by a party, some of which wore white men’s clothes. Thus
misled, the brave Captain Dodd, second in command, unduly exposed
himself and was shot to death. Other weak attempts were made by the
persistent Indian leader, which came to naught. Ten of the defenders
were killed and fifty wounded. Flandrau estimated the attacking force
to be six hundred and fifty in number. Expecting a renewal of the fight
on the following morning, Colonel Flandrau ordered the destruction of
all buildings outside his fortification. Including those burned by the
Indians, one hundred and ninety were destroyed. Indians rarely fight by
night; and on Sunday morning they sent in a few long range shots, and
the “Battle of New Ulm” was over.
Nearly two thousand people had been confined in the narrow fortified
space. The women and children had been huddled in the cellars. Food was
failing and sickness breaking out. Their homes destroyed, it was
resolved to move the whole population to Mankato, thirty miles distant.
On Monday morning they took the road; the women, children, and wounded
on wheels, the men and boys on foot, escorted by the extemporized army.
The column reached its destination late at night, and the refugees met
with a generous reception. The next day, August 26, Colonel Flandrau’s
force dissolved.
Little Crow had staked everything on his attack on New Ulm. Had he
captured the place, and dispersed its defenders, Mankato, St. Peter, Le
Sueur, and all the towns in the valley would have been abandoned, and
the Sioux would have resumed possession of the fairest part of their
ancient country. The Indian commander understood that after this
failure there was little hope of success in any offensive movement
unless better supported by the upper bands. He therefore broke up his
camp below the Redwood and reëstablished it behind the Yellow Medicine.
His men burned the buildings at the upper agency, and the mission
houses.
The Minnesota legislature in the extra session of 1862 authorized an
official count of the victims of the Sioux massacre, but as no citizens
could be induced to undertake the service for a per diem of three
dollars in paper money, no such reckoning was made. The estimates vary
from 500 to 1500. That of Agent Galbraith, made with deliberation, may
be accepted: In Renville County, 221; in Brown, 204; in other Minnesota
counties, 187; in Dakota Territory, 42; total, 654. His estimate of
government property losses is: On the upper reserve, $425,000; on the
lower reserve, $500,000.
* * * * *
When Governor Ramsey got the tidings of the outbreak of the Sioux in
the afternoon of Tuesday, August 19, his knowledge of Indians made it
unnecessary to deliberate upon the measures that must be taken, or upon
the choice of a proper person to have the command. For that duty he
instantly selected his old political opponent, Henry Hastings Sibley,
whom he commissioned as colonel and commander of the Indian expedition.
Mr. Sibley had maintained his robust and athletic constitution; he knew
the whole region of operations, spoke French and Dakota, understood
Indian nature, and was acquainted with all the leading men of the Sioux
nation.
Early the next morning Colonel Sibley left Fort Snelling by steamer,
with four companies of the Sixth Minnesota Infantry. At Shakopee he was
obliged to disembark. It was not till late on Friday, August 22, that
he reached St. Peter, which was to be his base of operation. Here Jack
Frazer, who had escaped from Fort Ridgely, brought him the information
that the whole body of Sioux chiefs and braves, probably two thousand
in number, were on the warpath. His four hundred raw infantry men would
be no match for them, the more because the Austrian rifles furnished
them at Fort Snelling were unfit for use. Sending down to Governor
Ramsey for reinforcements, with suitable arms and ammunition, Colonel
Sibley devoted himself to impressing teams, provisions, and forage, and
making other preparations for his campaign. Governor Ramsey in a
proclamation issued on the 21st called on the militia of the Minnesota
valley and frontier counties to arm and mount and join Sibley’s
expedition with a few days’ subsistence. Companies from the valley
towns, from Minneapolis, Faribault, and elsewhere reported. The
remaining companies of the Sixth came up with Springfield rifles. On
the morning of the 26th the expedition marched for Fort Ridgely. An
advance party of mounted men reached the post on the following day, to
the joy and relief of the long imprisoned garrison. The main body came
up on the 28th and made an intrenched camp outside the fort. To protect
the column from rear attack around its left flank, Governor Ramsey
appointed Judge Flandrau colonel, and authorized him to collect and
dispose the militia companies coming in from the southeastern counties.
He presently formed a line of posts from New Ulm and Mankato up the
valley of the Blue Earth and on to the Iowa line.
Yielding to the prayers of refugees in Fort Ridgely, whose relatives
were lying unburied about the ruins of their homes or along the
roadsides, Colonel Sibley decided to send out a burial party which
should also serve as a corps of observation. It marched on the morning
of August 31 under the direction of Major Joseph R. Brown, whom Colonel
Sibley had attached to his staff. His party was made up of Captain H.
P. Grant’s company of the Sixth Infantry, fifty mounted men under
Captain Joseph Anderson, a fatigue detail of twenty, and seventeen
teamsters. The column moved slowly, halting to bury sixteen bodies on
the agency road, and at nightfall bivouacked on the bottom near the
Redwood Ferry. In the morning Major Brown with the mounted men crossed
the Minnesota and scouted through the villages above the agency, to
find them deserted. The infantry force buried some twenty bodies of
Captain Marsh’s men, moved up the north side, struck across the prairie
to the head of Birch Coulie, and went into camp on a singularly
ill-chosen spot, at which Major Brown arrived at sunset. The wagons
were parked in open order, and the animals were tied to picket ropes
stretched between them. Within the circle so formed the party went
early to sleep, some in Sibley tents, but most under the open sky. At
daybreak they were awakened by a blood-curdling yell and a volley of
bullets apparently from all quarters and at short range. Captain
Anderson, who had seen service in the Mexican War, ordered his men to
lie low and fire at will. The infantry commander, after a vain effort
to form his men in line, gave a like judicious order. The savages
maintained a murderous fire for an hour, at the end of which ten of
Brown’s men were killed and forty more wounded, himself included.
Desultory firing continued throughout the day, in the lulls of which
possible arrangements for defense were made. The bodies of over ninety
horses were strung along, and earth, dug up with three spades and one
shovel, and with sabres, bayonets, pocket-knives, and tin plates, was
heaped over them. The pits thus formed served as good cover for the men
who were prudent. At two in the afternoon the boom of a cannon from the
eastward gave notice of approaching relief, but night fell and it did
not come. The sound of the morning’s battle was heard at Sibley’s
outposts, fifteen miles away. With all possible dispatch he sent a
relieving party consisting of three companies of the Sixth Infantry,
fifty mounted “Rangers,” and a section of artillery, and gave the
command to Colonel Samuel McPhail of Houston County. The party crossed
the east branch of Birch Coulie and came within sight of Brown’s camp,
but the prudent commander did not think it wise to risk his men in a
battle. He therefore recrossed the branch, took up a safe position for
the night, and sent Lieutenant Sheehan back to Sibley for
reinforcements. He reached the fort unharmed, but his horse fell dead
soon after from gunshot wounds. By daylight Colonel Sibley reached
McPhail’s bivouac with the remaining companies of the Sixth and five
companies of the Seventh, which had arrived the day before. The Sioux,
seeing themselves outnumbered, made but feeble resistance to his
advance and rapidly left the neighborhood. When Colonel Sibley rode
into the impounded camp thirteen men lay dead, three more were soon to
die, forty-five were severely wounded, and others had received
abrasions. For more than twenty-four hours the men had lain without
water, and they were worn with their ceaseless watch. The “Battle of
Birch Coulie” has been commemorated by a monument erected at the
expense of the state, in regard to which an unfortunate controversy has
raged. Through misinformation the commissioners accredited the command
of the expedition to another than Major Joseph R. Brown. To one looking
back after the lapse of a generation it would seem that no one would
care to be credited with the leadership of the disastrous affair.
Colonel Sibley had given the most precise and emphatic directions to
guard against surprise and ambush.
Colonel Sibley now had a double problem before him. He must overtake
and destroy the Indian forces, and that without giving their commander
pretext to slaughter the three hundred prisoners in his possession. It
was rumored, probably by Little Crow’s instigation, that if attacked he
would put these prisoners between his men and the whites. A policy of
caution and delay was therefore desirable. It was also necessary for
the reason that the command at Fort Ridgely was in no way prepared for
war. The men were not yet clothed, the supply of food was insufficient
and precarious, and ammunition had not yet been provided in sufficient
quantity.
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.