BATTLE OF BIRCH COOLIE.
The battle of Birch Coolie was fought September 2 and 3, 1862. It has
never taken its proper place in history, but with the exception of the
massacre at the Little Big Horn, in 1876, it was the hottest and the
most desperate battle fought during the war of the Rebellion or any of
our Indian wars. In comparison to the number of men and horses engaged,
I know of no conflict, the one above referred to excepted, where the
casualties were as great as they were here.
The Indian custom is to make an attack about four o'clock in the morning,
so this relief had been especially cautioned, and soon after the guard
was placed one of them thought he saw something moving in the grass. It
proved to be an Indian, and they were slowly moving in upon us, their
intention being to shoot the pickets with arrows, and as noiselessly as
possible rush in and destroy us in our confusion. The sentinel fired at
the moving object, and instantly our camp was encircled by fire and smoke
from the guns of five hundred Indians, who had hemmed us in. The guard
who fired escaped the bullet intended for him. He said he thought the
moving object in the grass might be a hog or it might be an Indian, and,
hog or Indian, he intended to kill it if he could. The fire was returned
by the pickets as they retreated to the camp, and although there
necessarily was confusion, there was no panic. Quicker than I can write
we were out, musket in hand, but the captain's command to "fall down"
was mistaken for "fall in," which makes a vast difference under such
circumstances. We soon broke for the wagons, however, which were formed
in a circle about our tents, and this afforded us some little shelter.
As this was our baptismal fire, and a most important engagement, I devote
more space to it than I otherwise would. What an experience it was to
inexperienced, peaceable, unsuspecting men! Think of being awakened out
of a blissful sleep by the fire from five hundred Indian rifles--it is a
wonder that we were not all destroyed amid the confusion that naturally
would follow; but we had cool heads among us, and none were cooler than
Old Joe Brown and Captain H. P. Grant, of Company A, who was in immediate
command. I will here refer to two others. First, Mr. William H. Grant, a
lawyer of St. Paul, who still lives in Minnesota. He went out to see the
fun. Well, he saw it, and the "trial" was a severe one. He "objected" and
"took exceptions" to everything the Indians did.
He wore a black plug hat, and this was a good mark for the redskins;
they shot it off his head twice, and it was finally lost altogether.
"Bill" was cool; he did not lose his temper, but laid down very flat on
the ground and gave directions to those about him how to shoot to kill.
We afterward voted him in as a brevet private, and were always ready
to divide grub and "shake." Postmaster Ed. Patch, of St. Anthony, was
another of our citizen escorts. He was a jolly good fellow and "cool as
a cucumber," with a bay window on him like an overgrown bass drum. He
found this excess of stomach very much in the way, in his great desire to
hug mother earth and get out of range of the Indian bullets, and looked
as if he wished he had never been born, or that he had been a disciple of
anti-fat.
One of our little thin fellows was lying down alongside of "Ed," and I'll
never forget the expression of his face when he said: "God, bub, I wish I
was as little as you be."
The camp was miserably located, being commanded by the deep ravine on
one side and by a mound on the other, so that the savages were well
sheltered from our fire. Had the instructions given by Colonel Sibley
been followed, which were always to encamp in open and level prairie,
there would have been no such destruction of valuable lives, but the
spot was chosen for our camp because it was near wood and water, and the
Indians were supposed to be fifty miles away. It was a mistake, which we
discovered after it was too late. A brisk fire was opened by the boys,
and soon the cartridge boxes were being depleted. Ammunition was called
for, and upon opening a box, to our dismay we found it to be of too large
a calibre. Other boxes were opened with a like result. In loading up
our ammunition a mistake had been made, and we found ourselves in this
unfortunate dilemma; but no time was to be lost, as we had not more than
an average of twenty rounds to the man, and a hoard of savages about us
who seemed well supplied with powder and ball.
We went to work cutting the large bullets down with our knives, but this
was a slow and unsatisfactory process. We used the powder from these
large cartridges to load our guns with, putting in an extra amount, so
that when we fired these blanks they made a great noise, and thus kept
up a successful "bluff," though doing no damage. A dead silence would
ensue, and occasionally some of our best shots picked off a more daring
redskin simply to remind them that we were awake. We had but one shovel
and one pick; there were others in some of the wagons, or they had been
thrown out in the grass and could not be found. The captain offered $5
apiece for them, but the bullets were too thick to admit of a search, so
we used jack-knives, spoons and bayonets to dig our intrenchments with.
In time we had very good pits dug, and with the assistance of the dead
bodies of our horses had ourselves tolerably well protected.
With the wounded horses rearing and plunging, the men groaning and
calling for help, the hurried commands, and the unearthly yells of the
five hundred red devils about us, this baptismal fire was trying to the
souls of raw recruits, as most of us were. We were encircled by fire and
smoke, the bullets were doing their deadly work, and it really seemed as
though no man could escape death. Our orders were: "Load and fire, but
steady, boys, and give them hail Columbia!"
Upon the first fire of the Indians two men fled from the camp, one a
citizen, who was with us, and the other a soldier. The citizen we found
afterward on the prairie, dead. He was the last of his family, for we
had buried his wife and two children just the previous day, before going
into camp. The soldier, a Swede, returned, but he was so paralyzed with
fear that he was like a dead man during all this memorable thirty-six
hours, and the poor fellow afterward succumbed to sickness. Everything
was improvised for a barricade--camp kettles, knapsacks, wagon-seats,
etc., and it was done in a hurry, for hot work was on our hands. The
word soon went the rounds: "College is dead, Irvine is dead, Baxter,
Coulter, Benecke, King and a score of others are dead, and nearly all are
wounded." It was only a few minutes after the first fire when we realized
all this, and it verily looked as though the little command would be
wiped out of existence. If a head was shown fifty Indians leveled at
it. During all this terrible fire Old Joe Brown walked about seemingly
unconcerned, until a bullet went through the back of his neck. He came to
the ground as quick as if shot through the heart, for it was a bad wound,
but with it all he continued to give instructions. Nearly all the damage
was done before ten o'clock, for up to that time we found ourselves with
sixty killed and wounded, out of 155, and ninety-five horses dead, out of
ninety-six. The horses saved our little encampment. As soon as they fell
their bodies formed a good barricade for us, and this and the overturned
wagons were our only protection. The Indians, occupying higher ground
than we did, had us at a disadvantage. The day wore on, and all we could
do was to assist Surgeon J. W. Daniels with the wounded and keep the
Indians at bay. Dr. Daniels proved himself a cool-headed, brave man,
never flinching for a moment. Where duty called he was found, and he
immortalized himself with the boys. The great fear of the wounded seemed
to be that we would be obliged to abandon them to their fate, for the sun
was extremely hot and the camp had become very offensive from the smell
of decomposing bodies of horses; besides, we had no means of transporting
the wounded, and their fears were not without foundation, for it looked
as though we would be driven by necessity from the camp. We assured and
reassured them that if we went they would go, too. If we died it would be
in defending them as well as ourselves.
The one thing, aside from cowardice on the part of the Indians, that
saved us from assault was the fact of our having several half-breed
scouts with us, who talked back and forth.
The Indians said: "Come out from the pale-faces; we do not want to kill
you, but we want all their scalps."
Private James Auge of our company was the spokesman. He was a Canadian
Frenchman, but had lived among the Indians, knew them well, and spoke
their language, and as he went so would all the other Indians and
half-breeds who were with us.