HOMEWARD BOUND.
"We start for home to-morrow morning," were the gladsome words passed
around the camp-fire on the evening of the 22d of October. The nights
were getting chilly, and the shortening days indicated that the autumn
was fast passing away, and that warmer quarters than our tents would
soon be an absolute necessity. The contemplation of the homeward march
was a pleasure, for there were ties of friendship there that forbade
procrastination. A sad thought came over us as we remembered the poor
fellows who had given up their lives--their waiting ones at home would
wait in vain.
[Illustration: "Reveille."]
Reveille sounded early one morning, and after a hurried breakfast of
coffee and hard tack, the headquarters bugle sounded "strike tents," and
the city of canvas was soon razed to the ground. With the captives and
prisoners we took up our line of march for Yellow Medicine, where the
commission appointed by the General tried and condemned 305 Indians to
hang.
The morning we left Camp Release the sun shone brightly, the sky was
clear, but there was frost in the air; and, as we were on very short
rations and only one blanket each, we were in high glee as we marched out
to the music of the band. I think our steps were more than the regulation
twenty-eight inches, for we were headed towards God's country--home.
About four p. m. the fierce fall wind veered around in our faces, and
coming as it did off the burnt prairie, our faces soon presented the
appearance of men from the interior of Africa. We were black in the
face. At five o'clock we went into camp. It was pitch dark, with the
wind blowing a hurricane, and in the darkness, infantry, cavalry, and
artillery were one interminable mass of troops and order was impossible.
So the orders were: "By company, left wheel, halt;" "stack arms;" "break
ranks," with orders to pitch tents and get under cover. To make fires and
cook supper was impossible, so we supped on raw salt pork, hard tack,
and cold water. The Sibley tents blew down as fast as put up, and in
this condition we crawled under them to get the best protection possible
from the fierce northern blast. Some of the men had found potato cellars
that had been dug in the hillside by the Indians, and taking possession
of them were thus afforded good, warm quarters and plenty of potatoes to
eat. In this respect they were much more fortunate than the rest of us
who were on the outside and had all we could do to keep from freezing to
death. The storm abated somewhat by morning, so we could make our fires,
which we did, and availed ourselves of the Indian potatoes, and with salt
pork, hard tack and coffee made a hearty breakfast and were soon on the
march again.
The exposure of that night gave many of us the rheumatism, and it took
several hours' march to get ourselves limbered up, but the day was bright
and we were homeward bound. We made a good day's march, and pitched our
tents in the valley of the Red Wood.
The Indian camp, consisting principally of women and children, had
been previously removed to this place from Yellow Medicine, where the
quartermaster had erected a large board prison to hold the captive red
men, who had all been condemned by the Commission. The papers had been
sent on to President Lincoln for his final decision, and we were here
awaiting developments.
The condemned Indians were sent under strong guard to Camp Sibley, on the
banks of the Red Wood River. They were chained together and kept in a
structure built for the purpose, and their squaws, who were camped on the
outside, were allowed to cook for them under the supervision of a guard,
to prevent them from smuggling knives or a weapon of any kind on the
inside of the enclosure.
[Illustration: CAMP LINCOLN.]
After a week or ten days we again took up the line of march to a
destination known only to the General and his Staff, but which proved
to be that the Seventh Minnesota, under Colonel William R. Marshall,
should proceed with the prisoners to Mankato, and the Sixth Minnesota,
under Colonel Crooks, should report at Fort Snelling for further orders.
The two regiments marched together until we reached a point some way
below New Ulm. Nothing of importance took place until we reached this
place. The General having heard that the citizens had determined to kill
every redskin regardless of consequences if they could possibly get
hold of them, took precaution against it. It was said that every house
was supplied with hot water, hot soft soap and anything and everything
that ingenuity could invent to inflict sudden and sure punishment, and
death if possible, to those that had brought such woe to them. For this
reason the General changed his course somewhat, and making a detour to
the right, escaped the necessity or perhaps bloodshed, in trying to save
his captives from the hands of this justly furious people. Men and women
turned out en masse and hurling imprecations, flourishing butcher knives,
table knives, and even scissors, axes, pitchforks--in fact, every sort of
weapon--seemed determined to get at them, and abused soldiers and Indians
alike because they were held at bay. They followed us for two or three
miles before they became convinced that the General was determined at all
hazards to uphold the supremacy of the government in protecting these
blood-stained captives from the furies of a people who had suffered so
much at the hands of some of their tribes in the murder of their innocent
women and children.
At a point below New Ulm the command was divided, a portion taking all
the condemned men to Mankato, and the balance of the command proceeding
to Fort Snelling.
At Mankato, as the days wore away and there was some doubt as to what the
final decision of President Lincoln would be, great fear was entertained
that there would be a general uprising of the people, and an attempt
made to override military and civil law by wresting the Indians from
the soldiers and instituting a general massacre of them, irrespective of
their guilt or innocence, but Colonel Stephen Miller, the post commander,
having determined that law and not lawlessness should prevail, used the
utmost vigilance to defeat any such undertaking.