REFUGEES
The arrival of Colonel Sibley's troops gave to the destitute refugees in
Fort Ridgely their first opportunity of turning from the desperate
struggle for immediate self-preservation in which they had been
ceaselessly involved for nine days, to contemplate fully the extent of
the disaster which had fallen upon them and to consider what their
future course must be. To most of them the Indian outbreak and its
consequent massacre and pillage had brought the total ruin of their
fortunes, for in general they were poor people who had come into the
West and started their homes on free Government land, in the hope of
acquiring comfort and modest fortunes through years of faithful labor.
But to the families which had been so fortunate as to remain intact,
losing no loved members at the hands of the savages, the disaster was
not irremediable. The property they had lost was not, in most cases, of
very great value, save as measured by labor; and as their lands still
remained to them, they could again enter into occupation as soon as
settled conditions were restored, and in a short time recover their
former positions. So, although a few such families lost heart and left
the country, most of them remained and lived to see the time when they
were very glad they had done so.
But with the families which had been shattered by the savages, which had
lost father or mother or sons or daughters struck down in the slaughter,
the case was far different. And many, alas, were in this condition, for
more than one thousand white people had fallen victims to the Indians
along the desolated Minnesota frontier during those few mid-August days.
Where the head of a family had been lost, his widow and children must
either undertake to eke out a precarious existence on the devastated
claim from which they had been driven, surrounded by the hard conditions
of pioneer life, or they must return to the older parts of the country
whence they had originally come, and there seek the aid and protection
of relatives or friends. The first arrangement was often impossible, for
not many a widow with a family of small children could hope to sustain
herself in such a country, beautiful and fertile but at that time wild
and practically unbroken. For these reasons there was a long and doleful
procession of destitute people passing through St. Paul, Winona, and the
other towns along the Mississippi River on their way back to the more
easterly States during the days of late August and early September,
1862. They came from Fort Ridgely, from New Ulm, from Acton and Forest
City and Hutchinson and a score of other little settlements along the
border. Among these unfortunate people were to be found the survivors of
the Briscoe family, bound for St. Louis, Missouri. How they had finally
come to decide upon this course will require some explanation.
When Al first realized, with the advent of Colonel Sibley's troops into
Fort Ridgely, that the Indians had been checked and the tide turned, and
that the white men were really setting about regaining possession of the
country, his first and greatest ambition was to set out at once for the
rescue of Tommy; his second was to visit the lonely and ruined cabin
twenty miles north of the fort and there give the remains of his father
tender burial. But he soon found that difficulties lay in the way of
accomplishing either of these desires. The army could not instantly
spring forth as one man and rush to the rescue of his brother. The
soldiers had to be prepared and provided for a campaign which, moreover,
even when inaugurated, must be carefully and methodically carried out.
Several hundred white captives, among whom it seemed almost certain that
Tommy would be found, were in the possession of the Indians. If a
precipitate attack should be made upon the latter their captives would,
past a doubt, be massacred to a soul. Their release must be accomplished
by diplomacy; the Indians must be made to realize that only by the safe
delivery of their prisoners could they hope to mitigate the stern
punishment which they had richly earned at the hands of the Government,
and which would surely be meted out to them sooner or later. To
accomplish the safe delivery of the captives might mean weeks of
careful work on the part of the friendly Indians in inducing the
hostile element to see the necessity for such action. It might require
numerous councils and it might require fighting, properly prepared for.
All this meant that if Al were to take personal part in the rescue of
Tommy, they must stay at Fort Ridgely for some time to come; and to stay
at Fort Ridgely meant that they must have some money. Here was the most
distressing difficulty in the whole situation. The Briscoes had
absolutely nothing left; they were penniless. Even their few household
goods had been destroyed or carried away by the Indians and these goods,
together with their buildings and the handful of live stock and farm
implements on their claim, had constituted all their worldly
possessions. They had not always been in such a precarious condition; in
fact, two years before the period at which our story opens they would
not have dreamed that they could ever be reduced to such circumstances
as were theirs when we first saw them.
In 1860 the Briscoes had been living in the prosperous little city of
Glasgow, Missouri, at that time an important centre of steamboat
traffic on the Missouri River, drawing to its numerous and
well-appointed stores the trade of a wide region of farms and
plantations, and to its wharves and warehouses the great crops of hemp
and tobacco, corn and grain, vegetables and live-stock with which the
whole rich country teemed. Mr. Briscoe's business, the retailing of
furniture, was extensive and profitable, his home was as comfortable and
attractive as any in the town, and his family lacked for none of the
comforts of life, while many of its luxuries were also theirs. Once or
twice a year, usually in the summer and winter, when there was something
of a lull in the business, they would make a trip to St. Louis, where
Mrs. Briscoe's sister, her only near relative, lived with her husband
and family. His parents had intended to send Al to an academy in St.
Louis in the Fall of 1861, to complete his preparatory education before
applying for an appointment as a cadet at West Point. Then came the
opening of the Civil War and the beginning of a rapid succession of
events in the family, which had forced the abandonment of this and of
all the other plans which they had cherished for the future.
The opening of hostilities, precipitated by the attack on Fort Sumter,
produced a commercial and industrial effect upon the country at large
almost as calamitous as the political one; and this was particularly
true in the Border States, where sentiment was sharply divided. Mr.
Briscoe's business was one which depended to an unusual degree upon
conditions of general prosperity and tranquillity. When the people of
the community found their incomes destroyed or sharply cut down by
general conditions, they could and did get along without new furniture,
though they could not get along without groceries or clothing. His
business suffered on this account, but it suffered still more from other
causes.
Mr. Briscoe had always commanded an unusual degree of popularity in
Glasgow since he had gone there, a youth, in 1844, because he had
enlisted for the Mexican War, among many other volunteers from the town
and from Howard County, in the First Regiment of Missouri Dragoons,
under Colonel Alexander W. Doniphan; an organization immensely popular
in central Missouri at the time. He had served through all the
wonderfully romantic campaigns of that regiment with gallantry and
distinction, coming out of the war a first lieutenant. He had won his
sergeantcy for saving the life of a comrade, another Glasgow youth, in
the fight at Brazitos, New Mexico, December 21, 1846; his second
lieutenantcy for faithfulness and courage during the long march from
Sante Fe to Chihuahua, and his first lieutenantcy for gallantry in the
capture of that city from a Mexican army five times as large as the
American force, on February 28, 1847. Consequently, on his return to
Glasgow he had been regarded as a hero, and the people could not do
enough for him, showing their favor in one most practical way by
bestowing as much of their trade upon him as they possibly could. He, in
turn, entertained the liveliest interest in the exciting events of the
Mexican War and the most profound and loyal regard for his old
commander, Colonel Doniphan. It was in the latter's honor that he
christened his eldest son Alexander Doniphan, and we have seen that he
even applied the fanciful names, Chihuahua and Montezuma,--shortened for
convenience to Chick and Monty,--to his horses, in memory of his days
below the Rio Grande.
But the very fact that he had been one of Doniphan's men was equivalent
to a declaration that in spirit he was a sympathizer with the political
theories and social institutions at that time almost universally
accepted by the people of the Southern States, where slavery prevailed;
for it was among people of such convictions that Doniphan's regiment had
been almost wholly recruited. Because he had been one of them, everybody
so naturally assumed that his views agreed with those of his military
associates that he was seldom even called upon to express himself. When
he was, the fact that he said little, and that of a rather non-committal
character, only led people to believe that he did not care for
discussion and regretted the political unrest of the time, as, indeed,
did many others. This ill-defined position did very well until the
beginning of the period of intense agitation and bitterness immediately
following the election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency in the Fall
of 1860. He then found himself forced to face the issue frankly and
declare, not only to himself but to others, whether he intended to throw
in his fortunes with the South in the war which every one foresaw was
rapidly approaching, or to stand firmly by the Union.
It was a bitterly hard choice for him to make and one which he deferred
as long as possible; for, though both he and his wife were of Northern
birth and ancestry, the most cherished associations of their lives had
been with Southern people, and they loved the South like their native
land. But he believed, and Mrs. Briscoe believed with him, that the
Southern idea of destroying the Union was absolutely wrong, and that a
true American citizen's allegiance was due, not to any one State or
section but to the nation. When, after much painful reflection, he found
himself unalterably committed to this conviction, he was a man of too
much courage not to declare it. His associates and fellow citizens in
the town learned of his attitude first with astonishment, then with
resentment, and finally with cold hostility. He had made his choice, he
had voluntarily arrayed himself against the dearest desires of their
hearts and what they conceived to be the most vital interests of their
lives. They turned from him as from a betrayer, a traitor, and he
suddenly found himself worse than a stranger in the community where for
fifteen years past he had been respected and beloved above most other
citizens. It was the sad story, as old as organized society, of the
dearest private associations torn asunder by the rancor of public
controversy. His business suddenly declined to almost nothing. It would
not have been so bad if he had made provision for the future. But it had
always been so easy to make money that he and his family had spent it
just as easily, for it had seemed that the business alone would always
continue to provide them with all they might need. His credit with the
wholesale houses of St. Louis and the East was large and unquestioned,
and when the trouble came his store was full of goods unpaid for. Too
long he struggled to dispose of his stock in a town whose people, all at
once, either could not or would not buy. Finally, when his creditors,
themselves pressed for money by the industrial depression, began to
harass him, he sold at ruinous sacrifices. But he could not stem the
tide. He was forced into bankruptcy, and stock, store building, home and
household goods, all went down in the yawning pit of debt; for such was
his sense of honor that he would withhold nothing in order to pay to
those who had trusted him the money to which they were justly entitled.
And he did pay it, dollar for dollar, to the last cent; but when it was
paid he had nothing left in the world except a little less than three
hundred dollars in cash, a few bits of cherished family silver and
bric-a-brac belonging to his wife, and a scanty stock of family
clothing. His brother-in-law in St. Louis, Mr. Colton, would gladly have
helped him, but he, also, had been brought to the verge of ruin by the
business upheaval, and Mr. Briscoe, well knowing this, declined to add a
particle to his burdens.
To go into business again at such a time, in another town and without
capital, was not to be thought of. Neither was sufficiently remunerative
employment to be found, nor could he yet enter the Union army, as he
ardently desired to do, leaving his family destitute. The free
Government lands seemed to offer a home which they could acquire with
little difficulty, and a living in the meantime as cheap as could be
found anywhere. So they chose Minnesota and went to the claim north of
Fort Ridgely, where Mr. Briscoe hoped that in a few years he might
develop a farm and accumulate a little money. Then, if the war was not
yet over and his services were still needed, he might leave Al in charge
for a time and go to the front.
Such, briefly, was the history of the Briscoe family up to the time when
we first met with them, and such their plans for the future, so rudely
interrupted by the calamities of the Indian outbreak. Without father,
without money, without agricultural implements or horses, and without
even a home to live in, with the whole country still overrun by hostile
savages, it was out of the question, after the relief of Fort Ridgely,
for them either to return to their claim or to remain where they were.
The only place in the world which seemed to offer a haven of refuge for
the time being, at least, was the home of Mrs. Briscoe's sister in St.
Louis. Pitying friends among the other almost equally destitute
refugees, even soldiers of the garrison who were touched by the wretched
plight of the little family and by Al's manly conduct during the siege,
contributed to a small fund sufficient to take them by steamboat to St.
Louis; and on one of the last days of August they started for St. Paul
with a large party, escorted by a detachment of soldiers.
Before they left, Al and his mother asked and obtained an interview with
Colonel Sibley, concerning Tommy. Colonel Sibley was a man of great
prominence in Minnesota, having been elected the first Governor of the
State after its admission to the Union in 1858. At the time of the
Indian outbreak he was living at the mouth of the Minnesota River, where
Governor Ramsey sent for him to take command of the troops called out to
suppress the uprising, because of his great influence over the Indians
and his familiarity with their methods of warfare. He was a gentle,
kindly man, whose heart was torn by the loss and suffering of the people
along the western border of his State. Mrs. Briscoe and Al called at his
headquarters on the morning of the day they left for St. Paul. The
Colonel received them with his accustomed courtesy, asked them to be
seated and, himself taking a chair facing them, listened to Mrs.
Briscoe's sad story with deep and compassionate attention. When she had
finished he sat, seemingly lost in thought, for a short time, his chin
resting on his hand. Then he looked up at Mrs. Briscoe and said:
"Madam, my heart bleeds for you. I wish that it were within my power to
restore your little son to you at once. I wish that you might remain in
Minnesota in order that you could sooner have the happiness of knowing
when he is recaptured. But neither you nor your son here," he glanced at
Al, "need feel that your absence will defer the little boy's rescue one
moment longer than if you remained here. The recovery of all the white
captives is now in the hands of my forces and we shall get them all as
soon as we possibly can. I give you my promise, Mrs. Briscoe; I will
personally see to it that he is sent to you in St. Louis as soon as it
can be done, and if there should be any delay you shall be promptly
notified of the facts. Your husband's remains shall also receive
Christian burial whenever a party can visit your claim, and in case any
of your property is found there which is of value, I will have it stored
here in Fort Ridgely until you return or send for it. Can you tell me,
my boy," he turned to Al, "anything of the appearance of the Indian who
carried away your brother which might help to identify him?"
"I should know him again instantly, sir, if I saw him," Al replied. "He
was a tall fellow, over six feet, I think, and seemed very strong. He
had a deep scar, like a knife or sword cut, running down his left cheek
and along his neck and shoulder."
"O-ho!" ejaculated the colonel. "That surely ought to make it easy if he
is an Indian belonging to any of the tribes in this region. Orderly!"
Instantly a soldier opened the door, came to attention and saluted.
"Tell Major Brown I want to see him."
The orderly disappeared, but in a moment the door opened again admitting
Major Joseph R. Brown, a famous Indian trader who had been Major
Galbraith's predecessor as Indian agent at the Lower Agency, and who
was now in command of one of Colonel Sibley's companies of volunteers.
Probably no white man in Minnesota was personally acquainted with more
of the Indians in that section. Colonel Sibley and Al described to him
the Indian who had carried off Tommy, but Major Brown shook his head.
"I know no Indian in these parts who answers to that description," he
replied. "He must be an outsider; perhaps a Yanktonais who has drifted
in because there was trouble in the air. There are probably a good many
of them around."
This was disappointing intelligence yet enlightening in a way, for
though it indicated that Tommy was not in the clutches of any of the
Minnesota savages, at the same time it limited his captor to one of the
Dakota tribes further west and to that extent simplified the mystery of
his whereabouts and possible fate. Colonel Sibley, however, was still of
the opinion that he would be found with the other white captives when
these should be recovered, as he did not believe that a warrior from a
distant part of the country would care to burden himself permanently
with a prisoner.
With such unsatisfactory conclusions Al and his mother were forced to be
content, and though somewhat encouraged by the hopeful and reassuring
words of Colonel Sibley, who did his best to cheer them, they began the
long journey toward St. Louis with heavy hearts.