CAMPAIGN OF 1864.

The government very wisely decided not to allow the Indian question to rest upon the results of the campaign of 1863, which left the Indians in possession of the country west of the Missouri, rightly supposing that they might construe their escape from General Sibley the previous year into a victory. It therefore sent out another expedition in 1864, to pursue and attack them beyond the Missouri. The plan and outfit were very similar to those of 1863. General Sully was again to proceed up the Missouri with a large command, and meet a force sent out from Minnesota, which forces when combined were to march westward, and find and punish the savages if possible. The expedition, as a whole, was under the command of General Sully. It consisted of two brigades, the first composed of Iowa and Kansas infantry and cavalry, and Brackett's Battalion, to the number of several thousand, which was to start from Sioux City and proceed up the Missouri in steamboats. The second embraced the Eighth Regiment of Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, under Colonel Thomas, mounted on ponies; the Second Minnesota Cavalry, under Colonel MacLaren; the Third Minnesota Battery, under Captain Jones. The Second Brigade was commanded by Colonel Thomas. This brigade left Fort Snelling on June 1st, and marched westward. General Sibley and staff accompanied it as far as Fort Ridgely. On the 9th of June it passed Wood Lake, the scene of the fight in 1862. About this point it overtook a large train of emigrants on their way to Idaho, who had with them 160 wagon loads of supplies. This train was escorted to the Missouri river safely. The march was wearisome in the extreme, with intensely hot weather and very bad water, and was only enlivened by the appearance occasionally of a herd of buffalo, a band of antelope, or a straggling elk. The movements of the command were carefully watched by flying bands of Indians during its whole march. On July 1st the Missouri was reached at a point where now stands Fort Rice. General Sully and the First Brigade had arrived there the day before. The crossing was made by the boats that brought up the First Brigade. The column was immediately directed toward Cannon Ball river, where 1,800 lodges of Indians were reported to be camped. The Indians fled before the approaching troops. On the last of July the Heart river was reached, where a camp was formed, and the tents and teams left behind. Thus relieved, the command pressed forward for an Indian camp eighty miles northward. On the 2d of August the Indians were found in large numbers on the Big Knife river, in the Bad lands. These were Unca-Papa Sioux, who had murdered a party of miners from Idaho the year before, and had given aid and comfort to the Minnesota refugee Indians. They were attacked, and a very spirited engagement ensued in which the enemy was badly beaten and suffered severe losses. The place where this battle was fought was called Ta-ka-ho-ku-tay, or "The bluff where the man shot the deer."

On the next day, August 3d, the command moved west through the Bad Lands, and just as it emerged from this terribly ragged country it was sharply attacked by a large body of Indians. The fight lasted through two days and nights, when the enemy retired in haste. They were very roughly handled in this engagement.

General Sully then crossed to the west side of the Yellowstone river, where the weary soldiers found two steamboats awaiting them, with ample supplies. In crossing this rapid river the command lost three men and about twenty horses. From this point they came home by the way of Forts Union, Berthold and Stevenson, reaching Fort Rice on the 9th of September.

On this trip General Sully located Forts Rice, Stevenson and Berthold.

On reaching Fort Rice, considerable anxiety was felt for Colonel Fisk, who, with a squad of fifty troops, had left the fort as an escort for a train of Idaho immigrants, and had been attacked 180 miles west of the fort, and had been compelled to intrench. He had sent for reenforcements, and General Sully sent him three hundred men, who extricated him from his perilous position.

The Minnesota brigade returned home by way of Fort Wadsworth, where they arrived on September 27th. Here Major Rose, with six companies of the Second Cavalry, was left to garrison the post, the balance of the command reaching Fort Snelling on the 12th of October.

In June, 1865, another expedition left Minnesota for the west, under Colonel Callahan of Wisconsin, which went as far as Devil's lake. The first, second and fourth sections of the Third Minnesota battery accompanied it. Again, in 1866, an expedition started from Fort Abercrombie, which included the first section of the Third Battery, under Lieutenant Whipple. As no important results followed from these two latter expeditions, I only mention them as being parts of the Indian war.

The numbers of Indians engaged in this war, together with their superior fighting qualities, their armament, and the country occupied by them gives it rank among the most important of the Indian wars fought since the first settlement of the country on the Atlantic coast. But when viewed in the light of the number of settlers massacred, the amount of property destroyed, and the horrible atrocities committed by the savages, it far surpasses them all.

I have dwelt upon this war to such an extent because I regard it as the most important event in the history of our state, and desire to perpetuate the facts more especially connected with the gallant resistance offered by the settlers in its inception. Not an instance of timidity is recorded. The inhabitants engaged in the peaceful pursuits of agriculture, utterly unprepared for war, sprang to the front on the first indication of danger, and checked the advance of the savage enemy in his initial efforts. The importance of battles should never be measured by the number engaged, or the lists of killed and wounded, but by the consequences of their results. I think the repulse of the Indians at Fort Ridgely and New Ulm saved the State of Minnesota from a disaster the magnitude of which cannot be estimated. Their advance was checked at the very frontier, and they were compelled to retreat, thus affording time and opportunity for the whites to organize for systematic action. Had they not met with this early check, it is more than probable that the Chippewas on the Upper Mississippi and the Winnebagoes in the Lower Minnesota valley would have joined them, and the war have been carried into the heart of the state. Instances of a similar character have occurred in our early wars which illustrate my position. The battle of Oriscany, which was fought in the Revolutionary War in the valley of the Mohawk, between Rome and Utica, was not more of an encounter than Ridgely or New Ulm, yet it has been characterized as one of the decisive battles of the world, because it prevented a junction of the British forces under St. Ledger in the west and Burgoyne in the east, and made American independence possible. The State of New York recognized the value of Oriscany just one hundred years after the battle was fought, by the erection of a monument to commemorate it. The State of Minnesota has done better, by erecting imposing monuments on both the battlefields of Ridgely and New Ulm, the inscriptions on which give a succinct history of the respective events.

The state also presented each of the defenders of Fort Ridgely with a handsome bronze medal, especially struck for the purpose, the presentation of which took place at the time of the dedication of the monument, on the twentieth day of August, 1896.

The medal has a picture of the fort on its obverse side, surrounded by the words, "Defender of Fort Ridgely, August 18-27, 1862." Just over the flag staff, in a scroll, is the legend, in Sioux, "Ti-yo-pa-na-ta-ka-pi," which means, "It shut the door against us," referring to the battle having obstructed the further advance of the Indians. This was said by one of the Indians in the attacking party in giving his view of the effect of the repulse, and adopted by the committee having charge of the preparation of the medal as being appropriate and true. On the reverse side are the words, "Presented by the State of Minnesota to——," encircled by a wreath of moccasin flowers, which is the flower of the state.

The state has also placed monuments at Birch Coulie, Camp Release and Acton. I regret to be compelled to say that a majority of the committee having charge of the building of the Birch Coulie monument so far failed in the performance of their duties as to the location of the monument and formulating its inscriptions that the legislature felt compelled to pass an act to correct their errors. The correction has not yet been made, but in the cause of true history it is to be hoped that it will be in the near future. The state also erected a handsome monument, in the cemetery of Fort Ridgely, to Captain Marsh and the twenty-three men of his company that were killed at the ferry, near the Lower Sioux Agency, on Aug. 18, 1862, and, by special act, passed long after at the request of old settlers, added the name of Peter Quinn, the interpreter, who was killed at the same time and place. The state also built a monument in the same cemetery in remembrance of the wife of Dr. Muller, the post surgeon at Ridgely during the siege, on account of the valuable services rendered by her in nursing the wounded soldiers.

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