TRIAL OF THE INDIANS.

The state has reason to congratulate itself on two things in this connection. First, that it had so wise and just a man as Colonel Sibley to select this important tribunal, and, second, that he had at his command such admirable material from which to make his selection. It must be remembered that this court entered upon its duties with the lives of hundreds of men at its absolute disposal. Whether they were Indians or any other kind of people, the fact must not be overlooked that they were human beings, and the responsibility of the tribunal was correspondingly great. Colonel Sibley at this date sent me a dispatch, declaring his intention in the matter of the result of the trials. It is as follows:

"Camp Release, nine miles below Lac qui Parle,

Sept. 25, 1862.

"Colonel: [After speaking of a variety of matters concerning the disposition of troops who were in my command, the battle of Wood Lake (which he characterized as "A smart conflict we had with the Indians"), the rescue of the prisoners and other matters, he adds:]

"N. B.—I am encamped near a camp of 150 lodges of friendly Indians and half-breeds, but have had to purge it of suspected characters. I have apprehended sixteen supposed to have been connected with the late outrages, and have appointed a military commission of five officers to try them. If found guilty they will be forthwith executed, although it will perhaps be a stretch of my authority. If so, necessity must be my justification.

"Yours, "H. H. SIBLEY."

On the 28th of September an order was issued convening this court martial. It was composed of William Crooks, colonel of the Sixth Regiment, president; William R. Marshall, lieutenant colonel of the Seventh Regiment; Captains Grant and Baily of the Sixth, and Lieutenant Olin of the Third. Others were subsequently added as necessity required. All these men were of mature years, prominent in their social and general standing as citizens, and as well equipped as any persons could be to engage in such work. What I regard as the most important feature in the composition of this most extraordinary court is the fact that the Hon. Isaac V. D. Heard, an experienced lawyer of St. Paul, who had been for many years the prosecuting attorney of Ramsey county, and who was thoroughly versed in criminal law, was on the staff of Colonel Sibley, and was by him appointed recorder of the court. Mr. Heard, in the performance of his duty, was above prejudice or passion, and could treat a case of this nature as if it was a mere misdemeanor. Lieutenant Olin was judge advocate of this court, but as the trials progressed the evidence was all put in and the records kept by Mr. Heard. Some changes were made in the personnel of the court from time to time as the officers were needed elsewhere, but none of the changes lessened the dignity or character of the tribunal. I make these comments because the trials took place at a period of intense excitement, and persons unacquainted with the facts may be led to believe that the court was "organized to convict," and was unfair in its decisions.

The court sat some time at Camp Release, then at the Lower Agency, and Mankato, where it investigated the question whether the Winnebagoes had participated in the outbreak; but none of that tribe were implicated, which proves that the court acted judicially, and not upon unreliable evidence, as the country was full of rumors and charges that the Winnebagoes were implicated. The court terminated its sittings at Fort Snelling, after a series of sessions lasting from Sept. 30 to Nov. 5, 1862, during which 425 prisoners were arraigned and tried. Of these 321 were found guilty of the offenses charged, of whom 303 were sentenced to death, and the rest to various terms of imprisonment according to the nature of their crimes. The condemned prisoners were removed to Mankato, where they were confined in a large guardhouse, constructed of logs for the purpose, and were guarded by a strong force of soldiers. On the way down, as the party having charge of the prisoners passed through New Ulm they found the inhabitants disinterring the dead, who had been hastily buried in the streets where they fell during the fights at that place. The sight of the Indians so enraged the people that a general attack was made on the wagons in which they were chained together. The attacking force was principally composed of women, armed with clubs, stones, knives, hot water and similar weapons. Of course, the guard could not shoot or bayonet a woman, and they got the prisoners through the town with the loss of one killed and many battered and bruised.

While this court martial was in session the news of its proceedings reached the eastern cities, and a great outcry was raised, that Minnesota was contemplating a dreadful massacre of Indians. Many influential bodies of well-intentioned but ill-informed people beseeched President Lincoln to put a stop to the proposed executions. The president sent for the records of the trials, and turned them over to his legal and military advisors to decide which were the more flagrant cases. On the sixth day of December, 1862, the president made the following order:

"Executive Mansion, Washington, D. C., "Dec. 6, 1862.

"Brigadier General Henry H. Sibley, St. Paul, Minn.:

"Ordered, that of the Indians and half-breeds sentenced to be hanged by the military commission, composed of Colonel Crooks, Lieutenant Colonel Marshall, Captain Grant, Captain Bailey and Lieutenant Olin, and lately sitting in Minnesota, you cause to be executed on Friday, the nineteenth day of December, instant, the following named, to-wit:

(Here follow the names of thirty-nine Indians, and their numbers on the record of conviction.)

"The other condemned prisoners you will hold, subject to further orders, taking care that they neither escape nor are subjected to any unlawful violence.

"ABRAHAM LINCOLN, "President of the United States."

Colonel Sibley had been appointed, by President Lincoln, a brigadier general, on the 29th of September, 1862, on account of his success at the battle of Wood Lake, the announcement of his promotion being in a telegram, as follows:

"Washington, D. C., Sept. 29, 1862.

"Major General Pope, St. Paul, Minn.,

"Colonel Henry H. Sibley is made a brigadier general for his judicious fight at Yellow Medicine. He should be kept in command of that column, and every possible assistance sent to him.

"H. W. HALLECK, "General in Chief."

His commission as brigadier general was not issued until March 26, 1864, but, of course, this telegram amounted to an appointment to the position, and if accepted, as it was, made him subject to the orders of the president; so, notwithstanding his dispatch to me, stating that the Indians, if convicted, would be forthwith executed, he could not very well carry out such an extreme duty without first submitting it to the federal authorities, of which he had become a part.

My view of the question has always been that, when the court martial was organized, Colonel Sibley had no idea that more than twenty or twenty-five of the Indians would be convicted, which is partly inferrable from his dispatch to me, in which he said he had "apprehended sixteen supposed to have been connected with the late outrages." But when the matter assumed the proportions it did, and he found on his hands some three hundred men to kill, he was glad to shift the responsibility to higher authority. Any humane man would have been of the same mind. I have my own views, also, of the reasons of the general government in eliminating from the list of the condemned all but thirty-nine. It was not because these thirty-nine were more guilty than the rest, but because we were engaged in a great civil war, and the eyes of the world were upon us. Had these three hundred men been executed, the charge would have undoubtedly been made by the South, that the North was murdering prisoners of war, and the authorities at Washington, knowing full well that the other nations were not capable of making the proper discrimination, and perhaps not anxious to do so if they were, deemed it safer not to incur the odium which might follow from such an accusation.

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