A Thrilling Narrative of the Minnesota Massacre and the Sioux War of 1862-63: Graphic Accounts of the Siege of Fort Ridgely, Battles of Birch Coolie, Wood Lake, Big Mound, Stony Lake, Dead Buffalo Lake and Missouri RiverConnolly, A. P. (Alonzo P.)
History
A Thrilling Narrative of the Minnesota Massacre and the Sioux War of 1862-63: Graphic Accounts of the Siege of Fort Ridgely, Battles of Birch Coolie, Wood Lake, Big Mound, Stony Lake, Dead Buffalo Lake and Missouri River
Connolly, A. P. (Alonzo P.)
Dakota Indians -- Wars -- 1862-1865
This heroic boy, Burton, seeing his mother shot, and supposed to be dead,
and watching the life flicker and the spirit of his six-year-old brother
pass away, placed the dear little body beside that of his father, and
with a bravery born of an heroic nature he accepted his charge, and with
the injunction of his precious, dying mother still ringing in his ears,
made preparations to start. It seemed an herculean effort, but the brave
boy said: "We may yet be saved!" So, pressing his baby brother close to
his heart, he took a last look upon the faces of his dear father, mother
and six-year-old brother and started.
Ninety miles, thick with dangers, lay before our young hero; but he
faltered not. When tired carrying his little brother in his arms he
took him on his back. The first day he made sixteen miles, and in ten
consecutive days covered sixty miles. He lived on corn and such food as
he could find in deserted houses. At night his bed was the earth, his
pillow a stone, and the sky his only covering, the bright stars acting
as nightly sentinels over him, as weary, he and his little baby charge
slept. If angels have a duty to perform, surely troops of them must have
hovered around. He fed the little brother as best he could to appease
his hunger and covered him as with angel wings to protect the little
trembling body from the chilly night air. Brave boy! The pages of history
furnish nothing more noble than this deed, and if you yet live, what a
consolation, what a proud reflection, to know that there never before was
witnessed a deed more deserving of immortal fame.
"Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that
flyeth by day." The resolute mother, badly wounded and left for dead,
revived. She looked upon the face of her dead husband and little boy,
and with sublime courage started for a place of safety. At the risk of
being discovered and murdered--hungry, tired, with wounds undressed and a
heavy, aching heart and deathly sick, she was obliged to lie by for some
time, after which she again started, and for ten days and nights this
poor sorrow-stricken woman traveled on her weary way.
Providence led her in the path of a mail carrier on a route from Sioux
Falls City, in Dakota, to New Ulm, Minnesota. He had formerly known her,
but in her emaciated, jaded, pitiful condition the change was so great he
did not recognize her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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