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.)
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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
As he grew in years his family grew also, and the dusky mother's
household cares increased. Yes, they lived in a fine stone house,
elegantly furnished, down on the Yellow Medicine below the agency,
but which came in the way of his red brother's vengeance, and it was
destroyed. The Brown family lived happily in their rather modern home.
The Major attended to his official duties, and the wife and boys
cultivated the land; but in common with all the others during these sad
days, their only safety was in flight. Their home, including books and
furniture, was totally destroyed. The father was a fugitive and his
family prisoners. They did not suffer as some others did, because the
wife and mother was a full blood and was related to the Sisseton tribe
and had powerful friends among them. Their capture, captivity, and final
release, as related by Samuel Brown, the fifteen-year-old boy, is an
interesting recital. He says:
On Monday, the 18th day of August, I went to Yellow Medicine with my
sister Ellen upon an errand. We met on the way an Indian named Little
Dog, who told us that the Indians had killed a family at Beaver Creek,
and were going to kill the whites as far as St. Paul, and that we must
not tell any one about it, or they would kill us. He said he warned us
at the risk of his own life. This was about noon. Soon after our arrival
at Yellow Medicine an old squaw told us that we had better be getting
away, as there would be trouble. We asked many of the other Indians
about it, but they said they had heard of nothing of the kind. Another
squaw afterward told us that she thought it must be the Yanktonais
who were coming down to take the agency. We left them about half-past
three o'clock. George Gleason had just left with Mrs. Wakefield and her
children for below. When we reached home we told mother what we heard.
She was very much scared and did not sleep any that night. About four
o'clock next morning I heard some one outside calling in a loud voice
a number of times for my mother, and then I heard Charles Blair, my
brother-in-law (a white man), ask what was the matter, and the man, who
was a half-breed named Royer, said that four hundred Yanktonais had
arrived at the upper agency and were killing everybody. We then became
very much alarmed, and had our oxen yoked at once to the wagon, put
everything in we could, and started for Fort Ridgely. We had all the
neighbors warned, and they went with us. They had three wagons, with
ox teams. Four or five white men overtook us on the road, among them
Garvey's cook (Garvey was the trader wounded at the agency, and who
afterward died at Hutchinson.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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