The whites arose in their might and, under the leadership of that gallant general, Henry H. Sibley, gave battle to their savage foes. Then followed weeks of fierce and bloody warfare. It was no child's play. On the one side were arrayed the fierce warriors of the Sioux nation, fighting for their ancestral homes, their ancient hunting grounds, their deer-parks and the graves of their ancestors. "We _must_ drive the white man east of the Mississippi," was the declaration of Little Crow, and he added the savage boast; "We will establish our winter-quarters in St. Paul and Minneapolis." Over against them, were the brave pioneers of Minnesota, battling for the existence of their beloved state, for their homes, and for the lives and honor of their wives and daughters. The thrilling history of the siege of New Ulm, of the battle of Birch Coullie, of Fort Ridgely and Fort Abercrombie, and of other scenes of conflict is written in the mingled blood of the white man, and of the red man on the beautiful plains of western Minnesota. The inevitable result ensued. The Sioux were defeated, large numbers were slain in battle or captured, and in despair, the others fled to the then uninhabited regions beyond the Red River of the North. Many of these found refuge under the British flag in Prince Rupert's Land (now Manitoba). One of the redeeming features in this terrible tragedy of '62, was the unflinching loyalty of the Christian Sioux to the cause of peace. They stood firmly together against the war-party and for the whites. They abandoned their homes and pitched their teepees closely together. This became the rallying point for all who were opposed to the outbreak. They called it Camp Hope, which was changed after the flight of Little Crow's savage band to Camp Lookout. Two days later, when General Sibley's victorious troops arrived, it was named Camp Release. Then it was that the captives, more than three hundred in number were released, chiefly through the efforts of the Christianized Indians. In 1902, at the celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the battle of New Ulm, by invitation of the citizens, a band of Sioux Indians pitched their teepees in the public square and participated in the exercises of the occasion. This was a striking illustration of the amity now existing between the two races upon the very ground, where their immediate ancestors so eagerly sought each other's life-blood, in the recent past. Here on the morn of battle, on the surrounding hills, in the long ago, Little Crow had marshalled his fierce warriors, who rushed eagerly in savage glee, again and again, to the determined assault, only to be driven back, by the brave Anglo-Saxon defenders. Tablets, scattered here and there over the plains, in the valley of the Minnesota River, tell the story of the Sioux nation, in the new Northwest.