It was well known that he would desire the legislature of 1863 to elect him to succeed the Hon. Henry M. Rice as United States senator, and that another aspirant was at least equally desirous. His personal admirers urged him to distribute the military “plums” in a way helpful to his political success. His political opponents were prophesying that he would certainly do so, and charged him with selfishness, heartlessness, and disregard of experience. To the head of one regiment he appointed William Crooks, an experienced civil engineer, who had been two years at West Point and was his political opponent. For three other regiments he took Lieutenant-Colonels Miller, Wilkin, and Thomas from the First, Second, and Fourth Minnesota regiments respectively. CHAPTER XI THE OUTBREAK OF THE SIOUX While the whole people of Minnesota were striving night and day to fill up the new regiments with volunteers to reinforce the national armies, there was trouble brewing within their own boundaries. The reader will have observed that small garrisons had been and were still maintained on the Indian frontiers. There was one at Fort Ripley, below Crow Wing, to protect the Chippeway agency; there were two on the borders of the Sioux reservations. Of these one occupied Fort Ridgely, situated on the north bank of the Minnesota River in the extreme northwest corner of Nicollet County. It was begun in 1853 when the lower Sioux were arriving on their reservation. The garrison had for its purpose the support of the authority of the government agents thereon. Another post had previously been established on the west bank of the Red River, some fifteen miles north of Breckenridge, chiefly for the purpose of protecting the Red River trade, carried in hundreds of single ox carts, from depredations of both Sioux and Chippeways, whose hunting parties waylaid not only one another, but the white man’s caravans. Fort Abercrombie, although at some distance from the upper reserve, was near enough to keep the upper Sioux aware of the Great Father’s power. Although called forts, no one of the three was in any sense a strong place. Each consisted of a group of detached buildings standing on the open prairie. The lapse of years in quiet seemed to justify the assumption that it would be a useless thing to form a proper inclosure and fortify it.