Colonel Sibley had found a camp of 150 lodges which the friendlies had fortified against the hostiles, who on their dispersion had sent over to it the greater number of their captives; 91 whites and 150 breeds were turned over to him on the afternoon of September 26. The total number was presently increased to 269, 107 whites and 162 mixed bloods. A few had been humanely treated through the interposition of Christian Indians, but the experiences of many may be left to the imagination of the reader. CHAPTER XIII SEQUEL TO THE INDIAN WAR A week after the Wood Lake affair the President appointed Colonel Sibley a brigadier-general. His confirmation by the Senate was long delayed, but he exercised the command of that rank from the date of appointment. Up to the time of leaving Fort Ridgely for the upper country Colonel Sibley had been carrying on a state war. On the 6th of September Governor Ramsey sent this peremptory telegram to the President: “These Indian outrages continue.... This is not our war. It is a national war. Answer me at once. More than five hundred whites have been murdered.” That very day the Secretary of War ordered Major-General John Pope to take command of the Department of the Northwest. That officer had seen service in the Indian country and was at the time not otherwise employed. His first order to Colonel Sibley was received September 19, the day of his departure from Fort Ridgely. It made no change in the dispositions of the subordinate commander, but urged him to push forward, and promised all the support he could control. General Pope, persuaded that Sibley had some twenty-six hundred Sioux warriors in his front, made requisitions for troops and supplies on a scale which called out a rebuke from the secretary. His demand for mounted troops rather than infantry was reasonable. His stay in the department was brief, and at its close Brigadier-General Sibley was put in command of a distinct district of Minnesota. That Sibley was thus promoted and assigned was possibly due to a remonstrance addressed by Pope to Halleck against the appointment of Senator Henry M. Rice as major-general to be assigned to the department. It is remarkable that Sibley, writing to his wife, expressed his preference for Rice, if any stranger was to be placed over him. It was not till after the close of the campaign that the Sixth and Seventh regiments were mustered into the service of the United States.