A wild panic ensued. Those who escaped the tomahawk and scalping knife fled in consternation and dismay, abandoning their little earthly all, leaving their cattle astray on the prairies, and their crops uncut and ungathered in the fields; some fleeing with such precipitation as to leave their food untouched on the table, where but a moment before it had been spread for the daily repast. Women and children wandered for days in the woods, subsisting on nuts and berries. Every road was lined with fugitives, and all the villages were crowded with their surrounding population. The refugees poured by hundreds into the city of St. Paul, situated from eighty to one hundred and fifty miles from the scenes of the outbreak; and many, who were able to do so, embarked on the first departing steamers, and hurried away from the State. It is estimated that ten large and flourishing counties were almost completely depopulated. It so happened that a portion of the volunteers recruited for the Union army had not yet been ordered out of the State. Though poorly equipped and supplied, they were at once sent into the field against the Indians, and they served as a nucleus around which the irregular organizations could rally. Every old gun, pistol, knife, or other weapon was cleaned up; every pound of powder and lead was bought and distributed; and horses were impressed by military authority, with which to extemporize cavalry companies. The surrounding States promptly sent what aid they could in men, guns, and cartridges. The Governor by proclamation authorized the formation of companies of scouts and rangers in the threatened neighborhoods. Very soon after the outbreak, Colonel H. H. Sibley, an experienced frontiersman, having a thorough knowledge of Indian habits and character, was on the march against them, with about one thousand men. The General Government augmented these forces as rapidly as possible, and sent Major-General Pope to assume command of the Indian Department. Hearing of Colonel Sibley's approach, Little Crow retreated to Yellow Medicine, taking with him a large baggage train of plunder, and about one hundred white prisoners, chiefly women and children, whom he had captured at different places, and whom, with a few exceptions, they did not specially maltreat, but compelled to labor at camp drudgery.