After all, the promised "great gift" was only $10,000, instead of $20,000 that had been expected. When distributed among so many it would be only about two dollars and fifty cents to each one of them. Many of the Indians, in the meantime, would have earned from fifty to a hundred dollars by hunting. To say the least, that was a great mistake; for more than four thousand disappointed and chagrined Indians had to be fed all that long and severe winter by the Indian agent.

The lower Sioux Indians were so greatly displeased that they positively refused to receive their share of the $10,000 worth of goods until they could ascertain whence they came.

Soon, however, on a change of administration, it appeared, and it was noised abroad, that an effort was made by the administration to change the money annuity into goods, and that there had been sent $70,000 which would be due the next summer. The knowledge of this new departure greatly exasperated the annuity Sioux, and no doubt had much to do with bringing on the outbreak and massacre of 1862.

Furthermore, there were in the country sympathizers with the Southern Rebellion, who, taking advantage of these unfortunate circumstances and of the national troubles, worked upon the fears and hopes of the dissatisfied and restive Sioux to make them more and more uncomfortable and unreconciled to the state of things. In their party strife and overt disloyalty to the Union, they no doubt carried the matter further than they thought to do; and so they kindled a fire, wild and destructive, which they could not control or extinguish.

As a matter of fact, the Indians had learned that nearly all the white men capable of bearing arms had gone south into the Union army; and they were told that, bad as it was then with them, it would soon be worse, and that the United States government would fail and become bankrupt, and consequently would be unable to make any more payments of annuities to them. In view of all this, the Sioux decided that this was their opportunity to arise and exterminate the whites in Minnesota and to re-possess themselves of the lands, together with all the improvements. Hence there ensued one of the most terrible and disastrous Indian wars in modern times.

LITTLE CROW, CONSPIRATOR AND LEADER.

It was on Sunday, August 17th, 1862, when a small party of Sioux, belonging to Little Crow's band, while out ostensibly hunting and fishing at Acton, in Meeker county, Minnesota, obtained from a white man some spirituous liquor, became intoxicated and murdered a white man and a part of his family, which act precipitated the Sioux War. Hence, on the return of the murderers to the Yellow Medicine Reservation, on the Minnesota river, and, on their reporting to their chief, Little Crow, what they had done at Acton the day before, in the murder of the whites, Little Crow said that it was sooner than he had intended, but, now that it was already begun and blood was spilled, the war must go on. Forthwith he called everybody "to arms," and to fight the white people. He sent his swift messengers to all the different bands of Sioux, not only in Minnesota, but also to all those beyond the Missouri river, in Nebraska, and in what is now Montana and North and South Dakota, calling them all to join in the uprising and the massacre of the white settlers wherever found.

It was a well known and acknowledged fact that Little Crow, only a very short time before this outbreak occurred, had in secret council tampered with more than one of the neighboring tribes of Indians, with the view of securing them as his allies in the contemplated war and massacre of the whites. Only a few days before the outbreak, both the Ojibways and the Winnebagoes, by their representative head men and chiefs respectively, were for several days and nights consecutively in council with Little Crow and his warriors, on the Yellow Medicine reservation. They had little more than reached their homes when the Sioux precipitated that war, which began August 18th at the Lower Agency and thence spread, fearfully desolating and depopulating all that region of the state of Minnesota.

Little Crow not only summoned the Sioux or Dakotas to join in fighting and murdering the white people, after the most despotic manner of the Indians, but he conscripted by a savage and cruel conscription that meant death to every one who should persistently refuse to join the hostile party and go with them on the war-path. His fighting force was va

riously estimated at from four to six thousand warriors, all of them well armed and equipped, and most of them mounted after the Indian fashion.

THE MASSACRE.

The first attack, in force, began at the Lower Sioux Agency, on the Yellow Medicine reservation, about twelve miles above Fort Ridgely, where the hostile Sioux murdered or frightened away the whites, robbed and plundered the homes, warehouses and stores, and then burned these buildings. This they did all the way up on both sides of the Minnesota river as far as Lac qui Parle. No one residing outside of that terror-stricken portion of Minnesota could form any adequate idea of the fearful and dreadful state of things in all that region.

Even some of the loyal and friendly Indians themselves were terrified and frightened away with their families, as in the case of Marpiya Wicasta (Cloud Man), Wamdiokiya (Eagle Help), and Enoch Marpiya-hdi-na-pe (Cloud in Sight), who, with their families, seeing the terrible disaster coming, and not being able to avert it nor willing to connive at the horrible massacre of the white people, fled north to the British possessions, and for the time being took refuge in the province of Manitoba, until the storm was past and peace restored.

The first two of these men were two of the wisest and most progressive men of the Hazelwood Republic, and were the original leaders and founders of that settlement; and the last one named was an educated Indian, having been our teacher in the Sioux language at Lac qui Parle from 1848 to 1853, and the acting secretary of the Hazelwood Republic in 1862.

The settlers at that season of the year were generally engaged in harvesting their crops, all unarmed and totally unprepared for that awful crisis, when they were suddenly stricken with terror indescribable. Many of them were shot down in their fields and dooryards. Their families were horribly murdered or taken captives by the hostile Indian warriors, and some of them suffered worse than death.

Sudden and unexpected as was the outbreak, yet some of the white people, and some of the friendly and loyal Indians were enabled to make their escape from the impending fury of the hostile savages. Many were overtaken and murdered while attempting to reach some place of refuge and safety.

I was personally acquainted with some of the unfortunate victims of the Sioux War, but can mention only a few of them here.

Amos W. Huggins, the eldest son of Alexander G. Huggins, one of the oldest missionaries laboring among the Sioux for the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions, was a Government teacher at Lac qui Parle at the time of the outbreak, and was shot down in sight of his house and almost in the immediate presence of his wife and their little children. Another good man, Philander Prescott, the United States interpreter at the Yellow Medicine Agency, who for almost a lifetime had been a faithful friend and a generous benefactor of the Sioux, seeing the dreadful storm coming, fled for his life, and was overtaken by a hostile Sioux and shot down, without mercy, at a point nearly opposite Fort Ridgely.

Similarly Dr. Philander P. Humphrey and his family, who at that time were at the Lower Sioux Agency, lost their lives. Dr. Humphrey was the Government physician for the Indians there. His family consisted of his wife and three children, the eldest of whom was Johnnie, then nine years old.

Early on Monday morning, August 18th, the first day of the outbreak, the family heard the firing of guns, and caught some glimpses of wild Indians running here and there about the Agency buildings. Finally they became alarmed, and to their surprise they found that already their neighbors were all gone, and had taken away with them their teams and wagons. Although Mrs. Humphrey was sick and in bed, at the earnest request of her husband, she arose, and, leaning on his strong arm, set out on foot, with their three children. They had left their own horse and carriage, only a short time before the outbreak, at St. Peter, where they had been visiting their friends.

They walked down the hill, crossed the river at the ferry, and wended their way along the Fort Ridgely road about four miles, to what was known as "the Magner place." Mrs. Humphrey there became faint and almost exhausted, so that they halted for a rest. Finding no water in the pail at the Magner house, Johnnie, their son, took the water pail, and ran down to the spring, in the ravine near-by, to bring some fresh water for his sick mother. While he was at the spring, the hostile

Sioux came and attacked the others of the family at the house, shot and killed Dr. Humphrey, and, in their haste, severed the head from the body, scalped it, and left it about fifty yards distant in the bushes. It was afterward found there by us, on the expedition sent up from Fort Ridgely to reconnoiter and to bury the dead.

It is not certainly known what the hostile Indians did with the remainder of the family. The probability is, that, seeing the fatal result of the attack, in the death of her husband, Mrs. Humphrey took refuge, with her two youngest children in the vacant Magner house, a primitive log cabin, bolted the door, and there perished with the children, the house being burned by the Sioux. Their remains were afterwards found by us in the ashes of that burned building.

Johnnie Humphrey, hearing the reports of the guns and the noise of the hostile Indians in the murder of his father, did not venture to return to the house, but, having met Mr. Magner, the owner of the house, who was in concealment near the spring, was persuaded by him to flee for his life, with him, and try to reach Fort Ridgely. They escaped and made their way, with great peril and difficulty, through the almost impenetrable brush, until they met Captain Marsh and his men, on their way from Fort Ridgely to the Lower Agency.

At Captain Marsh's request, Johnnie returned with the military force. When they arrived at the Magner place, they saw the decapitated body of Dr. Humphrey in the yard, and found the house all on fire. Without stopping to bury the dead, they hastened on, thinking that Mrs. Humphrey and the children had been taken captive by some wild, marauding, drunken Indians, and, if so, that they would overtake them and rescue them. Onward they went, down the hill, and along the narrow wagon-road, toward the ferry, near the Lower Agency, when suddenly Little Crow, from the bluff on the opposite side of the Minnesota river, gave the signal, and from three to five hundred Sioux warriors, lying there in ambush at the roadside, fired upon that little detachment of soldiers. Twentyseven of them instantly fell dead, at the first volley of the Indians. Captain Marsh ordered the survivors to break ranks` and escape for their lives, and nine or ten of them, together with little Johnnie Humphrey, escaped alive and finally reached Fort Ridgely.