A Brief History of South Dakota/Chapter 21
CHAPTER XXI
THE WAR OF THE OUTBREAK
South Dakota had little part in the Civil War. Early in 1862 Company A of the Dakota cavalry was recruited with the intention of tendering its services to the President for service in the South, but it was deemed wise by the war department to hold it in Dakota for the protection of the settlements. Captain Todd, while serving in Congress, was appointed brigadier general by President Lincoln, and served with credit in the Missouri campaigns.
The midsummer of the year 1862 came on with a bountiful harvest, and every prospect was most pleasing in the young settlements along the Missouri and on the Sioux. New settlers had come to them, new homes were springing up on every hand, the flocks were thriving, and every one indulged in rosy dreams of a bright and prosperous future; when suddenly out of the clear sky came the news of the awful outbreak and massacre by the Santee Sioux on the Minnesota. Instantly the bright prospect was changed to one of gloom. Almost with the first news of the outbreak came a straggling band of savages, who found Judge Joseph B. Amidon and his son in a hayfield at Sioux Falls and ruthlessly murdered them. Terror-stricken, the settlers left their homes, their ungathered crops, their cattle, swine, and poultry, and in white-faced, panting panic flew for their lives.
Governor Jayne sent a detachment of soldiers to conduct the settlers of Sioux Falls to Yankton, leaving all of their property unprotected, to be immediately stolen, wrecked, and burned by the savages; and so ended the ambitious dreams of the empire builders who had settled upon the Big Sioux. They wholly abandoned the place and several years elapsed before there was any further settlement at Sioux Falls.
The settlers at Bon Homme and Yankton gathered at the capital, where a strong stockade was built for their protection; but the country from the James River to the Sioux was wholly depopulated. To increase the terror of the little handful of pioneers who remained, the report came that the Yanktons, under the lead of the unruly chief Mad Bull, had broken away from the influence of Struck by the Ree and were about to join in the massacre. Governor Jayne called every able-bodied man in the territory to arms, and under the lead of the citizens of Yankton, commanded by Captain Frank Ziebach, and Company A of the Dakota Cavalry, which had been organized the previous spring with Nelson Miner as captain, a good military organization was effected, and peace, security, and order were restored. Struck by the Ree asserted his loyalty and Americanism over his tribe, held the restless young men to his standard, and protected the settlements from the hostile tribes from up the river as well as from the straggling Santees. In a few weeks confidence was restored and the settlers returned to their homes. Except the killing of Judge Amidon and his son there were no fatalities among the settlers of Dakota, but the fear of destruction was well founded and the panic and flight justified.
During the outbreak in Minnesota, a small settlement of about fifty persons on Shetak Lake, in what is now Murray County, was attacked and destroyed by a band of Indians under a chief named White Lodge, who took captive two women, Mrs. Wright and Mrs. Duly, and seven children. These captives were carried through South and North
Trail of the Shetak Captives
Dakota to the Missouri River, where they were discovered the following November by Major Charles E. Galpin, who was coming down the river with a small party of miners in a Mackinaw boat.[1] When at the mouth of Beaver Creek in southern North Dakota, Galpin saw an Indian camp on the shore, and the warriors were making friendly motions to him to land. He drew up to the band, when Galpin's sharp-eyed wife, an Indian woman, discovered armed Indians skulking in the underbrush, and she gave the alarm in time. Her husband cut the painter by which he had tied the boat, with a single blow of the hatchet, and received a fusillade of bullets from the bank without damage. While the boat was still within hearing, a white woman ran down to the river bank and informed the boatmen that there were a party of white captives in the Indian camp. Galpin spread this news as he passed down the river.
The first point that Galpin reached, where he could give information, was Fort Pierre, where there was a trading store. There he found a party of young Indians, eleven in number, under the leadership of a mixed-blood Indian named Martin Charger, grandson of Captain Meriwether Lewis the explorer, who were known to their people as the crazy band, or fool soldier band, because they had taken an oath to help the whites at any cost to themselves. This band immediately set out on their ponies to reach the hostile camp up the river, and, if possible, effect the rescue of the captives. Their names were Martin Charger, Kills Game and Comes Back, Four Bear, Mad Bear, Pretty Bear, Sitting Bear, Swift Bird, One Rib, Strikes Fire, Red Dog, and Charging Dog. Before starting they had traded their furs to the trader for sugar and other Indian delicacies. They crossed the river at Pierre, going north on the east side. The second day they found a party of Yanktonais encamped at the mouth of Swan Creek, and were joined in their enterprise by two Yanktonais, Don't Know How and Fast Walker.
They found that White Lodge's hostile camp had been moved down the river and was then located in the fine timber on the east bank of the Missouri, opposite the mouth of Grand River, in what is now Walworth County, South Dakota. They pitched their tepees near the hostile camp and at once entered into negotiations for the rescue of the captives. White Lodge was not disposed to give them up,—absolutely refused to do so upon any terms; but the boys were persistent, offered to trade their horses and other property for them, and after much parleying, bullying, and jockeying, with threats of bringing their people, the Tetons, and soldiers to destroy White Lodge and his band, they succeeded in purchasing the captives, trading for them everything they possessed except two guns and their tepee.
The weather was severe. It was about the 20th of November, snow was falling, and the captives were brought out to them literally naked. White Lodge himself never consented to the trade, but the majority of his warriors took the responsibility in their own hands, against his will, and the old man threatened to undertake the recovery of his captives. The boys pitched their little tepee in the willows on the river bank a mile or two below the hostile camp, wrapped the captives in their blankets, and themselves tramped around the tepee in the storm to keep from freezing, and to guard their captives from the threatened attack of White Lodge.
The next morning they traded one of their guns to a Yanktonais, who had joined the party, for his horse, to which they lashed one end of an arrangement of poles carrying a sort of basket upon which the children could ride (the other end of the poles dragging on the ground), and started down the river for the Yanktonais camp. Mrs. Duly was lame, having been shot in the foot, and had to ride the horse. Mrs. Wright was strong and able to walk, but had no shoes. Martin Charger took the moccasins from his own feet and gave them to her. As they were making their way slowly down the river, White Lodge, with a few warriors, came down to carry his threat into execution.
The rear guard was placed under command of Swift Bird, and he made the most of a display of the two guns in the party. Marching as rapidly as they could, parleying and arguing with the old chief, they finally bluffed him off and got safely away with the captives.
The Yanktonais, for the boys' last remaining gun, traded them an old cart and harness, fed them, and gave them a supply of food to last them until Fort Pierre was reached. The children were packed into the cart, Mrs. Duly continued to ride the pony, and the remainder of the party walked, dividing into squads who assisted the pony by pushing the cart along. In this way in two days they reached Fort Pierre, where with great difficulty they crossed the freezing river and were kindly received by their own people and the trader. Charles E. Primeau, the Indian trader, dressed the captives as well as he could from his rough stock of goods, and after a short rest they were taken to Fort Randall by Louis La Plant and Frederick Dupree, two well-known frontiersmen.
Probably there is not in history another circumstance similar to this, where young, untutored savages, who never had been under missionary influence, at such sacrifice of effort and of property, and with real hardship, so exerted themselves through sentiments of humanity. Martin Charger and his heroic comrades should always be held in veneration by the people of South Dakota. They were true heroes, and their brave and generous deed should be properly commemorated.
The government at once undertook a strong military movement against the hostile Santees, who fled from their Minnesota homes into the Dakota country. Two companies of South Dakota men, under the command respectively of Captains Nelson Miner and William Tripp, and known as the Dakota Cavalry, joined in the movement, and rendered excellent service until the end of the War of the Outbreak, in 1865. Most of their service was rendered in North Dakota, as there were no engagements of any moment within the South Dakota boundaries.
- ↑ A large but cheap boat intended for only a single trip down the river. They had long been in use among the fur traders of America, and were usually fastened together with wooden pins, no metal being used in their construction.