Search results
Companies D, E, and H of the 9th Minnesota, Companies A, B, F, G, H, and K 10th Minnesota and the 1st Minnesota Cavalry were part of the 2,000 man military guard for the 38 prisoners hanged December 26, 1862, in Mankato, Minnesota.
- August 18-September 26, 1862
- United States victory
- Minnesota, Dakota Territory
Mar 2, 2010 · 1862. Dakota uprising begins in Minnesota. Minnesota erupts in violence as members of the Dakota tribe attack white settlements along the Minnesota River. The Dakota were eventually overwhelmed...
People also ask
When did the 1st Minnesota attack the Union line?
What happened on the Minnesota Prairie?
Was Minnesota involved in the Dakota War?
How did the Dakota War affect Minnesota settlers?
One Sunday afternoon, August 17, 1862, Mr. Palmer and Charles Pelzl, his brother-in-law were on the upper fields, making hay to be brought down later that evening. During that afternoon a call came from the direction of the river. Since the ferry was always on the south shore, the travelers must be taken over.
- “Taoyateduta Is A Coward”
- Financial Pressures on The Sioux
- “When Men Are Hungry, They Help Themselves”
- Massacre at Redwood Post
- News Reaches Fort Ridgely
- Reinforcing Ridgely
- Driven Back by “Rotten Balls”
- Raid on New Ulm
- 190 Buildings Destroyed
- The Largest Mass Execution in American History
The Sioux knew that there were few white soldiers left in Minnesota, most regulars having been withdrawn to fight the Confederates in the Civil War. One strong push, some said, and the whites would be expelled from the Minnesota Valley forever. Little Crow knew better. He had traveled east to Washington D.C., a few years earlier and had seen with h...
The origins of the uprising could be traced to a series of ill-advised treaties the Indians had signed in the 1850s. The first pacts were signed at Traverse des Sioux and Mendota in 1851. Collectively, the Sioux ceded almost 24 million acres of prime agricultural land, which was legally opened to white settlers three years later. The tribe agreed t...
Little Crow and other Indian leaders at the Lower Agency convened a council to discuss the crisis. Among those present were Little Crow, Galbraith, and several white traders. John P. Williamson, a missionary, handled the translating chores. Little Crow asked that the Indians be given the food that was rightfully theirs. They were starving, he warne...
Once he had decided on war, Little Crow directed that the Lower Sioux Agency’s Redwood post be attacked at dawn. The agency post was a small cluster of log cabins, frame houses, and brick buildings perched atop a bluff. Some 60 white men and women lived there, including cooks, clerks, teachers, missionaries, and government laborers who tilled the f...
Warriors fanned out, spreading terror and death through the surrounding countryside. From August 18 to August 21, many white homesteads were wiped out. The Beaver Creek settlement, just across the Minnesota River from Redwood and Milford Township, was particularly hated, since the Sioux felt that the whites living there were squatting on stolen Ind...
Marsh took 46 soldiers and headed for the scene of the fighting at the Lower Agency. Nineteen-year-old Lieutenant Thomas B. Gere was left in command of the post. Gere, a “shavetail,” or greenhorn, had only been in the Army for eight months. To make matters worse, he was also ill, having contracted mumps a short time earlier. There were 29 men left ...
The Indians finally attacked on the morning of August 20. Little Crow led a diversionary attack on the west side of the post. While the defenders’ attention was fixed on Little Crow, Chiefs Mankato, Gray Bird, Shakopee, and others led an assault on the northern perimeter They managed to seize several outbuildings, and for a time it looked as if the...
Now the Indians’ wrath fell upon New Ulm, a community of some 900 souls and the largest white settlement near the Sioux reservation. Many of New Ulm’s men were gone, having joined the Union Army to fight the South. The town’s vulnerability made it a tempting target, full of goods—and pretty young women—that could be carried off as booty. New Ulm wa...
On Saturday morning, August 23, New Ulm scouts spotted pillars of smoke rising into the sky in the direction of Fort Ridgely. If the fort had fallen, the Sioux might attack New Ulm from the north side of the Minnesota River. To guard against this possibility, Flandrau sent William Harvey and 75 men to investigate. It was a ruse, and Flandrau had ri...
Although there was more fighting in the weeks to come, the clashes at Fort Ridgely and New Ulm ultimately decided the Dakota War of 1862. Increasingly divided and poorly led, the Sioux were planning a last large attack on Sibley’s relief force, camped near Wood Lake, on September 23. Discovered by chance when soldiers of the 3rd Minnesota Regiment,...
The Dakota Conflict, or "Sioux Uprising," began with an attack on the Lower Agency along the Minnesota River. One of the first casualties was trader Andrew Myrick, who was discovered dead, his mouth stuffed full of grass. Over the next few days nearly 200 settlers were killed, as the Sioux massacred farm families and attacked frontier ...
On the afternoon of August 19, 1862, New Ulm came under siege by a relatively small group of Dakota warriors. This skirmish lasted several hours and left five settlers dead. The following day the people of New Ulm elected Judge Charles Flandrau, a prominent citizen from St. Peter, as their military commander. Over the next few days more than 1,000 refugees ballooned New Ulm’s population to ...
Minnesota was the first state to volunteer troops for the Union effort and eventually fielded twenty-two different volunteer organizations. These units played important roles in nearly every major campaign. The charge of the First Minnesota Infantry at the Battle of Gettysburg, however, was particularly crucial. It saved the Union position on ...
