Terrible Scenes of Death and Misery in Minnesota. Five Hundred Whites Supposed to be Murdered. The Sioux Bands United Against the Whites. FORT RIDGELEY IN DANGER.
Published: August 24, 1862
ST. PAUL, Minn., Saturday, Aug. 23.
Parties from the Minnesota River reached here last sight. They state that scouts estimate the number of whites already killed by the Sioux at 500.
This opinion is based on the number of bodies discovered strewn along the road and by trails of blood.
It is believed that all the missionaries have been killed.
The civilized Indians exceeded their savage brethren in atrocities.
Mr. FRENIER, an interpreter who has spent most of his life among the Indians, volunteered to go alone among them, trusting to his knowledge of them and his disguise, to escape detection. He dressed himself to Indian costume and started on his journey. He arrived at the Upper Agency at night.
The place was literally the habitation of death.
He visited all the houses, and found their former occupants all lying dead, some on the door-steps and some inside their habitations. Others were scattered in the yards and in the roads.
He went to the house of Hon. J.R. BROWN, and recognized every member of the family. They numbered eighteen in all, and every one of them had been brutally murdered.
At ****** Creek he found that fifty families had been killed outright. At every house he went into he recognized the dead bodies of nearly all the former inhabitants of the place.
Among the dead bodies he recognized at the Agency were the following:
N. GOVERUS and family.
Dr. WAKEFIELD and family.
JOHN TODDENS and family.
JOHN MOYNER.
EDWARD MOYNER.
Rev. Dr. WILLIAMS.
Rev. Mr. BRIGGS, and two missionaries.
Ex-Gov. SIBLEY is now marching to the relief of Fort Ridgley.
He reports that the Sioux bands are united together to carry out a concentrated and desperate scheme, and says that he will be only too happy to find that the powerful upper bands of Yanktons and other tribes have not united with them.
Mr. FRENIER writes to Gov. RAMSEY, on the 21st inst., saying that he left Fort Ridgley at 2 o'clock on that morning. There were then over two thousand Indians at the fort, and all the wooden buildings there had been set on fire, and were burning.
Mr. FRENIER thinks that other tribes are joining the Sloux, and that they will present a very formidable array.
A reliable letter, dated Glencoe, 21st inst., says that the injury done by the stampede of the settlers is immense, and that such another scene of woe can hardly be found in the South as in McLeod, Meaker, and the northern part of Sibley and other counties to Minnesota.
In St. Paul and the adjoining country all the available horses are being gathered together, and all sorts of weapons will be used by willing hands for immediate and summary vengeance upon these blood-thirsty Indians.
CHICAGO, Saturday, Aug. 23.
The St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer, of the 20th inst., says, it is thought that the Indians have been induced to commit these outrages by Indians from Missouri and secession traitors of that State, and that when Maj. GALBRAITH left the agency on Friday everything was quiet. The Indians had received their goods and had all disappeared apparently satisfied with the Major's promise to send for them as soon as the money arrived to pay them their annuities.
The first attack of the Indians was made on the house of Mr. BAKER, on Sunday last, near the town of Acton, and 30 miles from Forest City, in which three white men and one woman were killed.
On Monday morning an attack was made on Redwood, and at the time the messenger left there, a number of persons had been killed.
After the messenger had crossed the river, he saw the Indians firing into traders' stores and other buildings. He estimated the number of Indians engaged in this firing at 150. He also stated that messengers had arrived at Fort Ridgley with money to pay off the Indians the sums due them.
The St. Paul Press, of the 21st instant, says that several loads of panic-stricken people, from Currer and Sibley Counties, arrived in town last night, principally women and children. They were greatly excited, and give exaggerated accounts of the Indians, who were marching on Shasta County. They also say that the towns of St. Peter, Henderson and Glencoe have been burned.
A private letter received in this city, to-day, from St. Paul, dated the 20th instant, says, that it seems to be the general opinion among the best informed of our citizens that these Indian troubles originated with the cursed Secessionists of Missouri.
Major GALBRAITH was told by one of the Indians that there are now in arms ten thousand of the Sioux tribe, besides other tribes from Northern Missouri.
ST. PAUL, Minn., Saturday, Aug. 23 -- 9 P.M.
ANTOINE FRENIER, the disguised Indian scout, got through the Indian lines into Fort Ridgeley and brought back the following to Gov. RAMSEY:
FORT RIDGELEY, Thursday, Aug. 21 -- 2 P.M.
We can hold this position but little longer unless we are reinforced. We are being attacked almost every hour, and unless assistance is rendered us we cannot hold out much longer. Our little band is becoming exhausted and decimated. We had hoped to be reinforced to-day, but as yet can hear of no one coming.
T.G. SHEHAN, of Company C, Fifth Minnesota Volunteers, commands the post.
Gov. SIBLEY cannot reach here with his twelve hundred troops until to-morrow, when a day of reckoning for the Indians will be at hand.
