PAPER UNIDENTIFIED

            (Either Waupaca Post or Waupaca Republican)

DATE UNIDENTIFIED (late 1800s)

 

A GALLANT DEFENSE.

Made by a Party of Whites When Attacked by Indians

 

Reminiscence of the Great Indian Uprising in Minnesota

A Nine Days’ Siege in a Stone Milk House

 

            On the morning of August 18, 1862, as I was carrying a pail of milk from the cow yard to the house on the farm of William Miller, seventeen miles from New Ulm, Minn., I saw a covered wagon coming across the prairie as fast as two horses could pull it.  I handed the pail into the house, called to Miller and his wife, and by the time we were out of doors the wagon had stopped at the gate.  It was a vehicle belonging to a man named Saunders, living about nine miles away, and he and his family were inside.  We had not yet reached the gate when he shouted:

            “Fly for your lives, the Indians are on the warpath!”

            He would have driven off with that, but one of his horses fell down in the harness from exhaustion.  There was Saunders, his wife and four children, and I never saw people so broken up. It was fully ten minutes before we could get their story in a shape to understand it.  The Sioux rebellion, which many pioneers had predicted had broken out at last.  For the past three months we had noticed a change in the demeanor of the Indians, some of whom called at the house almost daily.  They had become impudent and threatening, and many of the older settlers were becoming alarmed.  Some would have given up their farms, but there were a few smart Alecks who rode about he country saying there was no danger and that there were enough soldiers in the forts in the State to thrash all the Indians in the West.  These men were, as we afterward found out, interested in the sale of real estate, and of course they did not want any sensational reports sent East.  But for the civil war then raging there would have been no uprising of the Indians.  Uncle Sam had his hands full in the South, and hundreds of our young men had enlisted to fight the Confederates.

            Saunders had received warning at daylight from a settler on horseback, whose whole family had been butchered.  He was a teamster, and his wagon then contained a part of a load of stores which he was hauling out to a storekeeper in a new settlement. He had unloaded some of the stuff and flung in household goods and provisions, and had driven at such a pace as to exhaust one of his horses. Miller and his wife were Germans, cool and phlegmatic.  Their all was invested right there.  While they knew that trouble was at hand, they did not want to abandon everything at a mere alarm. We had three horses in the stable, and Saunders begged hard for one to take the place of his exhausted beast.  He was bound and determined to get on, even if he had to go on foot, and Miller consented to let the horse go.  While he was being harnessed in Saunders asked us to throw out some of the merchandise and lighten the vehicle.  We took out four kegs of powder, about one hundred pounds of lead, fifty pounds of shot, three double-barreled shot-guns and some groceries, and the horse was no sooner in the traces than Saunders drove off at a gallop.

            “Well, what shall we do?” asked Mrs. Miller, as we stood looking after the wagon.

            “Stay and fight,” replied the husband.

I was then a boy of sixteen, and had been with the Millers over a year.  There was never a day but that some of the Sioux came along, and in many instances they had eaten of our food.  Miller did not question the uprising, but he did not think it as serious a matter as it turned out to be, and with true Dutch grit he proposed to stick.  We went into breakfast, ate as heartily as usual, and when we were through my employer said:

“Now we will get ready for the Indians.”

As we went out doors we saw three columns of smoke in different directions, showing that the murderous redskins were at work.  Miller had one hundred and sixty acres of land, almost every acre as level as a floor.  We had just finished building a milk house over a spring, about three hundred feet from the house.  Around the spring was about two acres of broken ground, under-laid with rock, and we had blasted out sufficient of this to lay up the walls of the milk house.  Miller was a stonemason by trade, and his work had been well done.  The house was pretty large being eighteen by twenty-four inside the walls, and the walls were perhaps a foot thick.  The roof had been planked and then sodded, and the door was of heavy plank.  The place would make a capital fort, and while I was carrying into it such things as Mrs. Miller directed, the husband used a crowbar to make loopholes in the walls.  In the course of an hour he drove five or six, and then he bored two in the door with a big auger.

            We carried in all the provisions in the house, followed by the clothing and the bedding.  While we worked we kept our eyes opened for signs of Indians, but it was eleven o’clock before we saw them coming.  They were not more than a mile away when we retired to our fort and barricaded the door.  All the livestock had been turned loose and driven away, while the fowls were flying about on the prairie.  There was very little left in the house, and the worst they could do was to burn it.  When we shut ourselves up I missed two of the kegs of powder, but to my query as to what had become of them Miller made no reply, except by a laugh.  He had been working by himself all the forenoon, digging holes and running trenches, but I had been too busy to notice what he was up to.

            There were thirty-two mounted Indians in the band which came up, and among them they had five fresh scalps.  Every one had plunder of some sort from the settlers’ cabins, and two or three appeared much the worse for liquor.  They had probably seen us enter the milk house, for they rode right up to the cabin without fear.  We could see them very plainly, and among the gang we picked out several who had often been supplied with food and ammunition.  There were yells of rage from those who dismounted and entered the house to find it stripped, but presently a council was held in the one big room.  After a few minutes an Indian appeared around the corner of the house with a white rag tied to a stick, and when he had waved it a few times he called out that he wanted a “talk”.  Miller shouted to him to come on, and he advanced to within fifty feet of the fort before he stopped and called out:

            “All come out.  Indians no hurt Dutchman.”

            “Is there war?” shouted Miller.

            “No war – no war.  Young men get drunk and ride around, but no war.  Indians all like Dutchman.”

            “If you like us, then go away and leave us alone!” shouted Miller.

            “Will you come out?”

            “No.”

            “Then we burn house and kill all cattle!”

            The Indians were too anxious to get at their bloody work to waste much time in parleying.  The messenger was no sooner under shelter than the gang began to howl and whoop, and while some opened fire on us from the windows, others made preparations for a bonfire.  In about ten minutes the house was on fire, and the Indians crowded together on the far side.  It was a log house, and the roof fell in before the sides were badly ablaze. The slight wind blew the smoke and sparks directly over us, so that we could not see five feet.  The Indians continued to yell and dance for a time, but suddenly there was a terrific explosion and a dozen screams of terror.  I was looking into the smoke cloud, which now and then lifted for an instant, and I saw the burning logs of the house scattered to the four winds by the explosion.  Miller knew the reds would set the building on fire, and he had placed one of the kegs of powder where it would do the most good.  We counted five warriors killed or disabled by the explosion, and Miller killed two others before the crowd got out of range. The house was the best shelter from which to worry us, and they had lost by destroying it.

            The strength of our fort could be seen at a glance.  The Indians were wise enough not to attempt a rush, and the whole party were also impatient to push on to other scenes.  Six or eight more arrived soon after the explosion, and presently we saw them making ready to move off.   A general volley was fired at us, the war whoop was sounded, and the brief siege was raised.  It was half an hour before we ventured out, and not an Indian was in sight.  We could, however, see tall columns of black smoke whichever way we looked, and it was plain that the whole section was in the hands of the Indians. We could not at first make out why they had left us, but Miller soon concluded that they knew what they were about.  We had no means of escape left to us.  The savages were on every side, and if we attempted to leave the neighborhood we should fall into the hands of some of them.  It was quite safe to leave us there while they pushed on to butcher the defenseless ones.

            An hour after dinner we were joined by three young men who had been hiding, dodging and traveling since the evening before, and who had come a distance of twenty miles.  They were bachelor homesteaders, and all had rifles, revolvers and plenty of ammunition.  It was a welcome addition to our party, for we now felt that we would have to stand a siege.  Mrs. Miller brought out the pots and kettles, and cooked dinner on a fire in the open air; and after it was eaten she began to prepare food for the siege.  Pork was boiled, flour stirred into cakes, coffee made and put into jugs, and before night she had food enough to last a dozen men a week.  Meanwhile the rest of us had not been idle.  Some large posts were sunk in the earth before the door, leaving space enough for only one person to come in at us at a time that way.  Four more loopholes were made in the walls, and then the planking of the roof was loop-holed by means of the auger in at least twenty places.  I now saw what Miller had been up to the day before.  He had put in no less than three powder mines in the vicinity, running a slow match to each one.  The only cover the Indians could have in the neighborhood was in the rear of the fort, where we had mined the rock.  We had left a big hole, which was a natural rifle pit, and our loop-holes did not command it.  They would be sure to occupy this place, and the men prepared a torpedo holding fifteen pounds of powder, and hit id under the rocks and dirt on the brink of the pit.  A trench was then dug to and under the wall of the milk house, and by means of boards a train of powder was laid.  When the earth had been filled in again no one could have told that it had been disturbed.

            We were as ready as we could be at six o’clock, but the sun was just going down when we saw the Indians approaching.  By that time more than three thousand settlers had been butchered or driven from their homes, and the war which was to sweep over an extent of country two hundred miles long and sixty broad, and alarm thirty thousand settlers, had opened in all its fierceness.  The band which now approached numbered only sixteen warriors, and as soon as they saw our strength they fired a few shots at long range and passed on to the east.  At dark we entered the fort, arranged the goods and provisions to give us all the room possible, and by and by turned in to sleep while one man was left on watch.  This was Miller.  He was to watch until midnight, and then call one of the young men, but at eleven o’clock he quietly aroused the garrison and whispered the news that a large number of Indians had arrived.  We were scarcely awake before being made aware that our fort was being closely inspected by spies.  When we had carefully pulled the plugs from the loop-holes we could see and hear them moving about in large numbers.  By and by we heard a number of them on the roof.  They were probably investigating to see how to burn us out.  At a signal from Miller we took up our guns, carefully poked the muzzles through the loop-holes in the planks, and at another signal all fired.  We killed or wounded two Indians by the volley, and the others hastily departed.  Half an hour later two or three of the reds crept up to the barricade in front  of our door with arms full of light wood and started a fire.  The posts were only half seasoned, and all that afternoon I had kept them wet with water.  They charred a little under the flames, but the fire would not take hold.  From the number of Indians we could see, and to judge by the yells of those out of sight, our enemies numbered at least fifty.  After trying us with fire they drew off to wait for daylight, and the most of them probably went to sleep.

            When daylight came our enemies were re-enforced by a band of twelve, and these newcomers brought with them two settlers’ teams and wagons and three prisoners.  Two of the prisoners, a man and woman, were killed soon after coming up.  I knew the man.  He lived about eight miles away, and had frequently called at hour house.  The third prisoner was a settler none of us knew.  About an hour after daylight the Indians sent him forward with a white flag to demand our surrender.  He came up within thirty feet of our barricade, and then halted and told us what he had been commanded to do.  A dozen or more Indians had their rifles on him, ready to shoot in case he attempted to play them false.  He was a big, powerful fellow, and I never saw such grief and anxiety in a human countenance.  In a voice loud enough for the Indians to hear, he demanded our surrender, but in whispers he warned us not to, as every one of us would be butchered.  Miller replied to him from a loop-hole, telling him to go back to the Indians and ask their best terms. When he returned he was to come as close as possible, and at a signal he was to spring forward, and the door would be open for him.  He was a pretty cool fellow, in spite of all his sufferings.  He returned to the Indians, consulted for a few minutes, and when he came back to us he approached within twenty-five feet before they shouted to him to halt.  Then he told us that we would be permitted to take one of the teams and leave the country; that the Indians all loved us; that all they wanted was their land. We had our guns ready to cover him, and I saw him draw a long breath before the signal came.  As Miller uttered a whistle one of the men pulled open the door, and at the same instant the stranger made a spring for shelter.  It was a veritable spring for life.  The Indians fired at him, but too late, and he pitched in among us without a scratch.

            Then began a siege which lasted nine days, and in which over forty Indians were killed or wounded.  They gathered in the quarry, as expected, and Miller exploded the torpedo and killed four and badly wounded a dozen.  They tried every possible way to burn us out, and on one of these occasions, while they were congregated together, Miller spring another of his mines and killed several of them. Five or six different times they displayed a flag of truce and sought to coax or threaten us into surrender, but Miller was wise enough to refuse to trust them.   From first to last they fired about four thousand bullets at our fort, over a hundred of which lodged in the door, but none of us were wounded.  The besieging force never numbered less than thirty-five, and one day the number was over one hundred.