That Sunday night, we went into camp opposite the Lower Sioux Agency, at the mouth of Birch Coulie, a very much exposed place. Had the hostile Sioux known it, they might have successfully attacked us from at least three sides of our encampment, in that little oat-stubble field all aglow with our camp fires. Fortunately, however, they were not there to molest us that night.

Nothing of special interest occurred, except that, about midnight, the lieutenant of Captain Grant's company, who was the officer of the day, came into the captain's tent and reported that one of the guard, on duty, was found delinquent of the password for the night. Captain Grant replied, "Lieutenant, that does not accord well with your first report, that you had 'the best guard mounted that ever was on duty in the Minnesota valley." "Oh no! Captain, but all is right now," was the lieutenant's reply.

The next morning we finished burying the dead in that vicinity. For the same purpose, a small party crossed the Minnesota river, with Mr. Nathan Myrick, and recovered the body of his brother, Mr. Andrew Myrick, and that of Mr. J. W. Lynd. They were murdered at the Lower Sioux Agency, among the first victims of the outbreak.

BATTLE OF BIRCH COULIE.

In the meantime, others, chiefly of the cavalry or mounted men, reconnoitered. A few of them ventured as far up as the Redwood crossing, and there recrossed the Minnesota river, and returned, late in the evening of that day, to Captain Grant's camp, three miles from the mouth of the Birch Coulie, at the crossing of the old Lac Qui Parle road. They reported that they saw no Indians in all that region reconnoitered by them. But the hostile Sioux saw them, and their spies followed them down from the Redwood crossing, saw them ride into that encampment for the night, and then returned and reported to Little Crow.

Thereupon, the entire force of the hostile Sioux marched down that night, and before daylight the next morning attacked Captain Grant and his command in that encampment with most disastrous results, killing twenty-three and wounding sixty of our soldiers and citizens. Ninety-two horses were

shot and killed or mortally wounded, including all the transportation teams and nearly all the cavalry horses in that expedition.

The dead horses, however, proved helpful to the survivors in the camp, who promptly utilized them in constructing impromptu barricades or breastworks, behind which they were enabled to withstand the attack, holding the camp against the firing of the Sioux, until they were relieved. But the defence was not without loss of some more of their bravest and best comrades, such as Mr. Holbrook of Belle Plaine and Mr. Dickinson of Henderson, both of whom I had known for many years before that terrible battle.

Fortunately for myself and horse, on the afternoon of Monday, the day before that disaster occurred at Birch Coulie, hav ing finished the burial of the dead up to the mouth of the coulie and in its vicinity, with the leave of Captain Grant, I returned with my horse and buggy to Fort Ridgely, and, as directed by Captain Grant, reported to General Sibley, commander in chief of the Minnesota volunteers.

The next morning, very early, even before it was daylight, after my return to the fort, we heard the firing of guns, but such was the confused sound and strange reverberation that it seemed almost impossible for any of us, even the most expert men present, including General Sibley and his staff officers, to determine certainly from what direction the reports of musketry came, whether from Captain Grant's camp at Birch Coulie crossing, or from New Ulm, down the Minnesota' river.

Finally, General Sibley decided to send up a detachment of soldiers, with orders to go with all possible speed directly to Captain Grant's camp. It was almost noon, however, when all was ready and the relief detachment marched out in that direction, and so nearly was it dark that evening when they neared Captain Grant's camp, about fifteen miles distant from Fort Ridgely, that they could not in the twilight distinctly and certainly see whether it was his camp or that of the hostile Sioux. So they waited there until the early dawn of the next morning, when they marched into that almost annihilated encampment, strewn with the bodies of our soldiers, and surrounded, as it was, with the dead horses, riddled wagons, and

impromptu earthworks. Then they understood why they could not in the dim twilight, of the evening before, recognize the encampment as that of our soldiers.

The following citizens of St. Paul were killed in the Birch Coulie battle, namely, Robert Baxter, Fred S. Beneken, William M. Cobb, John Colledge, George Colter, Robert Gibbons, William Irvine, William Russell, Benjamin S. Terry, and H. Walters. Their bodies were recovered and brought to this city for interment.

Having returned to Fort Ridgely and reported to General Sibley, and having accomplished, as I thought, about all that I could well do as a volunteer chaplain in the public service, and learning that Rev. S. R. Riggs was under appointment as chaplain and designated as interpreter of the Sioux language for that expedition, and that he would soon be there to accompany General Sibley's command, I obtained leave from him and returned home.

SUMMARY OF LOSSES BY THE MASSACRE AND WAR.

Various estimates have been made of the number of white people killed by the hostile Sioux in 1862. The most probable number, all told, was not far from five hundred, including the soldiers who fell in the battles at the Lower Agency, New Ulm, Birch Coulie and Wood Lake. That entire portion of the upper Minnesota valley, including the whole or large parts of some fifteen or twenty counties of our state, was fearfully desolated, and for the time almost entirely depopulated. Nor has it yet, in 1899, fully recovered.

The mission stations, the United States Indian agencies, churches and schools, were all broken up, the buildings were burned, and the people were either murdered or frightened away. Some of the women and children were taken captive by the hostile Sioux, and while in captivity were in constant fear of death.

AID BY FRIENDLY DAKOTAS.

Very few, if any, of the Christian Sioux, who were then connected with the Presbyterian mission churches among them, were found guilty of participating in that outbreak and the murder of the white settlers in Minnesota. And it is worthy of record here that all the white people who were rescued

and saved alive were directly or indirectly saved by the Christian Indians, who in so doing greatly jeopardized their own lives and those of their families. That so many white people were enabled to escape was, indeed, as if by a special Divine providence and merciful dispensation of God, which to us seemed almost as miraculous as the deliverance of the apostle Peter from prison more than eighteen hundred years ago.

Among the loyal and friendly Dakotas, who were most active and efficient, and who were distinguished for their zeal and helpfulness in behalf of the imperilled and defenceless white people during that dreadful ordeal, I may mention the following names, with brief recital of their heroic aid.

Paul Maza-ku-ta-ma-ne and Antoine Renville were the first to notify Dr. S. R. Riggs and his family, and others then at Hazelwood mission station, and begged them to "hasten and escape." At midnight these two friendly Sioux guided and otherwise assisted them in their flight through the tall, wet grass, to the Minnesota river; took them in canoes, and piloted their wagons and teams to an island; and there left them. for a time in that somewhat concealed place for safety.

Thence these refugees from Hazelwood and its vicinity were led in their escape by Chaskedan (Robert Hopkins), an elder in Dr. Williamson's mission church, who kindly drove Dr. Williamson's team and guided the escaping party successfully out through the lines of the mounted hostile Indians, although they were vigilantly patrolling all that region and were conscripting every Sioux into the war against the whites. Chaskedan is the same full-blooded Indian who, when a boy, with his father, near Lac Qui Parle, several years before the outbreak, had saved Mr. Joseph A. Wheelock from drowning in the Chippewa river.

Simon Anawag-ma-ne, another good man, when Dr. Williamson's team had been taken away before he decided to leave, brought his own ox team and strong wagon, and gave them to the doctor, thus enabling him and his family to escape from the impending danger and make their way to St. Peter. Anawag-ma-ne was the same brave and kind man who afterwards befriended Mrs. Newman and her captive children while in camp, and, at an opportune time, brought them down in his one-horse wagon, through the lines of the hostile Sioux, in safety to Fort Ridgely.

Enoch Marpiya-hdi-na-pe (Cloud in Sight), another fullblood Dakota Indian, who was in sympathy with the whites, very early in that momentous crisis warned Dr. Williamson of the uprising and the murderous designs of the Indians, and of the fearful possibility that he and other friendly Indians might not much longer be able to protect him and his family and save them alive. He entreated Dr. Williamson to leave and try to reach a place of safety before it would be too late, thus leading him to escape with the Hazelwood party.

Lorenzo Lawrence, also a full-blood Dakota, in the midst of that fiery trial, left Hazelwood with canoes lashed together side by side, and hiding by day and paddling the canoes by night, brought down a precious cargo, comprising Mrs. De Camp and her three children and Mrs. Robideau and five children, together with his own wife and five children, sixteen in all, and landed them safely at Fort Ridgely. When Mrs. De Camp's little child fell overboard in the darkness of the night, Lorenzo plunged into the river and rescued and restored it to its mother's arms; and this was characteristic of that good man, whom I knew from 1848 to the day of his death.

Wakan-ma-ne (Walking Spirit), very early after the outbreak occurred, like a tender and compassionate father, took charge of Mrs. Amos W. Huggins and her two little children, after her husband was killed, August 19th, at Lac Qui Parle. He protected them from the hostile Sioux, gave them food and shelter, and faithfully delivered them in safety to General Sibley at Camp Release. Amanda, Wakan-ma-ne's wife, in her sympathy and kind care of Mrs. Huggins and her little children, walked down thirty miles and back to obtain flour and make wheat bread for them, during their captivity, the mother and children not being able to eat the corn used in the tent life of the Dakotas.

There were also a number of other good Christian Indian women who joined heartily and faithfully in befriending and helping the white people. Among them was Zoe, who very considerately and in the nick of time carried the forgotten bag of bread from the mission home over to Mrs. Riggs, while as yet the party were in their hiding place on the island opposite the Hazelwood mission station. In like manner Winyan, a