CHAPTER XXIV.

HOMEWARD BOUND.

"We start for home to-morrow morning," were the gladsome words passed around the camp-fire on the evening of the 22d of October. The nights were getting chilly, and the shortening days indicated that the autumn was fast passing away, and that warmer quarters than our tents would soon be an absolute necessity. The contemplation of the homeward march was a pleasure, for there were ties of friendship there that forbade procrastination. A sad thought came over us as we remembered the poor fellows who had given up their lives--their waiting ones at home would wait in vain.

Reveille sounded early one morning, and after a hurried breakfast of coffee and hard tack, the headquarters bugle sounded "strike tents," and the city of canvas was soon razed to the ground. With the captives and prisoners we took up our line of march for Yellow Medicine, where the commission appointed by the General tried and condemned 305 Indians to hang.

The morning we left Camp Release the sun shone brightly, the sky was clear, but there was frost in the air; and, as we were on very short rations and only one blanket each, we were in high glee as we marched out to the music of the band. I think our steps were more than the regulation twenty-eight inches, for we were headed towards God's country--home. About four p. m. the fierce fall wind veered around in our faces, and coming as it did off the burnt prairie, our faces soon presented the appearance of men from the interior of Africa. We were black in the face. At five o'clock we went into camp. It was pitch dark, with the wind blowing a hurricane, and in the darkness, infantry, cavalry, and artillery were one interminable mass of troops and order was impossible. So the orders were: "By company, left wheel, halt;" "stack arms;" "break ranks," with orders to pitch tents and get under cover. To make fires and cook supper was impossible, so we supped on raw salt pork, hard tack, and cold water. The Sibley tents blew down as fast as put up, and in this condition we crawled under them to get the best protection possible from the fierce northern blast. Some of the men had found potato cellars that had been dug in the hillside by the Indians, and taking possession of them were thus afforded good, warm quarters and plenty of potatoes to eat. In this respect they were much more fortunate than the rest of us who were on the outside and had all we could do to keep from freezing to death. The storm abated somewhat by morning, so we could make our fires, which we did, and availed ourselves of the Indian potatoes, and with salt pork, hard tack and coffee made a hearty breakfast and were soon on the march again.

The exposure of that night gave many of us the rheumatism, and it took several hours' march to get ourselves limbered up, but the day was bright and we were homeward bound. We made a good day's march, and pitched our tents in the valley of the Red Wood.

The Indian camp, consisting principally of women and children, had been previously removed to this place from Yellow Medicine, where the quartermaster had erected a large board prison to hold the captive red men, who had all been condemned by the Commission. The papers had been sent on to President Lincoln for his final decision, and we were here awaiting developments.

The condemned Indians were sent under strong guard to Camp Sibley, on the banks of the Red Wood River. They were chained together and kept in a structure built for the purpose, and their squaws, who were camped on the outside, were allowed to cook for them under the supervision of a guard, to prevent them from smuggling knives or a weapon of any kind on the inside of the enclosure.

After a week or ten days we again took up the line of march to a destination known only to the General and his Staff, but which proved to be that the Seventh Minnesota, under Colonel William R. Marshall, should proceed with the prisoners to Mankato, and the Sixth Minnesota, under Colonel Crooks, should report at Fort Snelling for further orders. The two regiments marched together until we reached a point some way below New Ulm. Nothing of importance took place until we reached this place. The General having heard that the citizens had determined to kill every redskin regardless of consequences if they could possibly get hold of them, took precaution against it. It was said that every house was supplied with hot water, hot soft soap and anything and everything that ingenuity could invent to inflict sudden and sure punishment, and death if possible, to those that had brought such woe to them. For this reason the General changed his course somewhat, and making a detour to the right, escaped the necessity or perhaps bloodshed, in trying to save his captives from the hands of this justly furious people. Men and women turned out en masse and hurling imprecations, flourishing butcher knives, table knives, and even scissors, axes, pitchforks--in fact, every sort of weapon--seemed determined to get at them, and abused soldiers and Indians alike because they were held at bay. They followed us for two or three miles before they became convinced that the General was determined at all hazards to uphold the supremacy of the government in protecting these blood-stained captives from the furies of a people who had suffered so much at the hands of some of their tribes in the murder of their innocent women and children.

At a point below New Ulm the command was divided, a portion taking all the condemned men to Mankato, and the balance of the command proceeding to Fort Snelling.

At Mankato, as the days wore away and there was some doubt as to what the final decision of President Lincoln would be, great fear was entertained that there would be a general uprising of the people, and an attempt made to override military and civil law by wresting the Indians from the soldiers and instituting a general massacre of them, irrespective of their guilt or innocence, but Colonel Stephen Miller, the post commander, having determined that law and not lawlessness should prevail, used the utmost vigilance to defeat any such undertaking.