CHAPTER XXV.

PROTESTS--PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S ORDER FOR THE EXECUTION.

The Indians did not seem to feel cast down; some in fact appeared rather to enjoy the situation; others, again, were more serious, and were probably speculating as to the probable outcome of the unfortunate condition of affairs. The soldiers did not relish the idea of guarding them, and one night a conspiracy, which I overheard, was formed to create a false alarm in the camp and in the excitement fall on the Indians and murder them. The plot leaked out and the plan miscarried, as it should, for it would have been rank murder to have executed it. Among the prisoners there were many who really were not guilty, but had been caught in bad company. The prisoners were arraigned upon written charges specifying the criminating acts, and these charges were signed by General Sibley, and with but few exceptions were based on information furnished by Rev. S. R. Riggs, who had long been a missionary among them. The majority of the prisoners were condemned to death, and the news reaching the East, far away from the scene of the outrages, petitions went in from many New England cities, imploring the President to exercise clemency toward this unfortunate people. He yielded to the clamor in so far as only to include the very worst characters among them.

Bishop Whipple said: "There are times when the Christian laborer has a right to ask for the sympathy, the prayers and the co-operation of our fellow-citizens, and to make a strong appeal in behalf of this most wretched race of heathen men on the face of the earth. The responsibility," he says, "is great, the fearful issues are upon us, and as we are to settle them justly or unjustly we shall receive the blessing or curse of Almighty God. Many of these victims of savage ferocity were my friends. They had mingled their voices with mine in prayer; they had given to me such hospitality as can only be found in the log cabin of the frontier; and it fills my heart with grief, and blinds my eyes with tears, when I think of their nameless graves. It is because I love them and would save others from their fate that I ask that the people shall lay the blame of this great crime where it belongs, and rise up with one voice to demand the reform of the atrocious Indian system, which has always garnered for us the same fruit of anguish and blood."

Thousands of miles away from the scene of the outrages perpetrated against the inoffensive white settlers, protests were sent in to the President from all sorts of humanitarians, imploring him to stay the sentence that condemned to death so many human beings. The provocation to indiscriminately condemn and hang was very great, for thousands of innocents had been ruthlessly murdered; no moments of warning were given them; no former kindnesses seemed to be remembered by the Indians, and their hands were steeped in their friends' blood, and there seemed no palliating circumstances. The enormity of the outbreak and the fiendish cruelty of the redskins were appalling; the people were paralyzed with astonishment and fear, and the witnesses, no doubt mistaken and prejudiced, gave such positive testimony that the commission felt satisfied in pronouncing them guilty of murder in the first degree; but would this have been the case if these prisoners had been white instead of red?

No doubt General Sibley himself was surprised when he learned of the indiscriminate condemnation of these prisoners, and was glad not to be held responsible for their hanging.

It is a fact that there were Indians found with arms in their hands in nearly all the battles, but their object was to protect the women and children prisoners, and they said they must make a show of fighting whether they did or not in order to accomplish this. It would have been a great stain on the fair name of our country if this wholesale hanging had occurred, and President Lincoln acted wisely in overruling the recommendation of the commission, which he did to such an extent as to sanction the execution of thirty-nine of the condemned men, and the balance to be further held as prisoners until he should designate a reservation to which they should be sent. During the time the preparations were being made to carry out the President's order the people were clamorous. They were not satisfied with the modification of the President's order, and grave rumors were abroad that there would be a vigorous effort made to take the Indians from the soldiers and have a wholesale execution, but the military authorities prevented it.

The President acted wisely in this matter. In fact, the state of the public mind was such and the pressure within our lines was exercised to such a degree that the President could do nothing less. If all the condemned Indians had been executed the impression would have gone abroad that the great government of the United States was putting to death its prisoners of war, and this would have done much toward bringing about a recognition of the Southern Confederacy.

The President's order was as follows:

"Executive Mansion, Washington, December 6, 1862.

Brigadier-General H. H. Sibley, St. Paul, Minn.:

Ordered, that the Indians and half-breeds sentenced to be hanged by the military commission, composed of Colonel Crooks, Lieutenant-Colonel Marshall, Captain Grant, Captain Bailey and Lieutenant Olin, and lately sitting in Minnesota, you cause to be executed on Friday, the 19th day of December, instant.

The other condemned prisoners you will hold subject to further orders, taking care that they neither escape nor are subjected to any unlawful violence.

Abraham Lincoln, President of United States."

The execution was carried out on the 26th of December, 1862. Thirty-eight were hanged.