CHAPTER XXXVII.
CAMP ATCHISON--GEORGE A. BRACKETT'S ADVENTURE--LIEUTENANT FREEMAN'S DEATH.
Camp Atchison was the most important of all the camps on the whole route. It was here the General was visited by some three hundred Chippewa half-breeds, led by a Catholic priest named Father Andre, who told him that the Indians, hearing that General Sully, who was marching up the west side of the Missouri with a large body of troops, was delayed on account of low water, were deflecting their course in the hope of being reinforced by the Sioux inhabiting the country west of the Missouri.
The General, upon becoming satisfied of this, decided to push on as rapidly as possible after them, and to facilitate the movement he formed a permanent post at Camp Atchison, which is located about fifty miles southeast from Devil's Lake, where he left all the sick and broken-down men, and a large portion of his ponderous train, with a sufficient guard to protect them if attacked. With these arrangements completed, the column, with twenty-five days' rations for 1,500 infantry, 500 cavalry, 100 pioneers and artillery, started by forced marches to overtake the Indians before they reached the Missouri River.
On the morning of July 20th the General, with his selected men and reduced train, left Camp Atchison to pursue the Indians and engage them in battle. Attached to the expedition in the capacity of contractor was Mr. George A. Brackett, who met with an experience, the memory of which will remain with him during his life. It is most interesting and exciting, and his own version of it, as narrated at the "camp fire" when he found his old St. Anthony friends and Captain Chase's company, known as the "Pioneers," will be read with interest. Mr. Brackett says:
On the fourth day out, in company with Lieutenant Ambrose Freeman, of the Mounted Rangers, we left the main column for the purpose of adventure and game. I had my train started and in good hands, and got permission for the Lieutenant to accompany me. Five miles away, having met nothing worthy of note, we surveyed the country from the summit of a range of hills, when we saw several scouts not very far away. We struck a parallel course, believing we were moving in the same direction as the main column. While watering our horses in the lake, we espied two other scouts on the opposite side doing the same thing. We then moved farther on, over the range of bluffs, covering about three-quarters of a mile. We followed along parallel, or perhaps a little to the left of the main body, a distance of three miles. Lieutenant Freeman saw three antelopes, an old one and two young ones, in the distance. We fired and wounded the old one, who made off around the bluff. I held the Lieutenant's horse and he chased her on foot, which took us off our course some distance round the bluffs. We traversed a section of country bordering a large lake, near which we succeeded in killing the antelope.
As we were coming down to the lake and while the Lieutenant was creeping up toward the antelope, I again saw scouts on the opposite side of the lake, and the train was in sight on the hillside several miles distant. Instead of taking our course back, we had a curiosity to go around the lake to where we saw the scouts. On our way around we saw cherry bushes newly cut and piled up, and I set about to tear them down. Lieutenant Freeman persisted in saying that they were Indian signs and that Indians were in the vicinity. In preparation for them we cocked our rifles and made around the bushes, so as not to put ourselves in a too exposed position. We took our course, as we supposed, towards the train, or where the train had recently passed.
Between one and two o'clock we discovered three objects a long distance off, but between us and the train's course, and making for the train. This action, as soon as we came near enough to judge, convinced us that they were Indians, yet we kept on toward them, and they were making preparations to meet us, one leading and the other two riding their horses. We got all ready to give them a trial, they creeping around on one side of the bluff and we creeping around to meet them. I saw one with a straw hat on rise up and recognized him as one of our scouts. He beckoned us to come towards him. From all the description I had of him I supposed him to be Chaska, and the other two were full blood Sioux. Both had government horses, and armed, one with a Springfield and the other a carbine. I asked him where General Sibley was. They pointed to a hill, I should judge, three miles away from where we stood, in the direction where the train passed.
I saw a large number of men on a bluff, judged to be about two hundred in number, whom I supposed to be General Sibley's men looking for us. We all started directly for them, and as we did so, saw what we supposed to be a guard of cavalry starting towards us. After we had started the scouts turned to a little lake to water their horses, but the Lieutenant and myself having previously watered ours, did not go with them. We still saw the cavalry, as we supposed, about fifteen in number, coming towards us.
I remarked to Lieutenant Freeman that they must have turned back, as they had disappeared and were out of sight. We were soon surprised, however, by seeing fifteen Indians charging upon us as with a flag of truce; but they were not coming evidently in a friendly spirit, as they fired a volley upon us. I yelled to the scouts that they were Indians, and remarked to Lieutenant Freeman that we had better at once join the scouts, which we endeavored to do. When we got within twenty or twenty-five rods of the scouts we were riding about three rods apart. One Indian rode up to Lieutenant Freeman and shot an arrow through his back, on the left side, and at the same time another Indian dismounted and discharged his gun at me, but I laid low on my horse's neck, as close as I possibly could, and he shot over me, and Chaska stepped up to the top of a knoll and shot this same Indian who had fired at me.
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THE MINNESOTA MASSACRE OF 1862.
Price, to any address, { 60 Cents in Paper. { $1.00 and $1.50 in Cloth.
_A. P. CONNOLLY, Chicago._
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As Lieutenant Freeman dropped from his horse I asked him if he was hurt. He replied, "I am gone." He wished me to cut a piece of string which was around his neck, and supported a part of the antelope which he was carrying. As I cut the string he changed his position more on his side and more up hill. He asked faintly for water, which I gave him from my canteen, and by this time the scouts had mounted their horses and left us. The Indians were then all around us, and one at the side of the lake; but as the scouts ran toward them they fell back. Lieutenant Freeman, by this time being dead, I took his rifle and revolver and followed the scouts as fast as I could. The Indians mentioned as near the lake, seeing the Lieutenant's horse, which followed me, left us and started for the horse, thus enabling me to overtake the scouts. The Indians succeeded in catching the horse, and the whole crowd again started after us. We rode for about four miles, when we were overtaken and surrounded by them by the side of a little marsh. We all jumped from our horses. The scouts made motions and ran up to meet them, but Chaska motioned for me to jump into the tall rushes on the marsh. I saw nothing more of the scouts, and the Indians all rushed down to where the horses were. I cocked my rifle, and lay in the rushes within ten feet of where they were, and heard them quarrel about the possession of the horses. They presently settled their dispute and started off, for fear, as I supposed, of being overtaken by some of our forces. They took their course around the marsh in which I lay for an hour; this was about three p. m. A shower came up, and immediately after it cleared I started on my course, with the sun to my back, and traveled for two hours. I followed this direction for two days, stopping in marshes during the night. On the evening of the second day I struck a river of clear water, about a quarter of a mile wide, running in a southerly direction. Next morning I started due south, and traveled until almost night, when I took a westerly course, concluding that the trail was not in that direction; traveled a little to north of west, and struck Gen. Sibley's trail the afternoon of the third day, about twelve miles from where we camped the night before. I left the main column, and made the deserted camp that night. I started next morning on the back track for Camp Atchison, and made the painful journey in two days, arriving there the second night, between eight and nine o'clock, making the distance of the four camps in two days, bare-headed, barefooted and coatless. I was obliged to leave my rifle on the last day of my travel, but I could not carry it any farther, and made up my mind that this would probably be my last day. It was probably about nine o'clock, and I was about to give up when I came to a few tents and found them to be those of the Pioneers (Captain Chase's company of the Ninth Minnesota Infantry), and fell to the ground faint and unable to rise again. But, thank God! around that fire were sitting some of my old St. Anthony friends, who kindly picked me up and carried me to my tent.
I lost my coat, hat and knife in the fight the first day, so I took Lieutenant Freeman's knife, and with it made moccasins of my boot legs, as my boots so chafed my feet in walking that I could not possibly wear them. These improvised moccasins were constantly getting out of repair, and my knife was much needed to keep them in order for use, as well as to make them in the first place. But just before reaching the trail of the expedition on the fifth day I lost the knife, and the loss, I felt at the time, would have decided my fate if I had much farther to go. But a kind Providence was in my favor, for almost the first object that greeted my eyes upon reaching the trail was a knife, old and worn to be sure, but priceless to me. This incident some may deem a mere accident, but let such a one be placed in my situation at that time and he would feel with me that it was given in answer to a prayer made to the great Giver of Good. On the third day, about ten miles from the river spoken of, I left Lieutenant Freeman's rifle on the prairie because I became too weak to carry it longer; besides, it had already been so damaged by rain that I could not use it. I wrote upon it that Lieutenant Freeman had been killed, and named the course I was then pursuing. The pistol I retained and brought with me to Camp Atchison.
While wandering I lived on cherries, roots, birds' eggs, young birds and frogs, caught by my hands, all my ammunition but one cartridge having been spoiled by the rain of the first day. That cartridge had a gutta percha case and was preserved. It was my only hope for fire when I should need it, or when I dared venture to make one. I had also some water-proof percussion caps in my portmanteau, which were also put to good use. I took one-half the powder in the cartridge, with a percussion cap, and with the use of my pistol and some dried grass, started a fire at which I cooked a young bird. How did I catch the bird? Well, Providence again favored me, and as I was lying low and making no noise, the bird wandered so near that by firing a stick I had with me in such a manner as to make it whirl horizontally, it struck the bird on the side of the head and broke its neck. This was on the second night. On the fourth I used the remainder of the cartridge in the same way and for a like purpose. The rest of the time I ate my food uncooked. Except some hard bread (found at the fourth camp mentioned above), which had been fried and then thrown in the ashes. I have forgotten one sweet morsel (and all were sweet and very palatable to me), viz., some sinews spared by wolves from a buffalo carcass. As near as I am able to judge I traveled in the seven days at least two hundred miles. I had ample means for a like journey in civilized localities, but for the first time in my life found gold and silver coin not legal tender. My boot-leg moccasins saved me, for a walk of ten miles upon such a prairie, barefooted, would stop all farther progress of any person accustomed to wearing covering upon the feet. The exposure at night, caused more particularly by lying in low and wet places, in order to hide myself, was more prostrating to me than scarcity of food. The loneliness of the prairies would have been terrible in itself, but for the drove of wolves that after the first day hovered, in the day time, at a respectful distance, and at night howled closely around me, seemingly sure that my failing strength would soon render me an easy prey. But a merciful Providence has spared my life by what seems now, even to myself, almost a miracle.
The body of Lieutenant Freeman was afterwards found and buried by members of General Sibley's main force. An arrow had pierced his breast, and the tomahawk and scalping knife had left bloody traces about his head. He was buried on the desolate plain, five hundred miles away from his beloved, bereaved wife and children. After the war closed his body was exhumed, carried to his late home, and re-interred by loving hands, with all the honors due a brave soldier. The peculiar circumstances of his death, my last moments with him, my subsequent days of weary, dangerous wandering, my suffering, anxiety and happy deliverance have made an impression upon my memory so indelible that time has not, nor cannot efface them.
My friend Brackett and myself came to St. Anthony, Minn., on the same day, May 1st, 1857, and we "put up" at the same hotel, and it is most interesting to hear him relate this wonderful adventure and marvelous escape. He yet lives to tell the story, and poor Freeman! It seemed sad to leave him in his lonely grave on the prairie wild, but such is the fate of war.