The Lower or Redwood Agency was fourteen miles above Fort Ridgeley, on the Minnesota River. The excitement here was intense for a month before the outbreak. A "Soldiers' Lodge," a secret organization, designed to stir up the tribe to hostile action, was formed, and succeeded at length in exciting the passions of the Indians to the required pitch. Early on the morning of August 18th a party of one hundred and fifty Sioux under Little Crow began an indiscriminate massacre of the whites on both sides of the river. All the buildings at the Agency were burned. History of the Sioux War,  by I. V. D. Heard.")?>

News of the massacre reached Fort Ridgeley before noon, and Captain Marsh, of the Fifth Minnesota Volunteers, started at once for the Agency with forty-eight men. This small force was surrounded by the Sioux at the ferry opposite the Agency, and one-half of them killed, the rest escaping by flight. Messengers were now sent by Little Crow to other Indian bands, many of whom at once joined him.

That night a converted Indian notified the people at Hazlewood, the mission station six miles above the Upper Agency, of their danger, and forty-two persons, including the missionaries Riggs and Williamson, with their families, made their escape. Their safe passage through the numerous scattered bands of hostiles on their route seems almost miraculous. On the very day of the outbreak—just a day too late—seventy-two thousand dollars for the payment of the Indians reached Fort Ridgeley.

For nearly three weeks the Indians had it all their own way, meeting with no effectual resistance, so many of the men being absent in the Union army. Their depredations extended throughout the whole western portion of Minnesota, and into Iowa and Dakota. They were repulsed from Forts Ridgeley and Abercrombie, and from the settlements at New Ulm and Hutchinson. In two weeks fifteen or twenty of the frontier counties were almost depopulated. When a stop was finally put to their devastations, more than six hundred victims had fallen, and two hundred persons, mostly women and children, had been made captive.

By the last of August a small force had been collected at Fort Ridgeley, and one hundred and fifty men, under Colonel Joseph P. Brown, were, as soon as possible, sent to the Lower Agency as a burial party. After performing this sad service, no signs of Indians being visible, they encamped for the night at a place called "Birch Coolie." At dawn next day the camp was suddenly attacked, and, as it was in a most exposed situation, the men fought at a great disadvantage. In three hours nearly one-half the force had been killed or disabled. When relieved by Colonel Sibley they had been thirty-one hours without food or water.

Late in September, Sibley's troops moved up the valley, and fought the battle of Wood Lake, which terminated the contest. Sibley's camp was attacked by eight hundred Indians early in the morning. After a sharp action of an hour and a half a charge was made, led by Lieutenant-colonel Marshall, of the Seventh Minnesota Volunteers, and the Indians fled in all directions; the chiefs Little Crow, Little Six, and their followers escaped to the British Possessions. The Indian camp, left in charge, of the converted Indians, with all the plunder, fell into the hands of the victors, and the white prisoners, two hundred in number, regained their liberty.

That the lives of these prisoners had been spared was owing in great measure to the heroic exertions of Paul, a friendly Indian, head deacon of Mr. Riggs's Indian church. The Upper band, to which he belonged, had withheld their support from Little Crow's followers, and condemned their action as hasty and ill-advised. But for the feud between the Upper and Lower Agency Indians, the contest would have been much more serious, and would have lasted much longer. A number of the captured Sioux were hung during the following winter.

Next year a combined force of Sioux and Blackfeet, numbering some twelve or fifteen hundred warriors, were committing depredations and outrages on the Minnesota settlers. An expedition was sent against them under General Alfred Sully. The Indian camp was discovered, and on Sully's approach the Indians scattered, taking with them whatever they could carry. The troops charged at full speed, endeavoring to surround and drive them back to their camp, in the hope of capturing the entire band. Soon the whole force was actively engaged, each lean fighting "on his own hook." The battle raged in every direction, and lasted far into the night.

General Sully at length recalled his scattered command, and building large fires remained under arms all night. At daylight next morning it was discovered that the Indians had gone, leaving their dead and wounded, their plunder, and all their property of every description.

This battle of White Stone Hill was the severest blow the Sioux had ever received. They lost about 100 killed and wounded, 156 prisoners, 300 lodges, 1000 ponies, and all their supply of meat for the winter, besides other property of value to them. General Sully's loss was 20 killed and 38 wounded.

The policy of removing the eastern tribes to the far West brought on, as we have seen, the Black Hawk and Seminole wars. Our recent troubles with the wild tribes of the plains have been occasioned by the policy of restricting them to fixed places of residence, or reservations, and by the non-fulfillment of our treaty obligations. The rush to the mining regions, and the building of the Pacific Railroad through the Indian country, let in a constant stream of emigration, drove away the buffalo, and was felt to be a serious injury by the Indians. It is not to be wondered at that they stubbornly resisted. Their right to the country as their permanent home had been solemnly guaranteed to them by the treaty at Fort Laramie in 1851.

These wild tribes have a mode of government apparently patriarchal, but in reality almost republican. Each member of a band does as he pleases, and obeys his chief when he likes. The authority of the chief is based solely upon his prowess in war.

The family is the basis of their organization. The members of a family generally travel, hunt, and fight together, in time constituting with its marriage connections a band varying from two to twenty or thirty lodges. These bands, connected more remotely by blood with other bands, constitute a tribe which may number from two to thirty or forty bands. These tribes again have a still more remote blood connection with other tribes, constituting a nation such as that of the Sioux, which comprises the Yankton, Brulé, Teton, Ogalalla, and other tribes.

Like the rest of his race, the wild Indian of the plains believes in two gods, equal in wisdom and power. The good god who favors and protects him, and the bad god who does all he can to harm him. If an Indian means to steal a horse, or the wife of his friend, it is to the good god that he looks for success. Death, sickness, and every disaster are in the hands of the bad god, and to him the Indian constantly prays for mercy and indulgence. No prayer is necessary to the good deity; he will do his best without being asked. In only two ways can the soul be prevented from entering paradise, by scalping or by strangulation. The first is annihilation, the second closes the only avenue by which the soul can leave the body.

The Indian has no code of morals, no conception of right and wrong; bad and good are the words nearest in meaning to those. He will tell you it is bad to steal from a man of his own band, because he will be beaten and kicked out of the band if detected; but it is good and praiseworthy to steal from all others. The expert thief is held in high honor, and is almost the equal of the brave and skilful warrior. The Indian is a great boaster, and is very fond of "blowing his own trumpet."

For a wife, a certain number of ponies, saddles, buffalo-robes, etc., are paid. These the lover places near the door of his mistress's lodge over-night. If, when morning comes, they have not been removed, his suit has been rejected. But if the ponies have been sent to the herd and the other articles taken, the lover's offer is accepted. There is no marriage-ceremony, or formality of any kind.

"Medicine" is a great word with the Indian. He applies it to everything mysterious and unaccountable. It has a specially religious meaning, whatever he can refer to the good god being "good medicine," while everything the opposite of that is "bad medicine." When things go wrong with him, his medicine is bad; that is, he is for the time in the power of the bad god. Every Indian carries about with him a medicine-pouch, in which is kept some charm that will insure him success in whatever he is about to undertake. In each tribe there is a "medicine chief," who is the authority in spiritual affairs. In battle he must prove the efficacy of his medicine by risking his life where the danger is greatest, to show the perfect safety it insures.

The variety of dialects among the Plains Indians led long ago to the adoption of a sign language, an almost perfect means of communication in constant use to this day.

Of the Comanches a recent writer says: "These fierce, untamed savages roam over an immense region, eating the raw flesh of the buffalo, drinking its warm blood, and plundering Mexicans, Indians, and whites with judicial impartiality. Arabs and Tartars of the desert, they remove their villages (pitching their lodges in regular streets and squares) hundreds of miles at the shortest notice. The men are short and stout, with bright, copper faces and long hair, which they ornament with glass beads and silver gewgaws."

Catlin says of them: "In their movements they are heavy and ungraceful, and on their feet one of the most unattractive and slovenly races I have ever seen; but the moment they mount their horses they seem at once metamorphosed, and surprise the spectator with the ease and grace of their movements. A Comanche on his feet is out of his element, and comparatively almost as awkward as a monkey on the ground, without a limb or a branch to cling to; but the moment he lays his hand upon his horse his face even becomes handsome, and he gracefully flies away an altogether different being."

In 1866 the military department of the Missouri, comprising the vast region between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains, was the home of the warlike Sioux, Arapahoes, Kiowas, Cheyennes, Comanches, Apaches, Navajos, and Utahs. Emigration to the gold regions of Montana, then recently discovered, followed the Powder River route. For its protection, the military posts of Phil Kearney and C. F. Smith were established in the Sioux territory. Government was at once warned that this measure would be resisted. A treaty was tried. It was signed by some of the Indians, but Red Cloud, their great chief, refused his assent, withdrew from the council, and, placing his hand upon his rifle, said, "In this and the Great Spirit I trust for the right."

This celebrated chief, born at the Forks of the Platte in 1830, is six feet and six inches in height, and possesses wonderful sagacity and eloquence. His numerous warriors, in their red blankets and paint, are said to have covered the hills like a red cloud, hence his name. He was made a chief for his bravery, and claims to have fought in eighty-seven battles, having been several times wounded. He had risen to be head chief at the age of thirty, and when he declared war to the knife against the white men who should invade his country, the delighted warriors all flocked eagerly to his standard. After a long and harassing war he gained his point. The United States garrisons were withdrawn, the road through the region was abandoned, and the of Red Cloud was established among the Indians as the greatest warrior in the world.

Before this was brought about, the forts had been closely besieged, emigrant travel had ceased, and the country was overrun with hostile Indians. A wood party from Fort Phil Kearney was attacked; Colonel Fetterman with half the garrison went to its relief, and, in the fight that followed, every man of the force was killed. By the end of July following, Red Cloud had gathered three thousand warriors, and had resolved on the destruction of the fort.

Near it a working party was early one morning engaged in cutting fuel, protected by Brevet-major Powell's company of fifty-one men. Expecting all attack, fourteen wagon-bodies made of boiler iron were lifted from the wheels and arranged in a compact circle. This the frontiersman calls a corral; this was the stronghold. Here a watchful guard was kept, and to this shelter all were to fly in case of attack.

Suddenly, a rush upon the herders in charge of the cattle, the guard, and the workmen, separated them from the escort, and forced them to fly to the fort. The Indians at once turned their attention to the corral. Here were two officers, twenty-six private soldiers, and four citizens distributed around in the wagons, which, in order to confuse the enemy, were so covered with blankets as to entirely conceal the defenders. The odds were terrific. Eight hundred splendidly mounted warriors dashed head-long upon their apparently insignificant foe, but Major Powell and his handful of brave men had made up their minds to sell their lives dearly.

On they came. A steady and effective fire thinned their ranks. Others took the places of the fallen, and rode close up to the corral, but could see no enemy. Nothing was visible but the covered wagon-beds; but before the constant and accurate fire from these the assailants steadily diminished, until, routed and disheartened, they turned and rapidly retreated. Thousands of Indian spectators swarmed over the elevated plateaux which rose on all sides from the corral.

After consulting the principal chiefs, Red Cloud decided to make another attack, this time on foot, and with his entire force. Warriors armed with Spencer or Winchester carbines, taken in the Fetterman massacre, were sent forward as sharp-shooters. Crouching on the ground, covering themselves with shields or bunches of grass, they approached and opened fire upon the wagon-beds. The soldiers returned their fire so rapidly that their gun-barrels became overheated. Spare guns had been placed in each wagon, to be used by selected marksmen.

Red Cloud's nephew, anxious to win renown and to become his uncle's successor, now gathered two thousand warriors in the plains. When within five hundred yards they rushed forward, and had nearly reached the corral when they were obliged to turn and fly, so deadly was the fire. Again and again they charged, only to repeat their failure, and it was not until after three hours of energetic but futile effort that the attack was finally abandoned.

The Indians could not understand their ill success, but concluded that the white men had made some "medicine guns" which "would fire all the time." They were not far wrong. Among the supplies recently received by the garrison were some breech-loading rifle-muskets, combining extremely long range and accuracy with the utmost rapidity in firing. The Indian loss was not far from three hundred. Powell had one officer and two privates killed, and two privates wounded.