The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1862-11-21
The Indian Expedition.
Letter from Gen. Sibley's Camp.
Interesting Account of the Indian Trials.
CAMP SHELLEY, LOWER AGENCY,
4

TO the Editor Of the Pioneer.
Our ambulatory military campaign,
which commenced its sessions at Camp
Release, for the trial of the ''mulatto mix
ed bloods and Indians" engaged in the
Sioux raids. has closed its labors and been
relieved from duty.
Four hundred and ninety eight cases
have been disposed Of so that you can see
the calender of the Commission was for
midable one.
At Camp Release, or Sibley, a tent SER
we'd for q courtroom. but here more COM
Portable accommodations were obtained in
q log building formerly occupied by half
breed named La Bate, for unromantic
kitchen purposes, but hencefOrth to pass
into history and be immortalized.
Blood-stained are the surrounding pre-
cincts. Ten steps below are the remains
of its poor owners dwelling. His Sioux
blood did not save him. The savages shot
him on his door-steps, and afterwards set
fire to the building. Since we came down
the soldiers drew out his charred remains
from among the ashes. A little beyond,
between the house and the stable, his clerk
was shot with arrows
Just above is Myrick's store, where
Lyde, the first victim, and Devil, and
young Myrick, were killed. The latter
came near making his escape. When the
first guns were fired he ran up stairs, and
lay concealed for a long time under q dry
goods box.
The Indians, fearful that he would shoot
upon them, dare not ascend the stairs, but
finally hit upon plan of routing him by
proposing in loud voice to set fire to the
building upon the hearing of which My
rick clambered up through the scuttle,
slipped down the lightning rod to the roof
OF a low addition used as warehouse, and
from thence jumped to the ground, and
ran towards the brush covering the steep
bank of the Minnesota, which was near,
and which promised probable safety. On
his way thither, some Winnebagoes dis
charged arrows at him without effect, but
Just as he reached the thicket, Sioux
shot him with his gun and brought him to
the ground, where he was found days af-
forwards, by the burying party, which
fought at Birch Coolie, with a scythe and
many arrows sticking in his body.
But to return to the Commission The
business has been dispatched with celerily,
as many as forty eases beng tried per day
in some instances.
The prisoners were brought in, chained
together by the feet, in pairs, in some
cases eight at q time, and the charges
which were preferred by General Sibley
read to them through the interpreter
Antoine Premier, and then, after being ex-
horted to tell the truth and not equivocate,
each was asked as to the extent of his
participation in the Outrages, and, if neces-
sary, witnesses were called against him.
Then, if there was any doubt as to his guilt,
or as to his being willing participant in
the outrages, he was allowed to call wit
nesses in his favor. Perhaps this may
seem, to those who were not on the ground,
an unjustifiably summary mode of proceed
ing; but it was as lengthy an examination
necessity would permit, and whatever ne
cessity requires, it justifes." Besides, no
individual injustice is probably done, as
ninety-nine hundreths of these devils are
guilty, and witnesses in their favor would
be about as useless as teats on boar.
should think that in at least two-thirds
of the cases the prisoners admitted that
they fred, but, in most instances, insist
that it was only two or three shots, and
that no one was killed-about as valid an
excuse as one of them offered, who was
possessed of an irresistible impulse to accu-
mulate property, that horse which he
took was only very little one, and that
pair of oxen which he captured was for his
wife, who wanted pair. In regard to the
third who did not admit that they fired,
their reasons for not doing so were equally
remarkable, and assumed different shape
every day. One day all the elderly men,
who were in the vigor of manly strength,
said their hair was too grey to go into
battle and the young men, aged from
eighteen to twenty-five, insisted that they
were too young, and their hearts too weak
to face fire. The next day would develop
the fact that great was the number, and
terrible the condition, of those who were
writlsng in agony, with the belly-ache, on
the top of a big hill. A small army avowed
that they had crept under wonderfully
capacious stone (Which nobody but them
selves ever saw, at the battles of the Fort,
and did not emerge therefrom during the
fights; and suffieiency for two small
orr,;eu c+n,,tIYy ballad m, H. o,oo+ Cr;r;f