The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1863-09-18


dams, returned yesterday to Fort Smelling
1t has been year in preparation. On
this, and the Missouri River branch, over
Twelve Millions of Money had been spent,
no to four or five months ago. This is the
testimony of the Secretary Of the Treasury,
and we presume it may be safely relied
on. It has accomplished nothing benef-
cial. On the contrary, it has been of vast,
and, it may prove, of irremediable injury
to Minnesota. And the whole thing, in its
inception and management, is the result of
the military genius of Major General JOHN
PopR.
We know that it is attempted in various
quarters, to charge the responsibility OF
this miserable and ruinous failure, upon
General S1BLEY. 1t may be, that the gen
crosby and unselfshness of his nature,
may induce him to accept such response
bility as his own. But, the facts are 9TH
erwise; and no friend of his, or of the State,
should feel satisfied in his taking posi-
ton, through whim of chivalric sentiment,
which would involve his reputation in ut
ter ruin. Major General JOHN PoPE is the
originator in fact,-as he is the responsible
man by virtue of his rank and authority
of the Sioux campaign of 1868, and it is
proper that he should have and wear all
the laurels, and bear all the odium, that
attach to its results.
We say that all this vast expenditure OF
treasure, and year of gigantic preparation,
and labor and suffering and peril OF cam
paigning, have been productive ONO results
beneficial to the country. To have been
so. it must either have resulted in the de-
struction of the hostile Sioux, or in their
Generalization. 1t has not destroyed
them, for out of the three thousand war
riors which they brought into the field,
there is no certainty that they lost fifty in
all the battles fought. This is not ordinary
skirmish punishment. All the fights con-
centrated, indeed, do not amount, in losses
or results, to a right sharp, lively brush.
1t is nonsense to say that anything like
battle has been fought, at all. There has
been good marching, but there has been
no fighting, worthy the name, even in
Lilliputian sense.
The campaign did not result in even the
decentralization of the Sioux. The country
which they occupied at the commence
ment of the campaign, they occupy now;
for, as they led the expedition safe dis
lance in the van on it's advance westward,
they followed it safe distance in the rear
on its return home All the trouble the
expedition has occasiOned the Sioux, has
been to force them to make a march to
the Missouri River; and this, as the In
dams had not much else to do, can scarcely
be counted as great hardship. They are
naturally of migratory habits, and the
probability is, that if this expedition had
not been created, the Indians would have
done quite as much travelling as they have.
They have been neither whipped nor scar
ed. Indeed, according TO the Indian sense,
and according to the sense of all white
men, except Major General JOHN POPE,
the Sioux came out decidedly the gamers.
That they were repulsed in two or three
skirmishes, counted nothing against them,
when such repulses were followed by the
instant and precipitate flight of our army
from the plains to the cover and security
of the settlements and forts. There is
not Sioux, of the twenty-nine hundred
and fifty remaining, but believes they
were victorious, and that the great expedi-
ton retired before their superior prowess.
They are to-day ten-told more the mon
archs of the plains, in their own imaglna-
ton, than they were six months ago. And,
in spite Of anything the expedition has
done, we fear they will be ten-fold more
the scOurge of our frontiers than they
have been hitherto.
What, then, has the expedition accom-
plished? 1t has been the means of making
few men rich From the first to the
last, it has been marvel of corruption
of open, indecent favoritism and plumber.
There are men who, two years ago were
bankrupts, and, as such, the glad recipi-
ents of charity, who, to-day, are proud
and arrogant from tie possession of their
ill-gotten gains There are springing up
around our city, splendid palaces, which
are pointed at by the common crowd as
monuments of public plumber. How it
has Jared with Major General JOHN POPE,
in the general steal, we have no means of
knowing. He has. borne through life
disreputable character, and it is hardly to
be credited, that, with dishonesty tainting
every branch of the service in his depart
ment, he has not shared its fruits. The
commanding general who, after such
campaign could issue such an order as fol-
lows, ought to have received money, even
;f he did not. by way of compensation for