National opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1865-1874, 1873-04-04
Tho Greatest OF Ilangings,

! Tho greatest hanging that ever oc
CURED in the United States took plac
in 1863 in the town of Mankato, Blu
Earth county, Minnesota, which il sit
uatod near the southern border of tin
State. In the previous year II great In
dian war had ragged on the frontier
during which over seven hundred whites
mostly women and children, were mas
sacred, and on the defeat of the Indi
ans and end Of the war three hundred
and three of the savnges were tried by
court martial for murder and condemned
to DEATH President Lincoln interfered,
however, to prevent such wholesale
infection of the death penalty, and re.
! spited all but thirty.eight, who were
hanged together in the presence of n
vast crowd which had assembled from
all directions to witness the execution.
A correspondent of the Cincinnati
Commercial has recently conversed
with witnesses of the terrible scene, who
gave him II full account of the affair.
When the death warrant was read to
the thirty-eight condemned Indians they
received their sentence very coolly..
Not fully comprchending the import of
the instrument ut the close of the first
paragraph they gave hearty grunt of
approval; but rs the reading proceeded
and they discovered the drift of tho
document they refrained from further
manifestations of appreciation, though
they smoked their pipes composedly to
the end.
Nearly all of them maintained stoical
demeanor up to the time of their execu-
ton except when the caps were placed
on their heads. These caps were made
long and looked like meal sacks, but
being rolled up only covered the fore
head, allowing their painted ia ,es to be
seen. When they had been adjusted
on Few OF the Indians, so that each
could see the undignified and grotesaue
effect on the others, they appeared to
be exceedingly Inundated and disheart- !
ened. But they are described as hav-
ing gone cheerfully to the gallows, some
even Iostling and crowding the others
IN their eag.rness to be first. As they |
assembled the scailold the death song |
was started, and when they had all got
up the noise of their deep, swelling
volces was fearfuly impressive.
When the scaffold fell and left the
thirty eight bodies dangling in the air.
several OF the condemned were seen en-
deavorlng to clasp each others hands.
One young fellow managed to get n
cigar under his white cap, and smoked
it to the last. The Indians respited by
President Lincoln were taken to an
Island III the Mississippi near Daven-
port, where they were closely confined
,or year, after which they were trans
erred to II barren reservation in an ex-
remely cold region, where they were
urned loose to freeze or starve
Inc horrible execution Mt Mankato.
he war preceding it, and the conse-
luent butchery of the whites, all re-
ulted from n long continued and in
qHltous system of swindling the Indians
arrled on by the traders and the agents
II the Gov, rnment. The leading chiefs
n the disturbance of 1862 did not wish
o go to war, but they had been robbed
Beyond endurance. At one time over
our hundred thousand dollars due the
sioux was paid not to them but to {
'ang OF traders on the plea of old in
.ebtment. They were also induced to {
Ign papers which they could not read, {
nd these papers were used to get
loney and goods belonging to them. l
On one occasion famous chief named !
'ed Iron was locked up in "a guard v
ouse by the Indian agents for refusing v
} sign one of these papers, and this act v
early precipitated an outbreak. At Il
st, having been swindled out of their f
nds and the money which should have p
cen paid them, and after losing fifteen +
nndred OF their old men, women and V
lildren by starvation and exposure,
icy resolved to go to war after the In a
ian fashion, sparing neither women S
u children. S
The story is a shocking one but it is
still more shocking to know that this d.
I'd many others very much like itcould Sc
'ver have been told but for the infa- ri
ous dis honesty which has character sc
ed and still pervades the admins. n,
alton of Indian affairs.