New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1892-03-23

vice first adjutant and a. G. S. Lieut. j.
@. Kelton, now adjutant in the United
States army. N. j. Z. Dana, captain
quartermasters's s department, was col
onel of the First Minnesota volunteers
and Major General S. Woods, paymaster
San Francisco. Those who have seen
the panorama of the battle of Gettys-
burg will remember in the foreground
a dead general lying, and near By his
dead horse. This represents the Con-
federate General Lewis A. Armstrong,
who was one of the first officers at Fort
Ridgely. Three companies of the Sec
ond infantry relieved the Sixth in 1854.
It was made the headquarters Of the
Tenth in 1866, with four companies,
band and staff. These were ordered to
Utah in the Fall of 1858-four compan-
les of the Twentieth infantry, after
building Fort Randall on the Missouri,
relieving them.
The next year Fort R1dgelY was made
an artillery school of practice, with four
full companies one a battery of flying
or light artillery. Among the distin-
guished officers that were stationed
there,that wore one or moreIstars were
Dana, Armistead, Kelton, Steele, Sully,
Abercrombie, Alexander, Bee, Sherman,
Donoyant, Morris, Pemberton, DE Rus
sey, Tyler, Patterson, Hill, Lyon and
numbers who held, and some who are
now holding, high rank in the staff
Dana, Livingston, Ruggles, Hawkins,
Bingham, Swain, Du Barry, Hudson
and others.
The Indians were frequent visitors at
the fort and watched the First Battery
drill with wonder and surprise. The
horses flying across the prairie like an
Egyptian chariot race, the sudden
changes of front and position, and the
rapid firing awed the savage. In the
Spring of 1861 all this was changed.
The artillery were ordered South. One
and sometimes two companies of vol
unteers were stationed for short time,
and others succeeded them, The In
dians were not idle or disinterested
spectators Of the conflict then raging.
Tfev listened with as much eagerness
to the stories of defeat as the whites.
They knew the country was claiming
its able bodied and best men in its sup
port, and watched with interest the de-
parture of volunteers for it's defence,
and believed, as they talked, that only
women and old men were left. The
soldiers they respected and feared had
gone from our frontier
The anxiety to rush every body to the
front had left our posts without garrison
and people without protection, and pro-
tests to officials were unheeded or dis
regarded. The parade of a hundred men
in blue at Yellow Medicine week be-
fore the massacre, had not inspired them
with respect or fear, The taking of for
ty six men of the traders and agency
employes-the Renville Rangers for
enlistment confirmed their belief that
the government was in the last throes
of dissolution; that the time and op-
portunity was present when they could
win back without resistance the Inherit
ance they had lost. The plan was feas-
ible, and only for the delay in celebrat-
ing tLeir early butcheries and captured
wealth, no formidable opposition could
have met them west Of the Mississippi
river. In futherance of this scheme, on
Monday morning, the 18th of August
1892. an attack was made on the citi-
zens at the lower agency, twelve miles
above the fort. All the stores were
robbed and burned, and all the traders
killed. Those that could tried to es-
cape. Some succeeded in reaching the
fort. j. G, Dickinson, who kept a
boarding house, with his family and
others, in a two horse wagon, was the
first to cross the ferry, notifying the
settlers as he made his way toward the
fort.
A little before 9 o'clock in the morn.
ing was out about two miles on the
agency road with my children in a bug
gy and met him. His team was jaded
and reached Capt, Marsh's quarters
sometime in advance Of him, when a
courier was sent after Lieut.. Sheehan,
who with fifty men Of Co. q was on his
return to Fort Ridgely.
Mr.. Dickinson volunteered to take q
dispatch and intercept the Renyille
Rangers, who had left the fort the day
before for muster in at Fort Smelling. A
horse was furnished md he started inn
medIately.
Cant Marsh whnn iYnnnrtnnnd an