New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1908-08-12

'sYou have no honor. You ask us
to come here and treat with you. You
promise us you will keep your soldiers
out from our last hunting grounds,
and while you are here talking with
your lying tongues you send your
soldiers into my territory. will not
treat with you. I and my people
and my young men will go out this
day and we will mark every mile OF
your way to the Big Horn with the
graves of your dead soldiers
This terrible threat, which was fully
fulfilled in execution, made by Red
Cloud, the great war chief OF the
Sioux nation, who is now passing his
remaining days, totally blind, at his
home on the Pine Ridge reservation,
in western South Dakota, was the
prelude to massacre of United States
soldiers only second in Importance and
in the number of men who fell victims
to the ferocity of the Sioux to the
Custer massacre on June 25, 1876.
The massacre referred to was the
Fort Phil Kearney massacre, which
on Friday and Saturday of last week
was commemorated by reunion at
Sheridan, Wyo., of the survivors OF
the terrible massacre. The reunion
will take it's place as one OF the most
memorable in the history of Wyoming.
A number of the residents of western
South Dakota, particularly of the
Black Hills region, were present at the
reunion. One of the conspicuous
figures at the reunion was Brig. Gen.
Henry B. Darlington, leader of the
white forces proceeding and following
the massacre, who, with his aged wife
travelled all the way from their home
at Hyde Park, Mass, to be present at
the reunion.
Gen. Darlington now is over sc
years of age, while Red Cloud, who
directed the Indian attack which re-
suited in the massacre, is over 80
years of age. The massacre, which
sometimes is referred to as the ''F'et-
terman massacre" occurred on Dec.
81, 1866, torty-two years ago. Com
paratively few people are familiar with
the details of this frontier tragedy,
and doubtless many of our news
paper readers have never even heard
of it.
The incidents directly responsible
for the massacre occurred in the
spring of 1866, when a commission
was sent out by the government to
treat with the Sioux Indians for the
ceding of a right ofway for the con-
struction of the Union Pacific railroad
from the Missouri river to Salt Lake
City.
The great council between the COM
mission and the Indians was held at
Fort Laramie. About 5000 Indians
were present, among the chiefs being
Red Cloud, Spotted Tail, Standing
Elk, American Horse, Man-Afraid-of-
His-Horse and others of equal impor-
lance in the Sioux nation. The
prominent men on the government
commission were Generals W. T..
Sherman and Phil Sheridan. The
famous frentiersman, "Jim" Bridger,
was one of the spokesman for the
Indians.
The Indians readily agreed to the
opening of the Platte river road and
North Platte road to Salt Lake City
for the construction of the new rail
road, which then had been completed
only a short distance westward from
the Missouri river. The Indians
agreed to this proposition upon the
understanding that no effort should be
made by the whites to penetrate the
northwest route to Montana, known
as the Bridger cutoff, that extended
up the North Platte, crossing at Bird
gers ferry, at the mouth of Horseshoe
creek, and thence northwest to Powder
river, crossing at Ft. Reno, first es-
tablished by Gen, Conner in 1865, but
now abandoned; thence westward to
the Big Horn mountains and onward
to Bozeman, Mont.
This route lay through the very
heart of the best hunting lands of the
Sioux Indians, and quite naturally
they were very jealous of this game
preserve and wanted it continued I'M
molested by the whites. Just at this
critical juncture in the negotiations
between the commission and the In
dians, the war department was send
Ing regular troops to points in
Wyoming and Montana to relieve the
volunteers Who had guarded the
frontier since early in the war of the
Rebellion.
Just as the negotiations between the
commission and the Indians were be-