After the shooting at the Baker place, the women finally came from their places of concealment and cared for Jones, who lived for some time in such terrible agony that he tore up the ground in his death writhings. They took the two children and went to the residence of John Blackwell, about four miles west of the present Litchfield; but not finding anyone there, went to the home of Nels Olson and told their pitiful story. Ole Ingeman was at once sent as a messenger to Forest City, the county seat, with the news, and the settlers organized a party to go to the scene of the tragedy.
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The party started from the Tver Jackson place, eleven in number, and, approaching the house from the east, they went up cautiously and called, if any were there alive, to "cry out," but received no response. It was about nine in the evening and the moon was shining, but it was dark in the woods. After a time they went into the house and lit a lamp, with which they found the bodies. They covered the body of Jones, which lay outside, with a wagon box to keep off animals, closed the door of the cabin where the other bodies were, and then debated the safety of going to the Jones place, where the children had been left, fearing that the Indians were there in a drunken carousal. They decided that it would not be advisable to go, and had started to return, when they were joined by another party of six, and as they were now seventeen, they determined to go.
On arriving at the Jones place all was still, and entering the house, with the lamp which they had brought, they found Clara Wilson dead on the pantry floor, where she lay in a pool of blood. On their opening the door into a bedroom, the little boy got up from the bed and began to cry. The slug which killed the girl was found and kept for a number of years by Evan Evanson, a member of the party. Taking the boy, they returned to the Iver Jackson place, where the neighbors had assembled.
The next morning settlers from all parts of the surrounding country gathered at the Baker place to bury the dead, and to consider this act of the Indians, whether it was mere murder, or if the long threatened outbreak had indeed begun. Rough boxes were made for the five bodies, and as they were about ready at noon to start for the Ness settlement, eleven mounted Indians appeared over the hill about forty rods to the southeast, coming toward the cabin, who on seeing the gathering stopped. Some of the men hailed them and started toward them, but apparently scenting danger they turned and fled to the south. They were followed to a marshy run which they rode through but the settlers could not cross. A party was then made up, among whom were J. B. Atkinson, A. H. DeLong, and James McGraw, who followed the Indians for several miles but could not overtake them.
The bodies were then taken to the Ness settlement cemetery and buried, and the graves are now marked by a monument placed by the State. The day following the burial, the news of the massacre reached most of the settlers by means of a party escaping from the Agency, conducted by John Other Day, a friendly Indian, and the settlers gathered at Forest City, where a stockade was erected and a home guard company organized under Capt. George C. Whitcomb. However, many settlers in the county of Monongalia (the north half of the present Kandiyohi county) did not hear the news in time to escape, and nearly a hundred were killed by the Indians.
THE BATTLE OF ACTON OR KELLY'S BLUFF.
An English soldier said that "the glory of war, for the private, consists in getting killed in battle and having your name misspelled in the army reports." This was much the case of the Minnesota settler who fought off the Indians, either alone or in assisting army troops. Perhaps had the civil war been off the map of events, history might have been more kind. It was not for grand parade that citizens were asked to leave their families and go into the unknown districts to rescue friends and relatives from savages; on the contrary, it was to encounter certain hardship and suffering, and perhaps death in a terrible form. Neither was there then, as now, a floating population ready to enter the work from the love of excitement. These men were from the leading business houses and homes of Minneapolis, and they responded to the call of humanity in the same spirit as the "Boys of '76," when danger threatened their homes. They went out to meet a foe that knew no rules of war and gave no quarter in victory. We know now, that had Fort Ridgely fallen, every Indian tribe in the state would have been in war-paint and there would have been a question if the streets of our Twin Cities might not have flowed with blood as did those of New Ulm. While St. Paul's contingent went forth, led by the Indian fighter, General H. H. Sibley, the Minneapolis men were raw recruits, led by an inexperienced leader. It was a body of men to be proud of, who consented to face these conditions, stayed the tide of mur-
der, and stopped the rush of settlers from the state. The band known as Strout's Company, including a part of his Company B, Ninth Minnesota Regiment, were about one third volunteer soldiers and two thirds citizens in and about Minneapolis.
In keeping with the spirit of the times a song was written, commencing thus:
"Brave Captain Strout and Company B,
They will make the redskins flee,
And drive them west into the sea,
And stop the warwhoop forever.
Chorus: The Union forever, hurrah, boys, hurrah, Kill every Indian, papoose and squaw; The Indians must be slain or driven to the plain And silence the warwhoop forever."
While the meter and rhyme are somewhat irregular, the emotion is too plainly expressed to be mistaken, and the Indian warwhoop was "silenced forever," so far as Minnesota is concerned. It is endeavored here to collect the full data of this campaign of Indian fighters, and no pains have been spared to get the names, routes, camping spots, and dates, to a nicety, and accurate beyond dispute.
General history is very mute regarding Captain Richard Strout and his men who fought off the Sioux Indians at Acton on September 3, 1862, for three reasons:
First, the petty jealousy in public work, among leaders, including the printed abuse of a former Land Office appointee, who at the time pretty nearly directed the Indian war,— if you let him tell it.
Second, the company was composed of citizens who went forth of their own accord, virtually a sheriff's posse, such as might be picked up now to arrest robbers. About twenty were newly enlisted, undrilled soldiers, and the rest civilians. This fact has kept the company out of military history, or, worse, "damned it with faint praise."
Third, the "tee-hee" crowd, who saw an excruciatingly funny side to the Indian war, made these citizen soldiers the butt of much ridicule, despite the fact that, outnumbered more than four times, they beat off a savage foe, who later annihilated the idolized Custer and his unexcelled Indian-fighting soldiers. Add to this the efforts of misinformed writers, who,
having no knowledge of the times, Indians, or pioneer conditions, have elaborated or twisted the story until a participant, as Private DeWitt C. Handy says, "has to scratch his head to remember if he was in the battle."
It is true that these men w r ere not soldiers, and many were like A. H. Rose, who says, "I had never fired a gun before the battle, but they showed me how to load, and I pointed my gun at the Indians, shut my eyes, and pulled the trigger."
These are the chief reasons that Captain Strout and Company B are almost unknown in their home city. Many parties are now dead, and harsh language is unbecoming; but only the tongue of slander can tell other than this: "Strout and his men went forth in good faith, and performed their duty boldly and without wavering, so far as they were able. '' For defense of this position read the story.