Catherine Vogtman was an ancestor of mine who survived the Sioux Uprising of 1862. Here is her recollection of the Indian war. Thanks to family genealogist Jon Schweitzer for providing this material.
SIOUX UPRISING NARRATIVE BY CATHERINE (BUERY) VOGTMAN
The following narrative was transcribed by Glenn R. Vogtman, great-grandson of
the author, Mrs. John Vogtman (née Catherine Buery) from a copy of the original
newspaper publication.
Every effort was made to transcribe the story as faithfully as it was written
including errors in grammar, spelling, punctuation, syntax, etc. Any attempt to
make corrections for purposes of meaning, clarity, or accuracy (as in the
spelling of proper names) was done in italics within brackets [ ].
Mrs. John Vogtman (née Catherine Buery) was a 14 year old daughter of George
Buery, an early settler of the La Croix Creek (Birch Coulee) area near present
day Morton, Minnesota at the time of the 1862 Dakota Conflict.
In August, 1862, the family consisted of George Buery, his wife Salomé/Sally
(née Kaufman), daughters: Catherine, age 14 years, Margaret/Maggie, age 12
years, Emily, age 4 years, Mary Ann, age 3 years, and Martha, age 9 months; and
a son: George Everett, age 6 years.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
HUBBARD COUNTY CLIPPER
Park Rapids, Minnesota, Jan. 29, 1914
********************
“THE SIOUX MASSACRE”
__________
“A Thrilling Sketch of the Horrible
Massacre of Settlers By
Indians in 1862”
__________
RELATED BY EYE WITNESS
__________
Mrs. Vogtman Gives Her Personal
Experiences During Those Trying Times
___________
Several months ago Mrs. John Vogtman was requested by the editor of the Clipper
to write a sketch of her personal experiences of that awful massacre by the
Sioux Indians in Renville County, this state. The Indians went on the war path
on the morning of August 18, 1862, and they started their murderous work three
miles northwest of the Lower Sioux Agency. Mrs. Vogtman describes the cruelty
and deception of the Indian and the hardships of the settlers in a very
interesting manner.
____________
The morning dawned bright and clear after a rainy spell of several of several
days. Father had a lot of hay ready to stack, so he yoked his oxen to the wagon
and he and mother went to haul hay. I being the oldest was left with the rest
of the children to keep house while they were gone. My uncle [John Kumro] had
started for New Ulm that morning with some wheat to have it ground, he having
threshed it with the flail, as there were no threshing machines there at that
time. When he got to where the road turned to the Agency the Whites
[Caucasians] that lived there were all fleeing away, some bare headed and bare
footed, carrying their children in their night clothes. One man carrying his
arm in a sling, he being shot by the Indians that morning. So my uncle left his
team with them and returned for his family and came to notify my father’s
family. About this time father drove up with his first load, another boy rode
up to tell us that the Indians were at their house when he came away.
Packing up such things as they wanted, they told them they had better leave, so
they took the ox team, packed the women and children in the wagon, this being
Mrs. Eunes’ [also spelled Juni] family, and their neighbor’s wife and child,
Mrs. Mike Haden [Hayden]. The men remained to load some things on Mrs. Haden’s
team, and to look up their cattle to drive them along, as we were all pioneers
and had only lived there three years and what little we had was dearly earned
and was badly needed. We had harvested our first crop a few days before.
Returning to us they upset the hay and put on the wagon box and we packed the
children and ourselves into it. My father’s family bible lay on the table, I
took it and a half a loaf of bread, some knives and we started to go towards
Fort Ridgely, but intended to stop at Magnus Johnsons [more likely Edward
Magner’s place] and consult what to do. When we got about a mile from home we
met two Indians, who upon seeing us stopped, and loaded their gun, they having
but one shot gun, so we stopped they came up to us and asked where we were
going. We told them what we had heard and they said we should go back, that the
Indians had broken into the warehouse to get something to eat, and that they
did not intend to hurt the settlers. They also told us they were hunting their
ponies so they went on, and we turned around to go back.
Now we lived on the Minnesota River bottom, but we had climbed the hill where
it is a level prairie, so the men went back to the brow of the hill to look
down to the main road and saw two teams, Mr. Haden’s and our nearest neighbors
wife, Mrs. Kirchnes [Kaertner or Keartner], and some one driving a herd of
cattle and our cattle with them. About a mile to the north was a Mr. Witt
mowing hay, his boy would drive out and he would load on a load and the boys’
mother would help him stack it when he came home. Now when father and uncle turned
and looked into the bottom they saw thirteen Indian warriors ascending the hill
about a mile to the east of us going straight for Mr. Witt’s home. His boy
would drive the team to where his father was mowing and he would load for him
and his mother would help him stack it. Now when the boy drove to the stack he
heard shooting in the house and saw Indians, so he crawled in the hay and hid.
The father thinking the boy was having trouble with his load started home to
see, but when he got in the house he found his wife lying on the floor, shot
dead. She had been down cellar after something for dinner, the trap door stood
open and a boy about ten years old was shot and fell in the cellar, having been
shot in the shoulders. A little babe of six weeks old was in the cradle unhurt.
The rest of the children were hid around the house, so he wrapped his wife in a
blanket, buried her side of the house, dressed the boy’s shoulder, took some
bedding, the children, some cows, and started for the Fort, arriving there without
seeing an Indian. Father said let us drive down the hill where the Indians
ascended, so we came just ahead of Mr. Haden’s team, and father stayed back and
they planned what to do. When we struck the road which came from the agency,
the dead body of Mr. Manly [?] lay by the side of the road, bare headed and
bare footed, shot in the breast. Just then three Indians came up the road, one
came to our wagon, one to Mrs. Kirchnes and the third stood back with his gun.
Father had reached the wagon as the Indian got there, and he shook hands with
father. The other Indian wanted to take Mrs. Kirschnes’ gun she refused, so he
pulled his gun to shoot her when she threw the gun down and left the wagon.
Meantime the Indian at our wagon told us all to get off. My brother nine years
old refused [this would be George Everett, actually age 6 years] , whereupon he
hauled up his tomahawk, but father jerked him away, the tomahawk skinning about
an inch in the side board of the wagon box. I then asked the Indian to let me
have the Bible and he threw it towards me and the bread, and I reached for a
knife, but he would not let me have it. Now Mr. Hadens [Hayden] had stopped
their team and was watching to see how we were getting along, so the Indians
told us to take the road, but we turned and climbed the hill again. Now the
other team was with Mr. Mike and John Haden and five children of a neighbor’s
by the name of Eicenrich [Eisenreich], the parents driving their cattle, a herd
of 22 head. When we got about half way up the hill we heard two shots, but the
three Indians and the two men were standing, but when we got out of sight of
them we heard two more shots. This was about a mile east of La Croix Creek.
When Mrs. Eicenrich reached the Creek she told her husband she would follow the
children, but she never saw her husband again. As she was hurrying along she
overtook Mr. Kirchnes and a Mr. Shurk [?], they were walking all three abreast,
she in the center, when those three Indians came up in front of them, they told
her to stop, whereupon they shot both men dead, and told her to go on. When she
reached her children, they had been thrown off from the wagon and some Indians
had taken the three teams to the Agency. Just then an Indian came on horseback,
took the oldest boy on the horse, and also took the woman and the rest of the
children prisoners. The boy fell off from the horse and broke his arm. They
were afterwards released at Camp Relice [Release]. Our party had reached the
top of the prairie when we saw an object a little ways ahead in the slough.
We thought it was an Indian and he thought we were Indians, but finally we made
out that it was a white man so he joined our party, which now counted fifteen.
Now east of us was a deep ravine, and we were going around it to reach the house
we were aiming for, Magnus Johnston’s [more likely Edward Magner’s place per
Satterlee], when we heard a woman scream and saw the smoke ascent from the very
house we were going to stop at.
Dr. Humphery [Humphrey] and his family, numbering five in all started from the
Agency for the fort, but when they reached this house they sat down on a bench
to rest and sent the oldest boy, about 12 years old, to the spring across the
road on the brow of the hill, but before he got on the hill heard a shot and
looking over the hill saw the Indians shoot his father and his mother then ran
in the house with her two little children, then the Indians set fire to it, and
all three were burned to death, but the boy made his escape to the Fort.
We watched until we were sick at heart, then we proceeded to go around the
ravine to get in the road to the Fort, when we spyed [sic] two objects at a
distance, then we saw that the woman wore a shacker, a kind of bonnet worn at
that time by women, who also joined our party, which now numbered seventeen in
all. The Indians were at their home, and packed everything that they wanted, so
we journeyed on till we got in the road towards the Fort, when a man on
horseback came up the road calling, ‘go back,’ so we went into a slough and
laid down in the tall grass. We stayed about an hour then we traveled north and
made a circle towards the Fort. At last just at sunset, we saw the guard
outside the Fort, who at first thought that we were Indians, but when they
observed we were white folks, they came to meet us. It was just dusk as we
entered Fort Ridgely. Returning to our neighbors, Mrs. Eunes’ family with Mrs.
Haden and a Mr. Zimmerman his wife three boys and two girls, with another team
had preceeded us and it was remarkable, both Mrs. Eune and Mrs. Zimmerman were
blind, but they had gone about a half mile farther than we and had reached Mr.
Faraboult [Faribault], the Government Indian Interpreter.
When they ran into the massacre the Indians had shot Mr. Faraboult and tied him
to the back end of a wagon head down and dragged him to death [cannot verify
who this was]. They then proceeded to Mr. Zimmerman’s wagon. Mrs. Zimmerman
understood the Indians as they said they would kill the men, whereupon she put
her arms around her husband and ask them to kill her and leave him with the
children, but they shot him out of her arms, the oldest boy twenty years, one
seventeen year old boy they also shot, leaving her and the three youngest.
Now Mrs. Hayden took her child and slipped off the back of the wagon and
succeeded in getting into the brush and tall grass and reached the Fort that
night without seeing any more Indians. The Indians then drove the two blind
women into Mr. Faraboult’s house and fastened them in, telling them they would
return and burn them up, but in the afternoon a man fleeing for the Fort broke
open the window and they all reached the Fort.
Mr. June [?] did not reach the Fort until the third day. He had been driving
his cattle, but was forced to leave them and hide. A few rods to the south
where the Indians took our team a man had been hiding in the willows and saw
how we had been treated, he also saw the Indians shoot the two Hadens.
When we reached the Fort, tired, hungry, and down hearted, they took us into
one of the log houses, brought us some rice tea, and bread. We had just started
a fire when the sound of a gun was heard, whereupon they took us into the
quarters which were built of stone, for safety. They then took every man and
put him on guard outside, without having had either dinner or supper.
Now let me state the condition the war was in at that point. Most of the
soldiers having been called out, the Fort had been left with as few men as
possible, there being not more than 25 men at the Fort that evening, as Captain
Marsh had left that morning with 40 men, for the Agency. By reading the
narrative of the fifth Minnesota, in the Civil and Indian wars, you will get a
more correct account of it in the Battle of Redwood, as it was then called,
although it was the Lower Sioux Agency.
Mr. J. C. Dickinson was one of the party that took my uncle’s oxen, but when
Mr. Dickinson reached the Faribault home they took the oxen off and put on the
latter’s horses as Mr. Faribault felt secure, he being married to a squaw, but
in reality was no safer than the whites. Mr. Dickinson’s brother was missing,
so he went out with the burial party in search of his brother, and was killed
in the Battle of Birch Coolie. Captain Marsh with his party on reaching the
Minnesota River were all ambushed, and all but thirteen were killed, the
remainder having been wounded, arrived at the Fort some ten days later. About
40 young men from the Upper and Lower Sioux Agency, had been enlisted to go
south and had started for St. Peter the Friday before to be mustered into the
service. A messenger was sent to St. Peter, and also the entire regiment of
Renville Rangers under the command of Lieut. Sheehan, who took charge of
affairs at the Fort. The same day the money for the annuity of the Indians
arrived at the Fort, amounting to $71,000.00. On Tuesday morning, about 10:00
o’clock a small band of Indians attacked the Fort, fighting for about an hour
after which they beat a retreat. Meanwhile a young man, who had been sick, by
the name of Rickey, about 19 years old, died in the quarters, with his loved
ones about him making the end as comfortable as possible.
On Wednesday at 8:00 P.M. the 20th, of August, the Indians appeared in great
numbers and commenced a fierce battle. The Fort is situated on the edge of the
prairie about a half mile from the Minnesota River a timbered bottom
intervening and a wooded ravine running up out of the bottom around two sides
of the Fort within about twenty rods of the buildings affording shelter for the
enemy on three sides within easy rifle or musket range. The men were instantly
formed in line of battle by order of Lieut. Sheehan. Two men, Mark M. Grear of
Company C. and Wm. Goode of Company B. fell at first fire, after which the men
broke for shelter and from windows and the shelter of the buildings fired upon
the enemy. Robert Baker, a citizen, who had escaped from the Lower Sioux
Agency, was shot through the head and instantly killed while standing at a
window in the quarters. The forces in the Fort at this time were the remnant of
Company B. 5th, Regiment. M. V. Culver’s 30 men, about 50 men of Company C. The
Renville Rangers under the command of Lieut. Gorman, Sargent [sic] Jones of the
regular army, a brave and skillful man, took charge of the artillery of which
there was in the Fort, six pieces of which three were used, two six pounders
and one twenty four pound field piece. One of the guns was placed in charge of
a citizen named J. C. Whipple, who had seen service in the Mexican war and in
the United States Navy. One in charge of Sargent [sic] McGrew of Company C. the
other in charge of Sargent [sic] Jones in person. The number of the Indians
that were engaged was estimated at five hundred warriors, lead [sic] by Little
Crow. To render the position of beleaguered garrison more critical, the magazine
was some twenty rods outside of the main works on the open prairie. Only a
small portion of ammunition had been removed inside. Men were at once detailed
to take the ammunition into the Fort, which duty they performed, working all
the afternoon with Indian bullets raining across the open space over which they
had to pass, until the last ounce was safely within the barracks.
In the meantime the Indians had got into some of the log houses used for the
soldiers families and behind some hay stacks, from which they poured heavy
volleys into the Fort, but a few well directed shells from the howitzers set
them on fire, and when night came it was a sight never to be forgotten, to
those who witnessed the scene. The great danger feared by all was that the Indians
would crawl under cover of darkness to the buildings and set fire by fire
arrows, igniting the dry roofs, but the loving eye of God was watching over us
and about midnight the heavens opened and the rain began to fall, “Rain, Rain,
Thank God, Thank God,” went around the beleaguered garrison. Men women and
children breathed once more in comparative safety. In this battle two were
killed and nine wounded; during the battle of the twentieth, Indians had taken
possession of a stable in the rear of Sargent [sic] Jones’ quarters and held it
until night, when Whipple was ordered to shell it and set it on fire, two
shells were thrown from the mountain howitzer, both bursting inside of the
building, setting the hay on fire. Two half breeds, Joe Latour and George Dashner
of the Renville Rangers were stationed at the bakery within easy rifle range of
the stable. As a shell went crashing into the building, an Indian sprang out of
the door and started for the ravine; a ball from Dasher’s rifle brought him to
the ground and when he tried to crawl away from the burning building, Dashner,
seeing the move, dropped gun and simply saying, “Come Joe,” they started for
the stable and seizing the wounded, struggling wretch, pitched him headlong
into the flames and shouting the Indian warhoop returned unhurt.
Meanwhile the government was pressing men and teams into the service to take
the refugees to safety. So one morning a string of teams drove in front of
quarters, loading on those that had fled to the fort for safety. There was a
long string of teams under an escort of soldiers. We drove until sunset when we
stopped for the night. Some barrels of hard tack were opened and distributed.
The well, an old fashioned one where the water was drawn was not far from the
house where we stopped. With so many people, drawing the water was naturally
slow work with a bucket, but when they tried to drink this water it had a rank
taste. Hair was discovered and the head of a woman was dipped up in the bucket.
Now we were left without water and that hardtack was so hard that it could not
be broken with hammer or stone. We had been traveling all day where the stench
from the bodies of the dead animals that had died from over-eating unprotected
green corn. Now and then we would pass a new mound where some unfortunate one
had been murdered and the remains left in the sun. A few shovels of earth was
thrown upon them to get them out of sight but the air was something fearful
that night. We slept under the canopy of heaven, mother earth for our bed. Morning
dawned at last. Some more hard tack for breakfast and the journey resumed. Slow
and weary we traveled on till we reached St. Peter. Here we were treated to hot
soup that contained so much pepper we could hardly eat it. Then we were
escorted to some unfinished buildings for shelter and without bedding of any
kind. The next morning the men were informed that if they would go out of town
and work in the harvest fields themselves and families would be provided with
provisions, if not, the women and children would receive soup once a day.
Father told them he could not do it as he had a large family and winter was
near. He needed clothing and bedding so poor father had to go hungry some of
the time.
We remained here several days as we had no means of getting away till one day a
small steam boat loaded with wheat made its appearance and father made
arrangements with captain for our transportation to St. Paul. Three more
families went with us, Mr. Eune, his blind wife and children, Mr. Kumro’s
family and Mr. and Mrs. Yess. Mrs. Yess had a bullet in her head received in
the flight from the Indians. While on the boat we would lay for hours at a time
on some sand bar in the middle of the river, the men carrying the wheat sacks
first to the front and then to the rear to change the ballast so we could work
off the bar. The third day out the boat struck a snag and sprung a leak. This
put the men on the pumps and for three days and nights we were without food and
that while among supposed civilized people. They told us we could be satisfied
for being on the boat. The banks of the river at this point were heavily
timbered and run over with wild grape vines, making it an excellent place for
the Indians to hide so the men were put on guard every night which added
greatly to their suffering. Finally father asked the Captain how far we were
from Le Suer [sic] and on learning we were but four miles from there by land we
received permission to land.
On landing our first thought was of something to eat. We tried to buy some
bread at the first house but they were threshing and could not let us have any
but they directed to us another house about a mile away. At last we reached
this house and were kindly received. The lady gave a dish pan to the men and
told them to dig some potatoes and some got some water. Mrs. Burch the lady of
the house made biscuit and such a feast as we had. Some of the crowd took sick
from over eating they were so hungry. The meal being over we wended our way to
Le Suer [sic] four miles distant where we were well cared for, thanks to the
citizens. The town had sent the most of its men to assist at New Ulm. Our men
went to work the next day for one dollar per day in the harvest field. This was
in September, the grain was all uncut and much of it went to waste. Mrs. Eune
the blind woman died soon after, leaving a large family of children. Father
walked to Mankato the following December to witness the hanging of the 38
Indians, the most of whom we were acquainted with, having lived across the
Minnesota river about two miles from our home.
I will now come to a close, having told you but a small part of what really
happened. There were many sad sights to witness as the refugees came into the
Fort. One woman and a small babe that were badly burned and Mrs. Trohp [Frolip],
after being shot with fine shot so her back looked like a seive [sic]; the two
little boys that left their little baby brothers asleep in a house so they
could get to the Fort; the arrival of Mrs. Crothers [Carrothers] and her two
children from captivity amongst the Indians and many more.
We finally moved to our old home in Renville County and many times we could
hear shooting of Indians and some times see them for a year after. We lived
their [sic] for sixteen years then moved to Hubbard County where we have
resided ever since and expect to stay here to the end. May none of the readers
of this brief history of pioneer days ever experience anything similar is the
wish of the writer.
Mrs. J. Vogtman
Read the ebook "Blood on the Prairie - A Novel of the Sioux Uprising" here.
http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Prairie-Novel-Uprising-ebook/dp/B002HWSX12/ref=tmm_kin_title_0
