Monday, December 24, 2018

December 26, 1862 Largest Execution in U. S. History

Coming up in just two days is the 156th anniversary of the largest mass execution in U. S. history. On December 26, 1862, the day after Christmas, 38 Sioux warriors leading the Great Sioux Uprising of that year were executed by hanging by the Union Army by order of President Abraham Lincoln. The hanging took place at Mankato, Minnesota.

Shortly before 10:00 a.m. the warriors, dressed in their finest, marched proudly to the gallows built for the occasion. They ascended the steps and chanted and screamed their defiant war cries as the nooses were placed around their necks and hoods placed over their heads. At exactly 10:00 a.m. the execution drumbeat signal was given and the hanging commenced. It was witnessed by  hundreds of onlookers according to Harper's Weekly. When the rope was cut and the floor platform dropped, the nooses went taut and 38 bodies swung in the air. A great cheer went up from the onlookers. In 20 minutes it was all over. The hundreds of settlers massacred by the Indians in the uprising had been avenged.

The bodies of the 38 were removed from the scaffold and buried on a sandbar in the nearby Minnesota river, only to by dug up a few hours later by physicians, including Dr. Mayo of LeSueur, father of Will and Charlie, to be sold to medical schools for dissection.

The next day, December 27, 1862, Henry Sibley, commander of the Indian Expedition, prepared the following terse letter from his office at Fort Snelling:

ST. PAUL, MINN.,
December 27, 1862

The President of the United States:

I have the honor to inform you that the thirty-eight Indians and half-breeds ordered by you for execution were hung yesterday at Mankato, at 10:00 A.M. Everything went off quietly and the other prisoners are well secured.

Respectfully,

H.H. Sibley
Brigadier General 

Read the entire story of the Dakota Conflict in Blood on the Prairie: A Novel of the Sioux Uprising in the format  of your choice, including the sesquicentennial edition, at Amazon at the link below:

 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007O2AMX2