This update on the Dakota Indians in Minnesota and the military comes from the November 19, 1862, issue of The Prescott Journal.
Removal of Headquarters
— We have it on good authority, that Major General Pope [John Pope] is about to transfer his Headquarters to Madison, Wisconsin, and that Brigadier General Sibley,¹ is, thereupon, to make his Headquarters at St. Paul. It is also rumored, in connection with the above report, that the Department of the Northwest is to be extended, to include Illinois and Missouri, in which case Headquarters will be probably established at Chicago. Also, on dit that Minnesota is to be created a Military District under command of Gen. Sibley.—Press.
THE CONDEMNED INDIANS.—We learn that Gov. Sibley has already reached South Bend, the place designated to rendezvous the troops under his command. He has in his charge the 203 Indians condemned to be hung, the 18 condemned to imprisonment, besides about fifty squaws retained to cook for the Indians. As the train passed through New Ulm, the sight of these miscreants exasperated the people highly. They turned out en masse, and pelted them with stones and sticks till they got clear through the town. One woman, watching her chance, darted between a file of soldiers, and knocked down one of the Indians with a club.—St. Paul Press
1. Henry Hastings Sibley (1811-1891) was the first governor of Minnesota from 1858-1860. In 1862, he was appointed colonel of the state militia and was directed to the upper Minnesota River to protect White settlements from the Dakota (Sioux) Indians. For “gallantry in the field” against the Indians, Sibley was promoted to brigadier-general of volunteers on September 29, 1862.
The Civil War and Northwest Wisconsin 