President Lincoln and the Sioux Indian uprising in Minnesota in 1862

[L Verge]

I know that many moons ago on this forum we were discussing the Dakota Uprising and Lincoln's pardoning of over 250 Sioux warriors, leaving only 38 to be executed. Not finding that thread, I'm starting this one because of something interesting that I read today.

Several months ago, I purchased an intriguing book entitled Here Is Where: Discovering America's Great Forgotten History by Andrew Carroll. The author has traveled the country finding and writing about historical events that few of us have ever paid any attention to. The execution of these Sioux warriors in 1862 is the subject of one of the chapters.

On the morning of their execution, the men carried little pocket mirrors with them and, before being bound, dressed themselves in traditional war paint and arranged their hair according to Indian style. They marched to the gallows with their heads high and rushed up the steps almost as if they were in a contest to see who could get up to the platform first. Among their executioners, the concern was chiefly whether or not the gallows could withstand the weight of 38 men all at one time. This would become the largest mass execution on American soil.

Once on the gallows, the men began singing, chanting, and swaying to and fro. Even though each man was tied up, there was an effort to reach one another and hold hands. Some managed to do it.

The gallows held for the fall, but one rope snapped and sent its man to the ground where he was quickly retrieved and "re-hanged." One man struggled for ten minutes until a soldier tightened the noose by giving it a quick snap.

After the required thirty minutes of hanging, the bodies were cut down, piled into mule-drawn wagons, taken to the Minnesota River, and hastily buried in a sandbar, the only portion of land not frozen in the December 1862 winter. The most disgusting part of the whole story came after nightfall.

Once the sun went down, a group of men went down to the riverbank, found the shallow graves, and dug the corpses up and hauled them home. They even drew lots to see who got the best bodies. A warrior named Cut Nose was the one that everyone wanted. This group of men were all doctors wanting the bodies for anatomical research. They were body snatchers following a common practice. Cut Nose was over six-foot-four and a beautiful specimen of a man.