ket out of Fort Ridgely and was first to
hear the firing sixteen miles distant at Birch Coolie. It was the
Indians attacking the burial party. I notified those at the fort and a
party was sent out for relief. As they neared Birch Coolie they found
they were outnumbered by the savages and Lieut. Sheehan returned to Fort
Ridgely for the rest of the regiment. Then I accompanied them. They
finally came to the small band of soldiers, who had been attacked by the
Indians, to find twenty-three dead, and forty-five wounded out of the
one hundred and fifty-three men. The soldiers horses had been tied close
together to a rope to feed. There many of them had been shot, and being
so close together many were still standing, or had fallen down on their
knees--dead, but they served as a breast-work for the men. The
twenty-three soldiers were buried on the spot and the wounded taken to
Fort Ridgely.

I was also at Camp Release, under command of Gen. Sibley, where a great
many Indians were taken prisoners. These Indians had killed many whites,
and had some sixty women and children, prisoners. The soldiers managed
to secure the Indians' guns and then released the women and children,
finally taking the Indians prisoners, placing them in a log house, where
they were carefully guarded. These, together with others secured at
Yellow Medicine were chained together and taken to Mankato, where, in
December, thirty-eight were hanged.

The Old Trail afterward Stage Coach road, known as the
Hastings-Faribault Trail, passed through Northfield along what is now
Division Street. Going north it followed the Stanton road. At the
entrance of Mr. Olin's farm it passed along in front of the house--and
along through his pasture--east of the pond--on down onto Mr.
Alexander's land--following between two rows of trees, still standing,
and crossed the Cannon river just above where the Waterford dam now
stands. Thence along what is still known as the Hastings road. Through
Mr. Olin's pasture there is still about fifteen or twenty rods of the
Old Trail and road left.

Mrs. Augusta Prehn Bierman.

In the spring of '55 several of us German families, consisting of the
Prehn's, Bierman's, Drentlaws and Sumner's, came to Minnesota from a
settlement fifteen miles west of Chicago. We settled on claims near the
present city of Northfield. We were on the way eleven and one-half
weeks. We came by way of Joliet, forded the river at La Crosse and came
up here by way