3
lodges, in all 67 Indians. On the 18th W. A. Hill rejoined. While at
Camp Release the duty performed was chiefly guarding the Indian
prisoners, foraging, and serving on camp guard,--a very strict and
irksome one. Company drill in the morning and battalion drill in the
afternoon were also required.

Though within sixty miles of depots of supplies, and though the
majority of the fighting men of the insurgent Indians had either been
captured, or had surrendered, or retreated further up the Minnesota
river, the rank and file of this small army had here to suffer for the
want of commissary stores,--truly following the advice of the ancient
philosopher to leave off eating with yet a little appetite. Had it not
been for the potatoes of the Indian gardens and cattle of the
slaughtered and fugitive settlers--which provisions, though costing
nothing to the government at the time, were made to offset the amounts
due for non-issued rations, the source of "company funds"--we would
have been nearly starved.

The return march was begun on the 23rd of October, on which day the
weather turned suddenly cold and a high wind rose, which blew down many
of the tents at Yellow Medicine that night. Arrived at the Lower Agency
on the 25th, and then went into camp at Camp Sibley; and remained there
till the 8th of November, and then resumed the march. The next day the
company was detailed as guard for the prisoners, two men being assigned
to each wagon. Though the troops left the village of New Ulm a mile or
more to the left, yet the citizens, exasperated at the sight of the
Indians in the wagons guarded by the soldiers, lined the road opposite
the town in great excitement, hurling stones and endeavoring to get at
the Indians, in which they partly succeeded. On the 10th we arrived at
Blue Earth River bridge, and camped a little beyond it, on the townsite
of Le Hillier (L'Huillier) and immediately south of the isolated bluff
at the mouth of the river,--the camp being called Camp Lincoln.

Here Eberdt was relieved. Fischer left on the 15th on furlough, from
which he never returned; Juergens and Knobelsdorff, sick, were sent to
the hospital at Mankato the same day. Gaheen, Gantner, Meyer and Parks
had been detailed or detached as regimental teamsters during parts of
October and November, but by this time were all with the company again
for duty.

The regiment marched, by the way of Mankato, to St. Peter, on the 17th,
having traveled to the l