2th of
September, and marched up the Minnesota river to Wood Lake, near Yellow
Medicine, arriving there on the 22d following. Little Crow was encamped
in the vicinity with his braves. The savages, however, had become
demoralized, and he could no longer control them. Little Crow desired to
make an attack that night, but his opponents told him in council that if
he was a brave Indian he would fight the white man by daylight.
Accordingly, next morning he attacked Colonel Sibley's forces with three
hundred of his warriors, the others refusing to join in the fight. After
a sharp two-hours' battle the Indians were completely routed, losing
thirty killed, and a proportionate number of wounded. The whites lost
four killed, and forty wounded.

This battle substantially ended the war. The Indians retreated, and the
whites pursued them to Lac Qui Parle. Four days afterward, a camp of
about one hundred and fifty lodges of Indians and halfbreeds separated
from Little Crow's party, met Colonel Sibley in council, surrendered
themselves, and formally delivered up to him ninety-one white prisoners,
and over one hundred halfbreeds, whom they had obtained. Other parties
came in afterward, surrendering themselves unconditionally, until
between two and three thousand Indians, of all sexes and ages, were in
the hands of the troops as prisoners of war. A military commission was
appointed to try the ringleaders and worst offenders, and over three
hundred of them were convicted and sentenced to death. Before this paper
is printed, some, at least, of these, will have expiated their crimes on
the gallows. Little Crow, with a small but desperate band of followers,
succeeded in making his escape to Devil's Lake in Dakota Territory.

The future disposition of the Indians of the State of Minnesota is one
of the most perplexing minor questions of the day. In their present
location, the feud of race engendered by the insurrection will only die
with the generation that witnessed its beginning. Humanitarian impulses
and humanitarian duties are forgotten in the fierce thirst for private
vengeance. With one voice, the people of that State demand the removal
or threaten the extermination of their dangerous neighbors. But whither
shall they go? The swallowing tides of civilization encompass them on
the east, the north, and the south; and the only other avenue, the west,
is guarded by the gaunt wolf starvation.

It is proposed by some to colonize them on th