A SIOUX STORY OF THE WAR.
CHIEF BIG EAGLE'S STORY OF THE SIOUX OUTBREAK OF 1862.
The stories of the great Sioux war in Minnesota in 1862 never grow old. They are always new to many and never dull to anybody. Although thirty-two years, nearly a third of a century, have passed since that eventful episode, yet to many it seems but a few months since barbarism rode rampant over a great part of the state, and civilization, gashed and bleeding, was prone on the prairies, with none to bind up the wounds. All over the state are survivors of that terrible contest who remember its incidents and relate them as if the crack of the rifle and the din of the war-whoop yet rang in their ears. The story is always of interest to them.
There are two sides to this as to every other story. The version of the white people ought to be well enough known. But the Indian side, strangely enough, has not been recorded. The soldiers of the Union read no stories of the great Rebellion with more interest than the narratives of the ex-Confederates, and we never got the full and true story of the war until they began to write. So we can never fully understand the Sioux war of 1862 until the Indians tell their story.
In June, 1894, Mr. Robert I. Holcombe of St. Paul (who had become familiar with the history of Gen. Sibley's campaigns against the Sioux in 1862 and 1863, from having been employed several months in examining and classifying the letters and papers of Gen. Sibley for the Minnesota Historical society), made a trip to Flandrau, S. D., to get from Mrs. Huggan and others the Indians' side of the story of the great outbreak of 1862. He there met Big Eagle, a chief, who had taken part with Little Crow in the battles, but had not been engaged in the massacre of whites. His narrative was taken down from his own lips, through Mrs. Huggan, Rev. Mr. Eastman and other competent interpreters. (This story was first published in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, July 1, 1894.)
