lanket of one of the Indians. Without a
change of countenance or a suspicious movement he proceeded with the
inspection until it was completed, and retired from the barracks, and at
once caused to be mustered around the barracks every soldier in the city
with loaded guns and fixed bayonets. Then with a squad of soldiers he
entered the barracks and searching every Indian, he secured a large
number of hatchets, knives, clubs and other weapons. These weapons, it
was learned had been gotten at the Winnebago agency about twelve miles
away by several squaws, who prepared food for these Indians and who were
allowed to go to the woods to gather wood for their fires. Immediately
after this discovery the Indians who were under sentence of death were
removed to a stone building near by where they were kept under heavy
guard. A few days after this incident, Dec. 26, 1862, my company came
from St. Peter to act as guard on one side of the scaffold at the
execution of the thirty-eight Indians who were then hanged on what is
now the southerly end of the grounds of the Chicago and Northwestern
freight depot, in Mankato. A granite monument now marks the place.

Captain Clark Keysor.

I served as first Lieutenant, Co. E, 9th Minnesota of the frontier
extending from Fort Ridgely through the settlement at Hutchinson, Long
Lake and Pipe Lake. At the latter place we built a sod fort and I was in
charge. Mounted couriers, usually three in number, traveling together,
reported daily at these forts. I was stationed along the frontier for
more than a year and we had many encounters with the Indians, and I soon
learned that a white man with the best rifle to be bought in those days
had a poor chance for his life when he had to contend with an Indian
with a double barrel shot gun.

The Indian, with one lightning like movement throws a hand full of mixed
powder and shot into his gun, loading both barrels at once and takes a
shot at his enemy before the white man can turn around, and when the
Indian is running to escape, he jumps first to this side and then to
that, never in a straight line, and it is an expert marksman, indeed,
who can hit him.

I worked on the Winnebago agency as carpenter and millwright and learned
to know the habits of the Indians very well. I learned to follow a trail
and later during the Indian trouble that knowledge came in very handy.

It is very easy for a white man to fall into the habits of the Indian,
but almost imp