committing depredations, and
send the remainder of them to their reservation. The captain took twenty
men, and, on Aug. 24, 1857, started for the scene of the trouble. On the
28th he overtook some six or seven Indians, and in their attempt to
escape a collision occurred, in which a young man, a member of Starkey's
company, named Frank Donnelly, was instantly killed. The troops
succeeded in killing one of the Indians, wounding another, and capturing
four more, when they returned to St. Paul, bringing with them the dead,
wounded, and prisoners. The dead were buried, the wounded healed, and
the prisoners discharged by Judge Nelson on a writ of habeas corpus.

The general sentiment of the community was that the expedition was
unnecessary, and should never have been made. This affair was
facetiously called the "Cornstalk War."

THE WRIGHT COUNTRY WAR.

In the fall of 1858 a man named Wallace was killed in Wright county.
Oscar F. Jackson was tried for the murder in the spring of 1859, and
acquitted by a jury. Public sentiment was against him, and he was warned
to leave the county. He did not heed the admonition, and on April 25th a
mob assembled, and hung Jackson to the gable end of Wallace's cabin.
Governor Sibley offered a reward for the conviction of any of the
lynchers. Shortly afterwards one, Emery Moore, was arrested as being
implicated in the affair. He was taken to Wright county for trial, and
at once rescued by a mob. The governor sent three companies of the
militia to Monticello to arrest the offenders and preserve order, the
Pioneer Guards being among them. This force, aided by a few special
officers of the law, arrested eleven of the lynchers and rescuers, and
turned them over to the civil authorities, and on the 11th of August,
1859, having completed their mission, returned to St. Paul. As there was
no war or bloodshed of any kind connected with this expedition, it was
called the "Wright County War."

Gov. Sibley, having somewhat of a military tendency, appointed as his
adjutant general, Alexander C. Jones, who was a graduate of the Virginia
Military Academy, and captain of the Pioneer Guards. Under this
administration a very complete militia bill was passed, on the twelfth
day of August, 1858. Minnesota from that time on had a very efficient
militia system, until the establishment of the national guard, which
made some changes in its general character, supposed to be for the
better.

THE CIVI