care of, and about eighty wounded men. The caravan consisted of 153
wagons, drawn by horses and oxen; the troops being on foot, and so
disposed as to make a good defense if attacked.

Everything being ready for a start, some one suggested to me to set a
trap for the Indians, when they should enter the town after our
departure, as we all supposed they would, there being an immense amount
of loot left behind,--stores full of goods of all kinds, and many other
things of value to the savage.

I had, the day before, put a stop to some of the younger men scalping
the eight or ten dead Indians who had been dragged into the town from
where they had been killed, regarding it as barbarous. The boys would
take off a small piece of scalp, and with its long black hair, tie it
into their button-holes, as a souvenir to take home with them.

What do you think was the nature of the trap that was proposed to catch
the Indians? It makes my blood run cold to think of it, and so
disgraceful and diabolical was it that, in all I have said and written
about this war in the last thirty-six years, I have never had courage to
mention it. Yet as awful as it was, so incensed was I at all the
devilish cruelty that had been perpetrated on our people that I at first
consented to it, and we went so far as actually to set the trap.

It was proposed to expose a barrel of whisky in a conspicuous place,
and put enough strychnine in it to destroy the whole Sioux nation, and
then label it "poison" in all the languages spoken in our polyglot
country, so that should the first comers be whites they would avoid it,
but if Indians, we might have the satisfaction of exterminating them. We
actually went so far as to place the barrel where it would attract
anyone who should be looking about the main street, which was all that
was left of the town, and labelled it in French, English, German,
Italian, Swedish and Norwegian, and then put into it eight or ten
bottles of strychnine, prepared for destroying wolves, and were about
leaving when the thought flashed through my mind: "Suppose a relief
squad should be sent to us, and should think the whole matter a joke to
cheat them out of a drink, and should sample it and die, as they
certainly would, we never could forgive ourselves, and would be really
their murderers." My knowledge of the fact that a soldier who had made a
long march on a hot day would take big chances for a drink, heightened
my apprehension on this vie