NARROW ESCAPE FROM A HORRIBLE

            INDIAN MASSACRE.

               THE SKULKING DOG.

I N the spring of i863 I was stationed at Camp Pope,
   above Fort Ridgely, on the Minnesota river, State
of Minnesota, in the double capacity of United States
Commissary and Quartermaster.  This was after the
terrible Indian massacre, whereby nearly one thousand
innocent settlers lost their lives by the savages, and
after the Government had organized a command of sol-
diers, under a competent leader, to pursue the hostile
Sioux, reclaim the white prisoners, but at any rate
drive the enemy into or across the Missouri river, where
arrangements had been made to intercept, and if possi-
ble, annihilate them.
  Camp Pope was situated above Little Crow's village,
where the chief of that name had resided, and was in
the neighborhood of where the Indian war had been
inaugurated, for it was Little Crow himself who mar-
shaled his young warriors to battle, and who was
responsible for the horrid butcheries of the whites the
previous year. The camp was located some distance
from the Minnesota river, overlooked by a ridge of
bluffs, with drift granite boulders on the right, and a
very pretty valley stretching off up toward Yellow
Medicine, the former Indian agency. The place was
devoid of trees and seemed admirably adapted to the
purpose for which it was chosen, with one exception.
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