Civil War Congress and the Creation of Modern America by Paul Finkelman Donald R. Kennon

Author:Paul Finkelman, Donald R. Kennon [Paul Finkelman, Donald R. Kennon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, Reference & Language, Law, Legal History, History, Americas, United States, Civil War Period (1850-1877)
ISBN: 9780821446454
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Published: 2018-11-21T05:00:00+00:00

Paul Finkelman

Military Conflict on the Minnesota Homefront

Lincoln’s Humanitarian Concerns, Political Pressures, the Dakota Pardons, and the Future of U.S. Military Law

AS THE CIVIL war raged along the border between slavery and freedom, it was easy for Americans to forget that for most of American history, military activities had taken place on the frontier, usually between native populations and the ever-expanding white population. Even the War of 1812, which was ostensibly against Great Britain, had involved battles with Indians in the Mississippi, St. Lawrence, and Ohio valleys.1 But the war to preserve the nation for the most part took the nation’s eyes off the West. One major exception was the Dakota War in the late summer and early fall of 1862, which forced the Lincoln administration to shift some of its attention and resources to Minnesota, the scene of the most violent and bloody conflict between Indians and white settlers since the colonial period.2 As many as 600 or more white settlers, a few hundred soldiers, and somewhere between 100 (or less) and 300 Indians—almost all members of the Dakota nation (called Sioux at the time)—died in this conflict.3 At the time, political and military leaders in Minnesota asserted that at least 1,000 whites died. While this number was an exaggeration, the fact that most white leaders believed the death toll was this high heightened emotions and increased demands for postwar punishments of the Dakota. Thus, after the war 300 or so Dakota would die, some through execution, but many more through harsh conditions in postconflict confinement.

As the conflict in Minnesota died down, General Henry Hastings Sibley (fig. 1) appointed a military commission that eventually tried 393 Indians for “crimes” connected to the conflict.4 The trials began on September 28, 1862, and by November 5 the military commission had convicted 323 of the defendants. The speed of these trials was shocking. On the first day alone, sixteen men were tried, with ten being convicted and sentenced to death. This would have been one trial every thirty minutes, assuming eight full hours of hearing. As the trials wound down in November, the commission tried eighty-two men over two days.5 Some of these trials must have lasted less than ten minutes. Some of the defendants spoke no English, and none of them were afforded counsel. The commission sentenced 303 men to death and provided lesser punishments for twenty others who were convicted only of looting but were not involved in any combat or attacks on white settlers. Even before the trials were over, President Abraham Lincoln exercised his authority, and his obligation, under the Militia Act of 1862, ordering that no executions take place without his approval.6 On November 7, Major General John H. Pope (fig. 2), the recently appointed commanding general of the brand new Department of the Northwest, sent Lincoln the list of those sentenced to death.7

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