The Attacks on New Ulm

“Their advance upon the sloping prairie in the bright sunlight was a very fine spectacle, and to such inexperienced soldiers as we all were, intensely exciting.”

Charles Flandreau

On the afternoon of August 19, 1862, New Ulm came under siege by a relatively small group of Dakota warriors. This skirmish lasted several hours and left five settlers dead. The following day the people of New Ulm elected Judge Charles Flandrau, a prominent citizen from St. Peter, as their military commander. Over the next few days more than 1,000 refugees ballooned New Ulm’s population to 2,000 people, while only 300 were equipped to fight.

The second battle of New Ulm took place on August 23. This time, however, more than 600 Dakota soldiers fought, under the guidance of Chiefs Waƞbdiṭanka, Wabaṡa, and Makato. This was the largest battle over a US town since 1776. After holding off the attack, Charles Flandrau led the evacuation of New Ulm on August 25, leaving much of the city in ashes.

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Born about 1822, Mankato was the son of Good Road, for whose family the village "Mankato" was named. The Blue Earth River takes its name from the Dakota phrase "Makato Osa Watapa," or "the river where blue earth is gathered."

Mankato was a member of the delegation who signed the Treaty with the Dakota on June 19, 1858. He appears (left) in the famous photograph of the treaty signers made at a photography studio in Washington, D.C. During the U.S.-Dakota War he led a band of Mdewakanton soldiers into battle at Fort Ridgely, Birch Coulee, and Wood Lake. On September 23, 1862, he was killed by a cannonball at the battle of Wood Lake.

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"We think our Great Father may have forgotten his Red children & our hearts are very heavy — the Agents he send to us seem to forget their father’s words before they reach here for we often think they disobey what he has said. . . . You have said you are sorry to see my young men engaged still in their foolish dances--it is because their hearts are sick. They don’t know that whether these lands are to be their home or not."

Wabaṡa to Bishop Whipple, 1862

Chief Wabaṡa (also known as Wabasha, Wapasha, or Tahtapesaah), a member of the Mdewakanton band of Dakota, lived on a farm on the Lower Reservation by the Agency. During the U.S.-Dakota War, there were divisions between groups of Dakota people who were for or against the fighting. Wabaṡa joined a group of Dakota called the Peace Party whose aim was to bring people to safety.

After the war, Wabaṡa was exiled to Crow Creek in South Dakota, and later to Santee, Nebraska.

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"There was great dissatisfaction among the Indians over many things the whites did. The whites would not let them go to war against their enemies. . . . Then the whites were always trying to make the Indians give up their life and live like white men--go to farming, work hard as they did--and the Indians did not know how to do that, and did not want to anyway. It seemed too sudden to make such a change. If the Indians had tried to make the whites live like them, the whites would have resisted, and it was the same way with many Indians. The Indians wanted to live as they did before the treaty of Traverse des Sioux--go where they pleased and when they pleased, hunt game wherever they could find it, sell their furs to the traders and live as they could."

Wambditanka (Big Eagle), Mdewakanton Dakota leader, in an interview conducted with journalist Return I. Holcombe in 1894

Also known as Jerome Big Eagle, Wambditanka was born in 1827 at Black Dog’s village, a few miles above Mendota on the south bank of the Minnesota River. He succeeded his father, Grey Iron, as chief in 1857. By 1858 had moved to the Redwood (Lower Sioux) Agency to farm. When war broke out he joined the fighting and was at the battles of New Ulm, Fort Ridgely, Birch Coulee, and Wood Lake. After the war he was tried and convicted by the military commission, but received a pardon from President Lincoln in 1864. After several years living on reservations, Wambditanka and his family returned to Minnesota where he lived until 1906.

On the war of 1862:

"It began to be whispered about that now would be a good time to go to war with the whites and get back the lands. It was believed that the men who had enlisted [to fight in the Civil War] last had all left the state, and that before help could be sent the Indians could clean out the country, and that the Winnebagoes [Ho-Chunk], and even the Chippewas [Ojibwe], would assist the Sioux. It was also thought that a war with the whites would cause the Sioux to forget the troubles among themselves and enable many of them to pay off some old scores. Though I took part in the war, I was against it. I knew there was no good cause for it, and I had been to Washington and knew the power of the whites and that they would finally conquer us. We might succeed for a time, but we would be overpowered and defeated at last. I said all this and many more things to my people, but many of my own bands were against me, and some of the other chiefs put words in their mouths to say to me."

"I did not have a very large band. . . . Most of them were not for the war at first, but nearly all got into it at last. A great many members of the other bands were like my men; they took no part in the first movements, but afterwards did. . . . When I returned to my village that day I found that many of my band had changed their minds about the war, and wanted to go into it. . . . I was still of the belief that it was not best, but I thought I must go with my band and my nation, and I said to my men that I would lead them into the war, and we would all act like brave Dakotas and do the best we could. All my men were with me; none had gone off on raids, but we did not have guns for all at first."

View full article: Wambditanka (Big Eagle)

Jacob Nix was an immigrant from Bingen on the Rhine, Germany.

When the revolution of the German states broke out in 1848, Nix joined the struggle and became a captain in the “Free Corps.” Sentenced to death for treason, Nix escaped to the United States and in 1858 settled in New Ulm and opened a general store.

Due to his previous military experience, Nix was appointed commander of the New Ulm forces when the Dakota War broke out. He successfully defended the town during the first onslaught. After the war, Nix joined the Union army and participated in punitive expeditions.

From The Sioux Uprising in Minnesota, 1862 : Jacob Nix's Eyewitness History:

"One should not, of course, have provoked the Indians with injustices, but they also should not have made the inhabitants of an entire region pay for the wrongs committed by specific individuals by murdering, burning, and scorching the earth, and attacking settlers, destroying everything -- men and women, old people and children -- which came before their rifles and bows and arrows. Then, of course, there suddenly appeared the fanatics who immediately took up the cause of the captured red murderers after the defeat of the uprising. The following momentous words from the Bible should have been cast before these crazy, hypocritical puritans: An eye for an eye! A tooth for a tooth! That means: Immediately after the capture of the red scoundrels, one should not have wasted any time in shooting or hanging every one who took part in the horrible crimes which occurred in the summer of 1862 in Minnesota."

Contemporary Comment:

"If it wasn’t for Captain Nix, I wouldn’t be alive today, because Grandma refused to leave the farm. . . . He heard about the Uprising occurring, and that it got to New Ulm. So he came back and dragged her out of the house. She wouldn’t go. He said: ‘You can stay here, but I’m taking the kids.’ She finally went along with it, reluctantly."

Richard Runck, oral history, New Ulm, 2011

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This musket was used by Captain Louis Buggert who led a Brown County militia unit and was killed in the second battle of New Ulm on August 23rd, 1862.