* * * * *

As soon as Gen. Sibley had collected a sufficient force to enable
him to move with safety he decided upon offensive operations. He had
collected about 2,000 men from the regiments then forming, including
the Third regiment, recently paroled, and a battery under command of
Capt. Mark Hendricks. The expedition marched for two or three days
without encountering opposition, but on the morning of the 23d of
September several foraging parties belonging to the Third regiment
were fired upon in the vicinity of Wood Lake. About 800 of the command
were engaged in the encounter and were opposed by about an equal
number of Indians. After a spirited engagement Col. Marshall, with
about 400 men, made a double-quick charge upon the Sioux and succeeded
in utterly routing them. Our loss was four killed and forty or fifty
wounded. This was the only real battle of the war. Other Day was with
the whites and took a conspicuous part in the encounter. After
the battle Gen. Pope, who was in command of the department of the
Northwest, telegraphed the war department that the Indian war was
over and asked what disposition to make of the troops then under his
command. This request of Gen. Pope was met with a decided remonstrance
by the people of Minnesota, and they succeeded in preventing the
removal of any of the troops until they had made two long marches
through the Dakotas and to Montana. Gen. Sibley's command reached Camp
Release on the 26th of September, in the vicinity of which was
located a large camp of Indians, most of whom had been engaged in the
massacres. They had with them about two hundred and fifty mixed bloods
and white women and children, and the soldiers were very anxious to
precede at once to their rescue. Gen. Sibley was of the opinion that
any hostile demonstration would mean the annihilation of all the