Winston Churchill speaks on American Independence Day in 1918

Extracted from:  A Declaration of Interdependence, Commemoration in London in 1918 of the 4th of July, 1776. Resolutions and addresses at the Central hall, Westminster, with an introduction by George Haven Putnam; THE LIBRARY OF WAR LITERATURE, 511 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK

Mr. Winston Churchill:

We are, as the Chairman has stated, met here to-day in the City of Westminster to celebrate the hundred and forty-second anniversary of American Independence. We are met also, as he has reminded you, as brothers in arms, facing together grave injuries and perils, and passing through a period of exceptional anxiety and suffering. Therefore we seek to draw from the past history of our race inspiration and encouragement which will cheer our hearts and fortify and purify our resolution and our comradeship. A great harmony exists between the Declaration of Independence and all we are fighting for now. A similar harmony exists between the principles of that Declaration and what the British Empire has wished to stand for and has at last achieved, not only here at home, but in the great self-governing Dominions through the world. The Declaration of Independence is not only an American document; it follows on Magna Charta and the Petition of Right as the third of the great title deeds on which the liberties of the English-speaking race are founded. By it we lost an Empire, but by it we also preserved an Empire. By applying these principles and learning this lesson we have maintained unbroken communion with those powerful Commonwealths which our children have founded and have developed beyond the seas, and which, in this time of stress, have rallied spontaneously to our aid. The political conceptions embodied in the Declaration of Independence are the same as those which were consistently expressed at the time by Lord Chatham and Mr. Burke and by many others who had in turn received them from John Hampden and Algernon Sidney. They spring from the same source; they come from the same well of practical truth, and that well, ladies and gentlemen, is here, by the banks of the Thames in this famous Island, which we have guarded all these years, and which is the birthplace and the cradle of the British and the American race. It is English wisdom, it is that peculiar political sagacity and sense of practical truth, which animates the great document in the minds of all Americans to-day. Wherever men seek to frame polities or constitutions which are intended to safeguard the citizen, be he rich or be he poor, on the one hand from the shame of despotism, on the other from the misery of anarchy, which are devised to combine personal liberty with respect for law and love of country — wherever these desires are sincerely before the makers of constitutions or laws, it is to this original inspiration, this inspiration which was the product of English soil, which was the outcome of the Anglo-Saxon mind, that they will inevitably be drawn.

We therefore feel no sense of division in celebrating this anniversary. We join in perfect sincerity and in perfect simplicity with our American kith and kin in commemorating the auspicious and glorious establishment of their nationhood. We also, we British who have been so long in the struggle, also express our joy and gratitude for the mighty and timely aid which America has brought and is bringing to the Allied Cause. When I have seen during the last few weeks the splendour of American manhood striding forward on all the roads of France and Flanders, I have experienced emotions which words cannot describe. We have suffered so much in this country — and in gallant France they have suffered still more — that we can feel for others. There are few homes in Britain where you will not find an empty chair and aching hearts, and we feel in our own sorrow a profound sympathy with those across the Atlantic whose dear ones have travelled so far to face dangers we know only too well. Not British hearts only, but Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, and South African hearts [A voice: "And Indian too"], beat in keen common sympathy with them. And Indian hearts as well. All who have come across the great expanses of the ocean to take part in this conflict feel in an especial degree a sympathy, an intense and comprehending sympathy, with the people of the United States, who have to wait through these months of anxiety for the news of battle.

The greatest actions of men or of nations are spontaneous and instinctive. They do not result from nice calculations of profit and loss, or long balancing of doubtful opinions. They happen as if they could not help happening. The heart, as the French say, has reasons which the reason does not know. I am persuaded that the finest and worthiest moment in the history of Britain was reached on that August night, now nearly four years ago, when we declared war on Germany. Little could we know where it would carry us, or what it would bring to us. Like the United States, we entered the war a peaceful nation, utterly unprepared for aggression in any form; like the United States, we entered the war without counting the cost, and without seeking any reward of any kind. The cost has been more terrible than our most sombre expectations would have led us to imagine, but the reward which is coming is beyond the fondest dreams and hopes we could have cherished.

What is the reward of Britain? What is the priceless, utterly unexpected reward that is coming to us surely and irresistibly in consequence of our unstudied and unhesitating response to the appeals of Belgium and of France? Territory, indemnities, commercial advantages — what are they? They are matters utterly subordinate to the moral issues and moral consequences of this war. Deep in the hearts of the people of this Island, deep in the hearts of those whom the Declaration of Independence styles "our British brethren," lay the desire to be truly reconciled before all men and before all history with their kindred across the Atlantic Ocean; to blot out the reproaches and redeem the blunders of a bygone age, to dwell once more in spirit with our kith and kin, to stand once more in battle at their side, to create once more a true union of hearts, to begin once more to write a history in common. That was our heartfelt desire, but it seemed utterly unattainable — utterly unattainable, at any rate, in periods which the compass of our short lives enabled us to consider. One prophetic voice [Admiral Sims] predicted with accents of certitude the arrival of a day of struggle which would find England and the United States in battle side by side; but for most of us it seemed that this desire of union and of reconciliation in sentiment and in heart would not be achieved within our lifetime. But it has come to pass. It has come to pass already, and every day it is being emphasized and made more real and more lasting! However long the struggle may be, however cruel may be the sufferings we have to undergo, however complete may be the victory we shall win, however great may be our share in it, we seek no nobler reward than that. We seek no higher reward than this supreme reconciliation. That is the reward of Britain. That is the lion's share.

A million American soldiers are in Europe. They have arrived safely and in the nick of time. Side by side with their French and British comrades, they await at this moment the furious onslaught of the common foe, and that is an event which in the light of all that has led up to it, and in the light of all that must follow from it, seems — I say it frankly — to transcend the limits of purely mundane things. It is a wonderful event; it is a prodigious event; it is almost a miraculous event. It fills us, it fills me, with a sense of the deepest awe. Amid the carnage and confusion of the immense battlefield, amid all the grief and destruction which this war is causing and has still to cause, there comes over even the most secularly-minded of us a feeling that the world is being guided through all this chaos to something far better than we have ever yet enjoyed. We feel in the presence of a great design of which we only see a small portion, but which is developing and unfolding swiftly at this moment, and of which we are the honoured servants and the necessary instruments in our own generation. No event, I say, since the beginning of the Christian era has been more likely to strengthen and restore faith in the moral governance of the Universe than the arrival from the other end of the world of these mighty armies of deliverance. One has a feeling that it is not all a blind struggle; it is not all for nothing. Not too late is the effort; not in vain do heroes die.

There is one more thing I ought to say, and it is a grave thing to say. The essential purposes of this war do not admit of compromise. If we were fighting merely for territorial gains, or were engaged in a domestic, dynastic, or commercial quarrel, no doubt these would be matters to be adjusted by bargaining. But this war has become an open conflict between Christian civilization and scientific barbarism. The line is clearly drawn between the nations where the peoples own the governments and the nations where the governments own the peoples. Our struggle is between systems which faithfully endeavor to quell and quench the brutish, treacherous, predatory promptings of human nature, and a system which has deliberately fostered, organized, armed, and exploited these promptings to its own base aggrandizement. We are all erring mortals. No race, no country, no individual, has a monopoly of good or of evil, but face to face with the facts of this war, who can doubt that the struggle in which we are engaged is in reality a struggle between the forces of good and the forces of evil? It is a struggle between right and wrong, and as such it is not capable of any solution which is not absolute. Germany must be beaten; Germany must know that she is beaten; Germany must feel that she is beaten. Her defeat must be expressed in terms and facts which will, for all time, deter others from emulating her crime, and will safeguard us against; their repetition.

But, Ladies and Gentlemen, the German people have at any rate this assurance: that we claim for ourselves no natural or fundamental right that we shall not be obliged and even willing in all circumstances to secure for them. We cannot treat them as they have treated Alsace-Lorraine or Belgium or Russia, or as they would treat us all if they had the power. We can not do it, for we are bound by the principles for which we are fighting. We must adhere to those principles. They will arm our fighting strength, and they alone will enable us to use with wisdom and with justice the victory which we shall gain. Whatever the extent of our victory, these principles will protect the German people. The Declaration of Independence and all that it implies must cover them. When all those weapons in which German militarists have put their trust have broken in their hands, when all the preparations on which they have lavished the energies and the schemes of fifty years have failed them, the German people will find themselves protected by those simple elemental principles of right and freedom against which they will have warred so long in vain. So let us celebrate to-day not only the Declaration of Independence, but let us proclaim the true comradeship of Britain and America and their determination to stand together until the work is done, in all perils, in all difficulties, at all costs, wherever the war may lead us, right to the very end. No compromise on the main purpose; no peace till victory; no pact with unrepentant wrong — that is the Declaration of July 4th, 1918; that is the Declaration which I invite you to make in common with me, and, to quote the words which are on every American's lips to-day, "for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour."

A MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS Given in 1890.

A speech given: MEMORIAL DAY ADDRESS AT FT. MADISON, IOWA, BY THOMAS HEDGE, MAY 30, 1890.

The story of the rise of civil and religious liberty on this continent is full of incongruities and of contradictions. The Pilgrim Fathers planted their commonwealth among the gray rocks of Massachusetts, that they might have freedom to worship God; but we remember they compelled the flight to Narragansett of the learned and sincere Roger Williams, the friend of Milton, chiefly because he held forth that the civil magistrate's power extends only to the bodies, goods and outward state of man, and thus the other commonwealth of Rhode Island and Providence plantations had its beginning.

It has been an American custom, reaching back to the days of our grandfathers, to read in public, with religious solemnity, the Declaration of Independence on the morning of the Fourth of July, and the winged words of Jefferson — "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed" — we imagined, because they stirred our blood, that they set forth our profoundest faith. But it is only thirty years since no American citizen was permitted to speak in the spirit of those words below the lower rapids of yonder river, and only thirty years ago that if that American citizen should stretch forth his hand to help any man, woman or child, of a certain class, to cross that river in search of that unalienable right of liberty, he would be guilty of a crime against the government whose symbol was this flag.
(We are not ashamed to remember that there were not a few criminals of this sort in this neighborhood in those days.)
We were not in spirit a nation or a union, but a most heterogeneous aggregation of peoples, under the yoke of as many various customs, traditions, prejudices and bigotries as there were different communities. State lines were a reality, sectional feeling and mutual dread as impassable as the mountain range.

The truth spoken by him who was more than prophet, 'This country cannot remain half slave and half free,' at last became evident, and the darkness came and the labor and agony of the new birth of freedom.
It seemed as if the spirit of the Lord moved over the face of the land and breathed again into the nostrils of this people the breath of life. The eyes of their understanding were opened; it was given to them to see the invisible, to stand upon the Mount of Transfiguration and to be inspired with the presence of them of old time who had toiled, suffered and triumphed for the good of those to be. All human capacities seemed to be enlarged. All human faculties to be reinforced. All human affections quickened and purified in this fire of trial. The cause was seen to be and accepted as the cause common and vital to us all. It was the people's war. The times grew spacious. Nothing was too great or too high for the energy the constancy, the self-denial, the faith of this people in their devotion to this cause — ever old and ever new — of human liberty. As in the days of the revolution it called manhood from the tranquil pursuits and toils of peace, the delight of life, to absence from home, to cold, hunger, the prison-pen, disease, wounds, death; it called woman to poverty, to loneliness, to agony of suspense, to widowhood and bereavement of her first born.
There were days which were to her as a thousand years, when the very air quivered with the tidings of defeat or the hardly less dreadful word of victory; when she was told that while men of their abundance had cast their offerings into the treasury she had given more than them all — even all her living.
When this death angel came, although for tears she saw it not, the glory of the Lord shone 'round her dwelling-akin to that of the star of Bethlehem, for it had been vouchsafed to her to bear a son found worthy to die for the help of his fellow-men.
And the boys whom these women with christian grace had sent away, these boys whom we bear in memory at this hour, deeming it the highest privilege and pride of our earthly life that we hobnobbed with them and marched with them and were with them where they fell, they made up an army such as never had been known before. Their understanding comprehended fully the purpose of their warfare — it was not for ambition, for material conquest, for personal aggrandizement, nor to relieve themselves of personal oppression, for they had never realized the presence or approach of any tyranny. The flag to them was but the sign of the enforcement and security of those unalienable rights, which they had been trained to believe were the birthright of all men. It was such a sign, not for themselves or their's alone, not for a class, a sect, a party, a generation or a race, but for everyone made in the image of God, wherever and so long as that flag might wave.

I said that we were a heterogeneous people, marked by our provincial prejudices and bigotries. Travel broadens the view and dispels the mists of prejudice, and no sort of travel so effectually as that pursued by our young volunteer, After the boy from Iowa had trudged alongside of the boy from Vermont or Pennsylvania, or of the boy whose father was born in Ireland or Germany, and had drank from the same canteen, and shared his hard tack, had climbed the same opposing earthwork at his side, had witnessed his boyish valor "in the imminent deadly breach'' ''on the fiery edge of battle,'' and had lain down beside him in the swamp and suffered the same cold, the same homesickness, he began to realize what Paul meant by till men being of one blood; boundary lines and section corners vanished, and his love of country, as of his countrymen, came to comprehend the wide continent, bounded only by the inviolate seas.

He so bore himself that he conquered even the prejudices of his opposers, and to-day wherever his grave may be, whether by those of his kindred or in the red soil of Virginia, in the mountains of Georgia or Tennessee, or under the flowers of Carolina, it is at home, in his own country, a pledge and monument of perpetual union, and of ever growing peace and good will among its people.
As something of the duty of tradition mingles in these ceremonies, let me place in the minds of those born since the day of Appomattox a hint of the personality of the "boy in blue.'' As yon read that "the old 'Continentals' in their ragged regimentals faltered not," your fancy pictures a grizzled soldier toughened by the frosts of many winters, when in truth he and the Minute Man and the Green Mountain boy, as well as the boy in blue, were of the same age, which is yours. The soldier whose memory we are met to honor was not such as these to-day — his face lined and refined by care, with stooping shoulders and whitening hair, and halting step, and eyes grown dim; but such as these were five and twenty years ago; his face bright with hope, his gaze clear and proud with purpose, his step firm and sure, with the spring of youth. And my veteran brothers, those who were taken away from us at the front are now before the vision of our memory as when they marched out to die. Imperishable youth is theirs.
Their fame shall live so long as man loves liberty, the example of their sacrifice be an inspiration to future patriotism, their spirits the airy leaders of heroes yet to be.
It was ordained that they should die in glory — no less was it in the infinite purpose that we should survive. The earnest lesson of the day is that we learn and fulfil that purpose, that while they sleep we guard the field they died to win.
In the quarter of a century that has passed since the last surrender we have had time to come down from the Mount of Transfiguration, to lose something of the exaltation of spirit of the time of war in the dusty scramble for the things that perish, and a generation has arisen that cannot fully appreciate at what great price their freedom was obtained and preserved. We need to be reminded in season and out of season that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." The old theory seems to be regaining its lost ground, that the jurisdiction of human government is boundless, and its authority without limit; that all things, including riches and wisdom and virtue and honor, can be attained by the enactment of a legislature. We forget, that while government is an essential agency of society — supreme within its sphere — that its sphere is limited and that it is only an agency, like the Sabbath, made for man: that its province is only in public matters, to protect each from others' trespasses and to insure to every man his own. We do not keep in mind that government cannot create or confer the essential rights of man; that as Jefferson wrote, it is only an institution to secure these rights, and as it does not create or confer these rights, so it cannot justly impair them or take them away.
So long as men are self-seeking there will be efforts made to usurp power in legislation for selfish ends. So long as men are self-righteous they will strive to impose their own standard of right and wrong upon their neighbors, and as the people prefer, or wish to seem to prefer, whatsoever things are honest, or true, or of good report, with success proportioned to the apparent worthiness of the end to be attained. Our liberties are in little danger from the Philistines; it is the leaven of the Pharisee that is the present menace of the republic.

While it was the duty of the veteran, as a soldier, "not to reason why, only to do and die," it is his duty as a veteran, citizen always to reason why. To him much has been given — of him much shall be required. A sovereign citizen, to him is intrusted only in fuller measure, and to a higher degree, the charge of the Roman consul — to see that the republic receives no harm.

As the sphere of government is limited, so, comparatively, is his duty as a citizen; including this duty, intertwined with it, but infinitely broader and higher, is his duty as a man. The conscientious fulfillment of the daily round, the common task, is the path laid out for him to toil in after virtue. We cannot escape the scrutiny and the judgments of the boy of to-day his notion of the defender of the republic, his estimate of those comrades over whose repose we this day scatter the rose, the lily and the violet, is made up of what he sees in us. Their good name is in our keeping. No higher tribute can we pay to the fame of the American soldier than "the white flower of a blameless life.'’ Comrades, brothers! let our remaining days be so disciplined that when our rest is sounded our neighbors may mourn each one of us as we mourn these; that contemplating a character full rounded, freed from stain of ill doing, or rust of indolence, they may say lovingly and proudly. "As his young comrades died, so this veteran lived — for the advantage of his fellow-men."

RUNNING THE GAUNTLET IN 1827

Excerpts from: "Three Score Years and Ten," Life-Long Memories OF Fort Snelling, Minnesota, AND OTHER PARTS OF THE WEST, BY CHARLOTTE OUISCONSIN VAN CLEVE. COPYRIGHTED 1888. PRINTING HOUSE Harrison & Smith, 257 AND 259 FIRST AVENUE SOUTH, MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.

Sometime in September the pioneer regiment arrived in pretty good condition at—where? No fort, no settlement, no regular landing even; simply at the mouth of the St. Peters river, where we had been ordered to halt, and our long march was ended.

For many weeks the boats were our only shelter, and the sense of entire isolation, the thought that the nearest white neighbors were three hundred miles away, and that months must elapse before they could hope to hear a syllable from home, proved, at times, exceedingly depressing to these first settlers in Minnesota. I record, with pleasure, what has been often told me, that in that trying time the courage of the ladies of the party did not fail them, and that their cheerful way of taking things as they came and making the best of them, was a constant blessing and source of strength to that little community.

Without loss of time a space was cleared very near the site of Mendota, trees were cut down, a stockade built enclosing log houses erected for the accommodation of the garrison; everything being made as comfortable and secure as the facilities permitted. The Indians proved friendly and peaceable, and the command entered upon their life at "St. Peters," as it was first called, cheerfully and hopefully. A few days after their arrival Colonel Leavenworth, Major Vose, Surgeon Purcell, Mrs. Captain Gooding and my father made a keel-boat trip to the "Falls of St. Anthony," and were amazed at the beauty and grandeur of the scene.

A prediction at that time that some then living would see these mighty falls turn the machinery of the greatest mills in the world, and a great and beautiful city arise on the adjacent shores, would have been called a visionary and impossible dream by those early visitors who saw this amazing water power in its primeval glory.

That first winter of '19 and '20, like all winters in this latitude, was very cold, with heavy snows and fierce winds, but there were many sunshiny days, and there was little or no complaining.

The quarters, having been put up hastily, were not calculated to resist the severe storms which at times raged with great violence. Once during that memorable six months the roof of our cabin blew off, and the walls seemed about to fall in. My father, sending my mother and brother to a place of safety, held up the chimney to prevent a total downfall; while the baby, who had been pushed under the bed in her cradle, lay there, as "Sairey Gamp" would express it, "smiling unbeknowns," until the wind subsided, when, upon being drawn out from her hiding-place, she evinced great pleasure at the commotion, and seemed to take it all as something designed especially for her amusement.

By the prompt aid of a large number of soldiers the necessary repairs were rapidly made, and soon all was comfortable as before. But late in the winter, owing to the lack of proper food, scurvy broke out among the soldiers, and forty of them died of this dreadful disease. Many more were affected with it, and far removed as we were from all relief in the way of change of diet or suitable remedies, it was a matter of great uneasiness and alarm, as in the absence of necessary preventives or restoratives medical skill availed nothing.

However, as soon as the frost was sufficiently out of the ground to enable them to dig it, the Indians brought in quantities of the spignot root, assuring the surgeon that would cure the sick. This proved entirely efficacious. The scourge was removed, and after that trial passed away the command was peculiarly exempt from sickness of any kind.

As soon as possible gardens were made. Everything grew rapidly, and a sufficient supply of vegetables was secured to prevent any recurrence of the evil.

More permanent and comfortable quarters were built during the spring at the beautiful spring on the fort side of the river, and named by the officers "Camp Coldwater;" but before moving into the new camp Colonel Leavenworth was relieved from the command by Colonel Josiah Snelling, who, with his well-known energy and promptitude, immediately began preparations for building the fort, the site of which had been selected by Colonel Leavenworth. The saw-mill at "St. Anthony's Falls," so long known and remembered as the "Old Government Mill," was started as soon as practicable. Quarries were opened, and everything was done to facilitate the work, Colonel Snelling proving himself well fitted for the duty assigned him, and the spring of 1820 was a very busy one for the old Fifth Regiment.
* * *
RUNNING THE GAUNTLET.
Like the old man in Dickens' "Child's Story," "I am always remembering; come and remember with me." I close my eyes and recall an evening some sixty years ago, when in one of the stone cottages near Fort Snelling, which was our home at that time, a pleasant company of officers and their families were spending a social evening with my parents.

The doors were thrown open, for the weather was warm, and one of the officers, Captain Cruger, was walking on the piazza, when we were all startled by the sound of rapid firing near us. The Captain rushed into the house, much agitated, exclaiming: "That bullet almost grazed my ear!" What could it mean? Were the Indians surrounding us? Soon the loud yells and shrieks from the Indian camp near our house made it evident that the treaty of peace made that afternoon between the Sioux and Chippewas had ended, as all those treaties did, in treachery and bloodshed. The principal men of the two nations had met at the Indian Agency, and in the presence of Major Taliaferro, their "White Father," had made a solemn treaty of peace. In the evening, at the wigwam of the Chippewa chief, they had ratified this treaty by smoking the pipe of peace together, and then, before the smoke of the emblematic pipe had cleared away, the treacherous Sioux had gone out and deliberately fired into the wigwam, killing and wounding several of the unsuspecting inmates. The Chippewas, of course, returned the fire, and this was what had startled us all and broken up the pleasant little gathering at my father's house. The Chippewas, with their wounded, sought refuge and protection within the walls of the fort, commanded at that time by Colonel Snelling. They were kindly cared for, and the wounded were tenderly nursed in our hospital. One, a little girl, daughter of the chief, excited much sympathy, and I cannot forget the interest I felt in her, for she was but a year or two older than myself, and it seemed to me so cruel to ruthlessly put out her young life. I remember the ladies of the fort were very kind and tender to her, and, since I have had little girls of my own, I know why. She lingered but a few days, in great agony, and then God took her out of her pain to that land where the poor little wandering, wounded child should know sin or suffering no more.

Meanwhile our prompt and efficient Colonel demanded of the Sioux the murderers, and in a very few days a body of Sioux were seen, as we supposed to deliver up the criminals. Two companies of soldiers were sent to meet them and receive the murderers at their hands. Strange to say, although they had the men, they refused to give them up, when our interpreter (I cannot recall his name) stepped out from among our soldiers, and said: "If you do not yield up these men peaceably, then, as many leaves as there are on these trees, as many blades of grass as you see beneath your feet, so many white men will come upon you, burn your villages and destroy your nation."

A few moments' consideration, a few hurried words of consultation, and the guilty men were handed over to our troops. The tribe followed as they were taken into the fort, and, making a small fire within the walls, the condemned men marched round and round it, singing their death songs, and then were given up to be put in irons and held in custody until time should determine how many lives should pay the forfeit, for it is well known that Indian revenge is literally a life for a life, and the Colonel had decided to give them into the hands of the injured tribe, to be punished according to their own customs.

Some weeks passed, and it was found that five lives were to be paid for in kind. A council of Chippewas decided that the five selected from the prisoners should run the gauntlet, and it was approved. And now, back over the lapse of many years I pass, and seem to be a child again, standing beside my only brother, at the back door of my father's house. The day is beautiful; the sun is so bright; the grass so green, all nature so smiling, it is hard to realize what is going on over yonder, by the graveyard, in that crowd of men and women; for there are gathered together the Chippewas, old and young men, women and children, who have come out to witness or take part in this act of retributive justice. There are blue coats, too, and various badges of our U. S. uniform; for it is necessary to hold some restraint over these red men, or there may be wholesale murder; and borne on the shoulders of his young men, we see the form of the wounded, dying chief, regarding all with calm satisfaction, and no doubt happy in the thought that his death, now so near, will not go unavenged. And there stand the young braves who have been selected as the executioners; their rifles are loaded, the locks carefully examined, and all is ready when the word shall be given. There, too, under guard, are the five doomed men, who are to pay the forfeit for the five lives so wantonly and treacherously taken.

Away off, I can not tell how many rods, but it seemed to us children a long run, are stationed the Sioux tribe; and that is the goal for which the wretched men must run for their lives.

And now, all seems ready; the bolts and chains are knocked off, and the captives are set free. At a word, one of them starts; the rifles, with unerring aim, are fired, and under cover of the smoke a man falls dead. They reload; the word is given, and another starts, with a bound, for home; but, ah! the aim of those clear-sighted, blood-thirsty men is too deadly; and so, one after another, till four are down.

And then the last, "Little Six", whom, at a distance, we children readily recognize from his commanding height and graceful form; he is our friend, and we hope he will get home. He starts; they fire; the smoke clears away, and still he is running. We clap our hands and say, "He will get home!" but, another volley, and our favorite, almost at the goal, springs into the air and comes down—dead! I cover my face, and shed tears of real sorrow for our friend.

And now follows a scene that beggars description. The bodies, all warm and limp, are dragged to the brow of the hill. Men, who at the sight of blood become fiends, tear off the scalps, and hand them to the chief, who hangs them around his neck. Women and children with tomahawks and knives, cut deep gashes in the poor dead bodies, and scooping up the hot blood with their hands, eagerly drink it. Then, grown frantic, they dance and yell, and sing their horrid scalp-songs, recounting deeds of valor on the part of their brave men, and telling of the Sioux scalps taken in former battles, until, at last, tired and satiated with their ghoul-like feast, they leave the mutilated bodies festering in the sun. At nightfall they are thrown over the bluff into the river, and my brother and myself, awe-struck and quiet, trace their hideous voyage down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. We lie awake at night talking of the dreadful thing we have seen; and we try to imagine what the people of New Orleans will think when they see those ghastly up-turned faces; and we talk with quivering lips and tearful eyes of "Little Six," and the many kind things he has done for us—the bows and arrows, the mocauks of sugar, the pretty beaded moccasins he has given us; and we wish, oh! we wish he could have run faster, or that the Chippewa rifles had missed fire. And we sleep and dream of scalps, and rifles, and war-whoops, and frightful yells, and wake wishing it had all been a dream.

Next day the chief sat up in bed, painted himself for death, sang his death song, and, with those five fresh, bloody scalps about his neck, lay down and died calmly and peacefully in the comfortable hope, no doubt, of a welcome in the "happy hunting grounds," prepared by the "Good Spirit" for all those Indians who are faithful to their friends, and avenge themselves upon their foes.

A few years ago, I told this story to another "Little Six." "Old Shakopee," as he lay with gyves upon his legs, in our guard house at Fort Snelling, awaiting execution for almost numberless cold-blooded murders, perpetrated during the dreadful massacre of '62. He remembered it all, and his wicked old face lighted up with joy as he told me he was the son of that "Little Six" who made so brave a run for his life, and he showed as much pride and pleasure in listening to the story of his father's treacherous conduct, as the children of our great generals will do some day, when they read or hear of deeds of bravery or daring that their fathers have done.

CHAPTER XI.
The incident recorded in the preceding chapter occurred in June, 1827, and in the autumn of the same year two companies of our command were ordered to Prairie du Chien to strengthen the garrison there, in anticipation of trouble with the Indians. One of these was Company "C", commanded by our father; the other company was in command of Captain Scott.