CAPT IND REMINISCEN

by Washburn

The brutal bloodletting of over 800 civilians during the Dakota War of 1862 was meant to drive out the white American settlements from Minnesota while the Union was preoccupied with more headline grabbing battles like the Second Battle of Manassas and Antietam. The war took its toll between Mid-August and Late- September 1862 when Little Crow, the leader of the Dakota, surrendered his 269 captives at Camp Release. Minnie Buce Carrigan’s memoirs of living in the Minnesota River Valley are unlike the “Little House on the Prairie” series of children's books written by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Minnie’s tales of the 6 weeks during her childhood spent as a captive of the Dakota Sioux are in no way a children’s story and probably a reason why so many have never heard the story. Told matter-of-factly with no punches pulled, she spares no details in the harshness and struggles of a captive’s life.

40 pages, Hardcover

Published April 1, 1977

Reviews

[Ebook Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. The e-book version can be found at:
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/capt...

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

A first-hand account by a survivor of the Dakota Wars in Minnesota in 1862. It is just a small book, printed in 1912 (50 years after the event), that tells Minnie (Wilhelmine) Buse's account of Sioux and Chippewa Indians attacking her home on the Minnesota River between present day Granite Falls and Redwood Falls in Minnesota. Nearly her entire family and many neighbors she knew were savagely killed in August 1862 and her account is nearly impossible to believe at this late remove but is well corroborated both within her book by others whom she met or previously knew and in other accounts. She was only about 7-8 years old at the time but hers was obviously a story that had a lasting impact on her life. Great little gem for the family historian.