{"id":1070,"date":"2013-06-29T13:04:09","date_gmt":"2013-06-29T13:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/?p=1070"},"modified":"2016-06-19T12:31:45","modified_gmt":"2016-06-19T12:31:45","slug":"letter-to-henry-sibley-december-6-1862","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/letter-to-henry-sibley-december-6-1862\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter to Henry Sibley (December 6, 1862)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ranking<\/strong><\/h3>\n

#113<\/span> on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents<\/em><\/p>\n

Annotated Transcript<\/h3>\n
“Ordered that of the Indians and Half-breeds sentenced to be hanged by the Military Commission, composed of Colonel Crooks, Lt. Colonel Marshall, Captain Grant, Captain Bailey, and Lieutenant Olin, and lately sitting in Minnesota, you cause to be executed on Friday the nineteenth day of December, instant, the following named, towit: ‘Te-he-hdo-ne-cha.’ \u00a0No. 2. by the record….”<\/a><\/div>\n

On This Date<\/h3>\n

HD Daily Report, December 6, 1862<\/a><\/p>\n

The Lincoln Log, December 6, 1862<\/a><\/p>\n

Custom Map<\/h3>\n

\"Screen<\/a>
\n\u00a0View in Larger Map<\/a><\/p>\n

How Historians Interpret<\/h3>\n

“A decisive victory by Sibley at Wood Lake on September 23 was the end of organized fighting by the Sioux in Minnesota. \u00a0Indians who remained hostile fled west, and friendly chiefs arranged for the release of white captives. \u00a0Large numbers of Sioux were captured or surrendered, and day by day more Indians, many of them on the point of starvation, gave themselves up. \u00a0Cries of vengeance filled the air, and a five-man military commission was quickly appointed to try the captive Indians. \u00a0The commission worked with great haste; in ten days it tried 392 prisoners, condemning 303 to death. \u00a0Pope and Sibley wanted the condemned men executed at once, and they telegraphed the names to Lincoln for confirmation of the sentences. \u00a0Lincoln would not move so precipitously; he directed that the full records of the trials be sent to him for review. . . It was not an easy question for Lincoln. \u00a0He decided finally to uphold the sentence of death for only thirty-nine of the convicted me, and on December 6 he sent Sibley their names. \u00a0He laid out the basis for his decision to the Senate. \u00a0‘Anxious to not act with so much clemency as to encourage another outbreak, on the one hand, nor with so much severity as to be real cruelty, on the other,’ Lincoln said, ‘I caused a careful examination of the records of the trials to be made, in view of first ordering the execution of such as had been proved guilty of violating females. \u00a0Contrary to my expectations, only two of this class were found. \u00a0I then directed a further examination, and a classification of all who were proven to have participated in\u00a0massacres,<\/em> as distinguished from participation in\u00a0battles.’\u00a0<\/em> One of the thirty-nine men was reprieved as the last minute; the thirty-eight were hanged at Mankato in a spectacle attended by a large crowd on December 26, 1862.”<\/p>\n

\u2013Francis Paul Prucha,\u00a0The Great Father: The United States Government and the American Indians\u00a0<\/em>(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984), 443-445<\/a><\/p>\n

NOTE TO READERS<\/h3>\n

This page is under construction and will be developed further by students in the new \u201cUnderstanding Lincoln\u201d online course sponsored by the House Divided Project at Dickinson College and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. To find out more about the course and to see some of our videotaped class sessions, including virtual field trips to Ford’s Theatre and Gettysburg, please visit our Livestream page at http:\/\/new.livestream.com\/gilderlehrman\/lincoln<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Searchable Text<\/span><\/h3>\n
Executive Mansion, Washington, \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
December 6th. 1862.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
Brigadier General H.H. Sibley\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
St. Paul Minnesota.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
Ordered that of the Indians and Half-breeds sentenced to be hanged by the Military Commission, composed of Colonel Crooks, Lt. Colonel Marshall, Captain Grant, Captain Bailey, and Lieutenant Olin, and lately sitting in Minnesota, you cause to be executed on Friday the nineteenth day of December, instant, the following named, towit<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cTe-he-hdo-ne-cha.\u201d \u00a0No. 2. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cTazoo\u201d alias \u201cPlan-doo-ta.\u201d No. 4. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cWy-a-tah-to-wah\u201d No. 5 by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cHin-han-shoon-ko-yag.\u201d No. 6 by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cMuz-za-bom-a-du.\u201d No. 10. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cWah-pay-du-ta.\u201d No. 11. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cWa-he-hud.\u201d No. 12. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cSna-ma-ni.\u201d No. 14. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cTa-te-mi-na.\u201d No. 15. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cRda-in-yan-kna.\u201d No. 19. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cDo-wan-sa.\u201d No. 22. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cHa-pan.\u201d No. 24. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cShoon-ka-ska.\u201d (White Dog). No. 35. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cToon-kan-e-chah-tay-mane.\u201d No. 67. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cE-tay-hoo-tay.\u201d No. 68. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cAm-da-cha.\u201d No. 69. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cHay-pee-don—or, Wamne-omne-ho-ta.\u201d No. 70. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cMahpe-o-ke-na-ji.\u201d No. 96. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cHenry Milord\u201d—a Half-breed. No. 115. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cChaskay-don\u201d—or Chaskayetay.\u201d No. 121. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cBaptiste Campbell\u201d a Halfbreed. No. 138. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cTah-ta-kay-gay.\u201d No. 155. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cHa-pink-pa.\u201d No. 170 by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cHypolite Ange\u201d a Half-breed. No. 175 by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cNa-pay-Shue.\u201d No. 178. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cWa-kan-tan-ka.\u201d No. 210. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cToon-kan-ka-yag-e-na-jin.\u201d No. 225. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cMa-kat-e-na-jin.\u201d No. 254. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cPa-zee-koo-tay-ma-ne.\u201d No. 264. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cTa-tay-hde-don.\u201d No. 279. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cWa-She-choon,\u201d or \u201cToon-kan-shkan-shkan-mene-hay.\u201d No. 318. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cA-e-cha-ga.\u201d \u00a0No. 327. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cHa-tan-in-koo.\u201d No. 333. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cChay-ton-hoon-ka.\u201d No. 342. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cChan-ka-hda.\u201d No. 359. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cHda-hin-hday.\u201d No. 373. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cO-ya-tay-a-koo.\u201d No. 377. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cMay-hoo-way-wa.\u201d No. 382. by the record.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cWa-kin-yan-na.\u201d No. 383 by the record<\/span><\/div>\n
The other condemned prisoners you will hold subject to further orders, taking care that they neither escape, nor are subjected to any unlawful violence.<\/span><\/div>\n
ABRAHAM LINCOLN,<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ranking #113 on the list of 150 Most Teachable Lincoln Documents Annotated Transcript “Ordered that of the Indians and Half-breeds sentenced to be hanged by the Military Commission, composed of Colonel Crooks, Lt. Colonel Marshall, Captain Grant, Captain Bailey, and Lieutenant Olin, and lately sitting in Minnesota, you cause to be executed on Friday the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10857],"tags":[10867,11661,11630,11669,10861,10875,10862],"class_list":["post-1070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-father-abraham","tag-executive-order","tag-indians","tag-military-affairs","tag-needs-close-reading","tag-public","tag-violence","tag-wartime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1070"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4371,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1070\/revisions\/4371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/lincoln\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}