Nearly two thousand people had been confined in the narrow fortified space. The women and children had been huddled in the cellars. Food was failing and sickness breaking out. Their homes destroyed, it was resolved to move the whole population to Mankato, thirty miles distant. On Monday morning they took the road; the women, children, and wounded on wheels, the men and boys on foot, escorted by the extemporized army. The column reached its destination late at night, and the refugees met with a generous reception. The next day, August 26, Colonel Flandrau’s force dissolved.
Little Crow had staked everything on his attack on New Ulm. Had he captured the place, and dispersed its defenders, Mankato, St. Peter, Le Sueur, and all the towns in the valley would have been abandoned, and the Sioux would have resumed possession of the fairest part of their ancient country. The Indian commander understood that after this failure there was little hope of success in any offensive movement unless better supported by the upper bands. He therefore broke up his camp below the Redwood and reëstablished it behind the Yellow Medicine. His men burned the buildings at the upper agency, and the mission houses.
The Minnesota legislature in the extra session of 1862 authorized an official count of the victims of the Sioux massacre, but as no citizens could be induced to undertake the service for a per diem of three dollars in paper money, no such reckoning was made. The estimates vary from 500 to 1500. That of Agent Galbraith, made with deliberation, may be accepted: In Renville County, 221; in Brown, 204; in other Minnesota counties, 187; in Dakota Territory, 42; total, 654. His estimate of government property losses is: On the upper reserve, $425,000; on the lower reserve, $500,000.
When Governor Ramsey got the tidings of the outbreak of the Sioux in the afternoon of Tuesday, August 19, his knowledge of Indians made it unnecessary to deliberate upon the measures that must be taken, or upon the choice of a proper person to have the command. For that duty he instantly selected his old political opponent, Henry Hastings Sibley, whom he commissioned as colonel and commander of the Indian expedition. Mr. Sibley had maintained his robust and athletic constitution; he knew the whole region of operations, spoke French and Dakota, understood Indian nature, and was acquainted with all the leading men of the Sioux nation.