These forays had their natural and intended effect. As the tidings of Indian butchery spread, the settlers loaded what furniture and provisions they could in their wagons, and driving their stock before them, made their way to the “river towns.” An area two hundred miles long from north to south and fifty miles in breadth was depopulated, while the harvest awaited the reapers. Their flight was all the more precipitate because of rumors that the Winnebagoes had broken out along with the Sioux, and that the Chippeways were to close in from the north. No small number of persons went back to their former homes in other states. The occasional appearance of small parties of Indians out for cattle-stealing and other robberies for a month after the outbreak justified all the fears of the fugitives. On September 22 two children were killed within fifteen miles of St. Cloud, and the little village of Paynesville was fired. A small number of persons ignorant of the country, and not way-wise, wandered about for weeks before finding settlements. Hundreds of settlers in the Missouri valley went to Sioux City and other towns.
To what extent the upper Indians participated in these raids and in the several battles it is difficult to determine. They were quite as much exasperated and were more turbulent than the lower bands. That some of their leading chiefs and braves sympathized is known to be a fact, and it cannot be doubted that many individual members participated in the murders and the war which ensued.
It was not till Wednesday the 20th that Little Crow could muster and hold together a body of warriors sufficient to undertake regular warfare and carry out a well-laid plan to capture Fort Ridgely. He was aware, of course, that its little garrison had lost its commander and fully half of its men. He probably did not know of the arrival of two reinforcements: one, Sheehan’s detachment recalled by Captain Marsh before beginning his fatal march; the other, the party of recruits, enlisted at the agencies and taken by Agent Galbraith as far as St. Peter. They took and kept the name of “Renville Rangers.” The information brought to Agent Galbraith at St. Peter on the evening of the outbreak indicated Fort Ridgely as the point where his recruits would be most needed. He had therefore led them thither at daylight of Tuesday, armed with some Harper’s Ferry muskets belonging to a local militia company. He had to give bonds to the exacting custodian. What with these troops and with male refugees from the agencies and the surrounding farms, Lieutenant Sheehan, the ranking officer, had not more than one hundred and eighty combatants. Upon the withdrawal of the regular garrison the year before, six pieces of artillery of various patterns had been left behind with Ordnance-Sergeant John Jones in charge. Of this the Indians may not have been informed. The so-called fort consisted of buildings grouped on the sides of a square of three hundred feet, one of them of stone. Outside were small log houses for civilian employees, stables, and stacks of hay and grain. The site was on the bluff separated from the river (Minnesota) by a bottom a half mile in width. Ravines of erosion cut the hillside into excellent places of approach and cover.