Staff photo by Fritz Busch Re-enactor, historian and author Bryce Stenzel portrays President Abraham Lincoln at the Brown County Historical Society Museum Annex Friday.

NEW ULM — President Abraham Lincoln came to life Tuesday as re-enactor, historian and author Bryce Stenzel detailed his role during the U.S.-Dakota war of 1862 and its aftermath in the Brown County Historical Society Museum Annex Friday.

“Lincoln was very busy at the time,” said Stenzel. “He was emancipating the slaves during the 1862 uprising. He was dealing with the Civil War, but he had compassion and said, ‘We can’t escape history.'”

Stenzel said Lincoln called for a review of the trial transcripts of 392 Dakota prisoners accused by a military commission of participating in the U.S.-Dakota war that took the lives of 400-800 white settlers.

“A lawyer, he balanced the moral and political consequences of it after reviewing $400 worth of telegrams detailing the trials,” Stenzel said. “He sentenced 39 Dakota men to death. Two others (chiefs Little Six and Medicine Bottle) were brought from Canada and hanged at Fort Snelling.”

Stenzel said there are no known photographs, only drawings of the largest mass execution in U.S. history on Dec. 26, 1862, at what is now Reconciliation Park in Mankato.

“We have to look at this in the context of the time,” Stenzel said. “As an historian, I feel just going through a trial, some of which was a sham, was unreal at the time.”

He added that the Battle of Milford Township just west of New Ulm on Aug. 18, 1862, that took the lives of more than 50 settlers and wounded many more, was a massacre, with the highest concentration of dead in the six-week war.

Stenzel mentioned the personal accounts of Milford settlers who survived the attack.

“Caecilie Ochs Schilling, age 9 at the time, told of hiding in a field during the attack,” Stenzel said.

The girl said Indians called to her in words she could not understand, but they didn’t follow her and continued on their way, according to an account posted in dakotavictims1862.com.

He told of Gottlieb Oswald’s account of two attacks on New Ulm that included living in such close quarters in the Dakota House, that women’s hoop skirts had to be abandoned and buildings were set on fire to keep Indians from them.

Stenzel told of what led to the war.

“Many things happened,” he said. “It was like a pressure cooker. White people thought Indians should farm, not hunt buffalo. They were told to give up their religion and way of life and cut their hair. Indian agent Thomas Galbraith refused to issue food allowances until annuity money was received. He was supposed to issue food that was in a warehouse and money at the same time.

“Then the crops failed. The Dakota decided it was now or never to regain their land, but was reduced to a few miles north and south of the Minnesota River, from Milford Township to the South Dakota border.”

Stenzel said artillery saved Fort Ridgely in a battle said to be the first successful use of artillery against native forces. The fort, little more than several buildings and a small number of troops with a few cannons, included the desperate situation of forcing civilians, including women and children, to help fight off the Dakota.

Stenzel mentioned a Dakota prisoner of war’s tribute to Lincoln after he was assassinated.

“They (Dakota) were saddened by his death,” he said. “If they can understand that in 1865, why can’t we now?”

“We need to teach history because it matters. It should be a required high school course. A breeze through in sixth grade isn’t enough,” Stenzel said.

(Fritz Busch can be emailed at fbusch@nujournal.com).

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