HON. HENRY HASTINGS SIBLEY, LL.D.                 305
to the Black Hills, and from the forks of the Platte to Devil's
lake. A fire must be kindled in his rear. The occurrence of
every Indian outrage, no matter how distant from General
Sibley's camp, or line of march, was instantly ascribed to his
inaction, and insane charges of incompetence, delay, and ir-
resolution were showered upon him as fast as certain writers
could invent and empty them.1 Disappointed ambition, envy,
jealousy, retaliation for defeated schemes devised for personal
emolument, insinuations of disloyalty, and political and par-
tisan asperity, all did their best to injure and disparage. It
was no new experience. It had been tried the year before.
In the midst of the Civil War, a Democratic military officer,
who failed to work miracles and do impossibilities, fared ill at
the hands of his Eepublican opponents, no matter how loyally
he stood to his flag, while yet he refused to surrender his Dem-
ocratic principles. If a Hancock, Sickles, Logan, and others,
could not evade the shafts of calumny aimed at their names,
lest their deeds should win for them a generous remembrance
in days to come, General Sibley could as little expect immu-
nity from similar injustice. Still more. In a free country like
America, where every man is at liberty to account himself a
commander, the successors of "the goose who gabbled to
Hannibal how a campaign should be conducted, and a battle
fought," could not fail to be as numerous as they were conspic-
uous. It was easy, moreover, to croak and find fault with Gen-
eral Sibley, marching twice as rapidly as General Sully, ther-
mometer standing at 94°, 100°, 104°, 108° and 1110, in the
shade, and ridicule his movement as that of a "terrific Brob-
dingnag" chasing with slow motion, and seeking "to crush the
Sioux Lilliput uĞder the ponderous heel of strategy!"2--but it
was not quite so easy to take the place of Halleck and Stanton,
Pope and Sibley, Malmros and Eamsey, and "extirpate," even
Seventh regiment, two companies of the Tenth, nine companies of the Ninth, t
the Eighth regiment, one company of mounted rangers, and such other troops
spared. These were spread along the line of the frontier to secure the settlers, as far as was
possible, from any outrages and depredations by roving parties of Indians. A network of
fortifications existed along the whole frontier garrisoned by 2,000 soldiers. The inherent
defects of a regular military organization, for which General Sibley could not be held re-
sponsible, were, moreover, sought to be remedied by a corps of independent scouts, organized
b7 order of the adjutant general, to operate wherever they might, without regard to the
regular service. Everything that could be done was done to meet the peculiar modes of In-
dian warfare, and protect the people of Minnesota.
2 Quoted from the St. Paul Press, and repelled in Hoard's Hist. Sioux War, p. 306.
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