October 28, 1862

October 28, 1862

Dear folks at home: Since my last you see I have made a change. I am now with the company at New

Richmond. Andy Adams of Mondovi and one of the Mann brothres and my self came up in one of the Well's Fargo stages. The captain ordered us to the hotel as he tho't we was not strong enough for camp yet. I got your last letter the day before we left St. Cloud and what you told me about exposing myself after having the measles scared me just a bit. I had been walking about for three days and when I crossed the streets the wind was cold and so strong it would nearly throw me down and I had nothing but my summer drawers Our women nurses didn't warn us a bit, but told me I should go out and get strength. I was glad enough to get out doors once more, I think I am getting all right. I was pretty sick the doctor told me, just as if I didn't know my own feelings. The Ladies Aid Society was real kind. One old lady who did not belong to the society would come nearly every day with some sour candy and give it to all of us because our mouths tasted bad of the fever. She said she had a dear boy somewhere in the South and she hoped some one would be good to her boy if he got sick.

I tell you it seemed awful good to see the faces of my old chums. I had been away from them nearly four weeks and it seemed that many months.

They are busy building log houses to winter in. They are building 18 houses for store buildings and quarters. It is getting cold and the weather makes them hustle. The boys are still in tents tho it is freezing every night. The rest of the left wing have gone up to Paynsville to winter, four companies. I woke up this morning with a pain in my stomach. I told Elder Harwood of it and he told me not to eat any more biscuit before going to bed. We have a nice hotel and lots to eat and I am hungry all the time. They give us wild rice, bo't of the Indians, twice a day, and it is good. The Landlord said it was nearly gone and the Indians were gone and he didn't know when he could get any more. I like to hear him talk about the Indians. He said they had been cheated and lied to by the government contractors, and that bro't on all the trouble. He said he lived amongst them all his life and they were good people unless they were drunk.

I have lost fifteen and a half pounds in weight the three weeks past. I forgot to tell you I found a letter from you dated the 10th here in the Captain's hands. He forgot to send it to me. I am glad father has such good luck killing deer and bear this fall. Thank goodness old dog Prince was close by when the bear made that rush for father. He no doubt saved father's life. I hope the poor dog's jaw is not broken. The bear's jaw of course was too strong for him. Don't skim the milk for dear old Prince, give it to him with the cream on until he can eat meat. We have bear and deer close to this place but you will believe me, I would dearly like to be with father in his hunts, long enough at least to help him kill two or three fat bears.

Don't fear but I will be careful dear mother of my health, you scared

me when you explained about cousin Ben's death a month after he got up from the measles. I have had the measles, and "theys done gone" as Topsey said, in Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Rumors of Indians coming back on the war path is the talk among the boys in the hotel tonight. The sky is all lighted up some ten miles away by prairie fires tonight. The boys say it means Indians. My room is about 8 by 10 feet and the light from the prairie fire makes a shadow on the wall. Some of the boys talk like they wanted dreadfully to get into a scrimmage with the Sioux. It must be I aint a good soldier, I dont think it is fear, but I am all the time thinking of One Eye and his son and wife that came to our house so many times to get flour and coffee, and the times I played with their boys and sat on their buffalo robes and ate elk steak and vension steak by their wigwam fires. You know we wondered that they never came back any more, and father said they were afraid of their lives because the Dacotas and Minnesota Sioux had declared war and to save their lives they had gone west.

I don't deny that I sometimes think of Owena, the Chiefs daughter that father plagued me about, and wonder where she is.

Bishop Whipple says the government has never kept its word of payment for the land and the rations promised the Indians. That man Whipple must be another William Penn. He has always been the Indian's friend in Minnesota. I read in the Sentinel yesterday that he had visited the White House in Washington and plead with President Lincoln with tears in his eyes that the government should pay these Sioux their promised annuity and that would stop the war. Why don't they do it? I am a white man's son and I like my own people but can never forget what Chief One Eye told me in his wigwam on the Three mile creek that the white chief at Washington was a liar because they never got their annuity and their beef was tough and unfit to eat.

I hope father will not sell my 40 even at a hundred dollars profit. I like Wisconsin best of all yet.

They are all in bed but me, so good night.

Your boy,

CHAUNCEY.