HISTORY OF THE CHIPPEWA VALLEY - CHAPTER 28 - The Scare


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Faithful Record of all Important Events, Incidents, and Circumstances that have Transpired in the Valley of the Chippewa from its Earliest Settlement by White People, Indian Treaties, Organization of the Territory and State; Also of the Counties Embracing the Valley, Senatorial, Assembly and Congressional Districts,
and a Brief Biographical Sketch of the Most Prominent Persons in the Settlement of the Valley.
BY Thomas E. Randall 1875.  Free Press Print.  Eau Claire, Wisconsin

   CHAPTER 28 - The Scare

I suppose the organ of caution or fear was given man as a very necessary element in his composition to guard against danger; but when suddenly or unduly excited, and especially from concealed or imaginary evils, sometimes leads to ludicrous misapprehensions or fatal consequences. The very fact that the danger is illy defined, or its point and whence it is to come hid from view, always invest it with the indefinable dread, and causes what are known as panics. And panics, whether in monetary and financial circles, in an army or community, are always fraught with very serious evils. Of the first, the Rhode Island Senator declared there was nothing under heaven so cowardly as five hundred thousand dollars, unless it be a million, which accounts for their frequent occurrences in the business world; and so often have the people of the United States been afflicted with this kind of 'scare,' that they expect about every ten years or so to be frightened out of their wits by some convulsion in financial affairs.

And the best-disciplined armies in the world are subject to the malady. The first Bull Run was lost to us through a panic. The Bible often speaks of great armies suddenly struck with dismay, and profane history everywhere abounds with instances of even well trained armies seized with unaccountable terror, just as victory was ready to perch upon their standards. But what shall we say when whole communities become paralyzed with fear; when the people in half a dozen counties, covering an area of hundreds of miles in extent, are in a moment seized with dread and fearful apprehension from unseen danger - from a foe whom no one has seen, and which in the very nature of things could have no existence.

Nevertheless, such was the fate of Dunn, Chippewa, Eau Claire, Buffalo, Trempeleau, Jackson, Clark and Monroe counties, on the last Sunday of August 1862. A few weeks before, at New Ulm and other localities in Minnesota, Bands of Sioux Indians, while feigning friendship, had fallen upon the unsuspecting settlers and committed the most horrid barbarities, murdering men, women and children, maiming and torturing those left alive and mutilating the bodies of their victims, and carrying terror and dismay into every remote settlement in the Northwest. Stories of their fiendish cruelties were everywhere circulated, and the timid caught up every whisper of news in regard to the Indians on our frontier, and every hostile indication was a thousand times magnified, until many really supposed that all Indians on the continent were stealthily assembling in their neighborhood, prepared without a moment's warning to wreak their brutal ferocity upon our defenseless heads. Under such circumstances, the very approaching danger is heralded in hot haste from neighbor to neighbor and from village to village, without any definite knowledge or tangible reason for their alarm.

In the early morning of Sabbath in question, a dense fog rested upon the landscape in all the region named, and terror-stricken pedestrians in several localities, their vision strained to discover danger, imagined that stumps were armed savages and gopher holes were forts, and forthwith the country was alarmed. Indians had been seen in the big woods with hostile intent; a thousand of the fiends were assembled in the big swamp on Mud Creek, and as many more at Point Bruley, on the Chippewa Bottom. Sudden and improbable statements were, almost every one put faith in them, and ran to his nearest neighbor to know what he should do. People in the country rushed with frantic haste to the villages, carrying with them everything in the shape of weapons for offensive or defensive operations, while in the city everything was in a state of consternations and dread; but all were resolved to defend their homes to the last.

At Chippewa Falls Reverend Bradley Phillips was chosen captain of the army of defense, with headquarters at the church. Pickets were stationed at every vulnerable point, armed with rifles, shotguns, pitchforks, scythes and spades; patrols guarded the streets at every corner, and squads of men marched from point to point, where danger was most imminent; but the only enemy discovered was in the shape of sundry jugs of whisky, which before morning laid many a gallant soldier low on the field of battle.

At Eau Claire, the alarm being sounded early in the day, the churches were instantly emptied, and the worshipers, like the puritans of old, flew to arms, resolved individually, not doubt, that as 'the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof,' and as he had given it to them, his saints, to possess it they would defend their homes to the last. A large body of citizen soldiers were at once enrolled, who, by virtue of a commission from the Governor some years before, appointing William Pitt Barrett, Esq., an officer in the militia of this department of the State, with the rank of Major, would rightfully be subject to command of that official, but recognizing the extreme danger, and necessity of greater military experience to give prompt direction to the forces, so ardent and yet so green, that the gentleman deferred to the wishes of his fellow citizens in the selection of a veteran soldier to command the citizen brigade in this emergency. But where could such a person be found? He was here at the call of his adopted country. A German had joined his fortunes with Walker in his filibustering expedition against Nicaragua, and like him had lost, but unlike him and saved his head, and, imitating the exiled Whaley, came to the rescue of the beleaguered village with all the experience of a trained soldier.

E.R. Hantzsch was a rigid disciplinarian. The best troops in the world could accomplish nothing without discipline, and his first business was to organize and drill the command; and ordering all to report instantly, on Union Square, he was soon surrounded by rabble rout, impatient to be led against the foe. Not so with the commander. He knew that discretion was the better part of valor; and after organizing his forces and appointing his subordinates, his next concern was to see that each and ever detachment was well supplied with rations for the campaign.

Fine-cut to fill their meerschaums, and lager, were the principle items of inquiry with the German element; but whisky was the great staple with the river boys. Many ludicrous scene and circumstances occurred in arming and equipping the different squads, and posting them for the night; and as rumors of the enemy's approach were constantly coming in, confusion, alarm and insubordination were to be expected, especially when we consider that for many miles around the farmers, with their wives and children, had thronged pell mell to the village, and filled every nook and corner off every public house; and between squalling children, frightened mothers and half-sober men a  pretty lively time was kept up. But the night wore away, and the morning revealed no enemy, save that subtle foe whose victims were laid hors du combat beside every campfire.

Many other villages were equally alarmed, and just as prompt to defend their homes; and all that seems wanting to make a bright page in our valley's history is the 'enemy.'