Althouse: "150 years ago, on December 26, 1862, 38 Dakota men were hung in Mankato, Minnesota."

December 26, 2012

"150 years ago, on December 26, 1862, 38 Dakota men were hung in Mankato, Minnesota."

"It was the largest mass execution in U.S. history. The men were hung after being convicted by a U.S. military commission for participating in the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862. Originally, 303 were sentenced to death, but President Lincoln commuted the sentences of most of those convicted."

18 comments:

Emil Blatz said...: You had to have pull to get commutation.; 12/26/12, 8:23 PM
edutcher said...: Damn straight.

There's a growing consensus that the Great Sioux War wasn't the one in '76 with Custer and Crook and Mackenzie and Miles, but the one in '62. When you read what they did to people, yeah, the other 265 got off lucky.; 12/26/12, 8:34 PM
edutcher said...: PS The word is "hanged", not hung.

Pictures are hung.; 12/26/12, 8:35 PM
I Have Misplaced My Pants said...: I found that TAL episode riveting, and heartbreaking.

What bothered me about it wasn't so much the being pushed off the land--it sucks when it happens to you, but it's as old as humanity, and no particular American evil except to the oikophobes--but the series of lies, betrayals and violence visited upon innocents and vulnerables over the course of that whole sad affair. I am not ashamed that Americans needed the land, but I am ashamed that we acquired it so dishonorably.; 12/26/12, 8:37 PM
mishu said...: They said you was hung.
And they was right!; 12/26/12, 8:44 PM
Rabel said...: If you could bottle and sell the high that people like the commentors at Metafilter get from declaiming the morality of the USA, past and present, you would be a rich woman.

It must be a hell of a buzz.; 12/26/12, 8:52 PM
McTriumph said...: It's a bitch to lose a war.; 12/26/12, 9:08 PM
KCFleming said...: It must be wonderful to be a lefty, and know exactly how to respond to any question about American history.

If white men did it, they were wrong.; 12/26/12, 9:26 PM
Big Mike said...: The details are here on YouTube.; 12/26/12, 9:43 PM
Anonymous said...: This unfortunate incident gave rise to a hilarious chapter in Wisconsin history in September 1862. The whole state went nuts with rumors of an uprising. Refugees poured into Milwaukee claiming that Cederburg had been burned to the ground. Fortunately, there was no fighting, as both sides ran in opposite directions until sanity was restored.; 12/26/12, 10:55 PM
Anonymous said...: "The girls all loved Tom Dooley
Though he wasn't handsome or young
The girls all loved Tom Dooley
Because Tom Dooley was hung.; 12/26/12, 10:59 PM
McTriumph said...: The war started when an innocent Indian hunting party accidentally massacred a white family. That night the Dakota governing body accidentally decided to wipe out the white settlers in the Minnesota river valley, estimated 800 white settlers were killed, accidentally. Fuck em.; 12/26/12, 11:21 PM
Craig said...: This unfortunate incident gave rise to a hilarious chapter in Wisconsin history in September 1862.

The real hilarity was in the number of regiments Acting Governor Salomon ordered raised in August that year to replace what was left of the 14th, 16th and 18th regiments after his predecessor, Governor Harvey, failed to return from an inspection of the Shiloh battlefield in April.; 12/27/12, 6:01 AM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Yawn.; 12/27/12, 7:18 AM
kjbe said...: Please read this to get a fuller understanding of the conflict and what led up to it.; 12/27/12, 9:48 AM
mikee said...: Not included: Robert Rogers' 28 Rules of Ranging, the standing orders for the original military Rangers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Rogers%27_28_%22Rules_of_Ranging%22; 12/27/12, 12:25 PM
Methadras said...: Meta-Filter, the shitbin of leftard shallow thought.; 12/27/12, 4:16 PM
Methadras said...: Rabel said...

If you could bottle and sell the high that people like the commentors at Metafilter get from declaiming the morality of the USA, past and present, you would be a rich woman.

It must be a hell of a buzz.

Unmitigated leftism is a hell of a drug.; 12/27/12, 4:19 PM