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Reviews
Lincoln and the Sioux Uprising of 1862. By Hank H. Cox. (Nashville, Tennessee: Cumberland House, 2005. Pp. 213. Map, appendix, bibliographical note, index.
Paper, $14.95.)
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Strictly speaking, this is mostly a book about the Sioux attack on white settlers in Minnesota in November 1862, and the swiftly organized counter-attack by local militia and the U. S. Army. Abraham Lincoln earned his place in the title by intervening in the aftermath of this event. He insisted on postponing the execution of all the Indians found guilty of murder and rape, until he could personally review the case against each. As a result of this review, Lincoln reduced the number to be hanged from 303 to 39. By the standards of the time, this was remarkable; following a massacre of settlers, pardoning or commuting the sentence of any Indian would be unpopular. But as Commander-in-Chief during the larger war, Lincoln repeatedly risked angering his officers by issuing pardons or commutations for military deserters. |
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Those who wish to know everything about Lincoln's presidency and those who wish to know all aspects of the Civil War will profit from Hank H. Cox's lucid style and thorough command of his subject. This is not the first book on the Sioux uprising, but it does, as the author claims, describe it in context. We see the Dakota Sioux uprising as a near-inevitable result of United States expansion and the series of treaties which had the cumulative effect of driving Indians off their ancestral lands. We also see the initiators of this particular Indian War as renegades, and the more cautious chiefs who chose the warpath, taking advantage of the desperate war which had greatly distracted the United States Army. Cox is probably correct in describing this as the worst massacre of settlers in the troubled history of European colonizers and Native Americans, with 800 victims a plausible estimate. |
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