Artist recreates 1862 New Ulm battlefield

By FRITZ BUSCH

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- The second Dakota assault on New Ulm in 1862 came alive for Brown County Historical Society Director Bob Burgess and Society member George Glotzbach Friday when they visited illustrator Mike Eischen at his rural Comfrey home.

Eischen is painting a 30x40 acrylic on canvas rendition of the New Ulm battlefield on Aug. 23, 1862, the day of the second Dakota attack. When complete, his painting will be placed in the Brown County Museum.

Rewind to that period.

According to a story written by Shirley Zimprich of the LeSueur Historical Society, the Dakota were starving after crops failed and promises and land trade agreements were broken by U.S. Government agents. Indian bands attacked area settlements and isolated farm families on Aug. 18, 1862.

Frightened settlers fled to New Ulm for what they thought was safety.

New Ulm was the largest settlement near the Dakota Reservation with nearly 900 people.

Some settlers fled to Mankato, where a makeshift militia was created to hold off expected attacks. Other frontier people were ambushed in Milford Township and raced to New Ulm.

The first attack on New Ulm took place on Aug. 19, 1862. By noon of that day, only 42 men were found well enough armed to defend the town. They were organized into companies and assigned places to guard.

According to Zimprich, the rest of the men were reserves, armed with pitchforks and other crude weapons. They were the defense in case Indians broke through barricades set up around brick buildings that could be defended, on three blocks on Minnesota Street, from Center to Third North.

Women and children were huddled into the Dakotah House hotel, the Erd Building and other nearby brick buildings.

At about 3 p.m. that day, about 100 Indians on horseback dismounted on the bluff west of New Ulm and opened fire. A small number of citizens returned fire and helped drive the Sioux back.

Later in the afternoon, a thunderstorm helped discourage the Indians. A group of St. Peter businessmen arrived and helped push the Indians back.

New Ulm was evacuated. A 153-wagon convoy carried women, children and wounded men to Mankato. Relief companies from Mankato, St. Peter and Le Sueur were were sent to New Ulm.

Martial law was declared and New Ulm was fortified with more than 800 men.

At about 9:30 a.m. on Saturday morning, about 650 Indians with Chiefs Mankato, Wabasha and Big Eagle streamed out of the woods onto the prairie west of New Ulm and formed a long, curved line in the upper terrace of the Minnesota River bluff.

Zimprich quotes Charles E. Flandrau, who wrote about the attack in vivid detail.

"Their advance upon the sloping prairie in the bright sunlight was a very fine spectacle, and to such inexperienced soldiers as we all were, intensely exciting. When within about one mile and a half of us, the mass began to expand like a fan, and increase in velocity of its approach, and continued this movement until within about double rifle shot, when it had covered our entire front. Then the (Indians) uttered a terrific yell and came down upon us like the wind."

With the wind from the lower part of New Ulm, Indians massed near the river, set buildings on fire and advanced behind the smoke.

Flandrau rallied his men against about 60 Indians on ponies and on foot.

Aided by gunfire from the barricades, the New Ulm men won what Flandrau called the turning point of the battle.

Eischen's painting, which is about 95 percent complete, depicts an aerial view of New Ulm during the second battle.

Smoke can be seen from burning buildings on the edges of town and on horizon, coming from Milford and Fort Ridgely, far off on the horizon.

The Minnesota River, reflecting bright sunlight, winds through the upper right corner of the painting. Nearby, attacking Indians creep up hills towards the center of town.

Eischen talked about the defense of New Ulm.

"I hope people don't take it for granted. This was a very nasty, heavy duty battle. A fight for survival. If not for the barricades and heroic defense, New Ulm would have been lost."

Before getting out his acrylic paints, Eischen read books and viewed sketches, photos, maps and a Digital Elevation Model (DEM), a digital file of terrain elevations for ground positions at regularly-spaced intervals.

Other references include books about the uprising by Flandrau, Alexander Berghold, Dr. Don Heinrich Tolzmann, Carey, Anderson, Woolworth, , Hiebert, Sheriff Charles Loos' sketch of 1863, and Paul Klammer's early notes.

Eischen toured the battlefield site in New Ulm with BCHS archivist Darla Gebhard, Sue Ullery of the BCHS and local historian John LaBatte.

Funding for the Eischen's work came from the New Ulm Area Foundation and a book sale fund-raiser.

Fritz Busch can be e-mailed at fbusch@nujournal.com.