08/21/2026
I talk about this on the Hauntings with Hawk Ghost Tours--on the Rochester tour.
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The largest mass ex*****on in United States history happened the day after Christmas. Thirty eight Dakota men were hanged together on one scaffold in Mankato, Minnesota, in front of a crowd of thousands.
The war that led to it began over food. Payments promised by treaty had not arrived at the agencies on the Minnesota River, traders had stopped extending credit, and Dakota families watched their children go hungry while warehouses stood full. The fighting in the summer of 1862 lasted about six weeks.
Afterward a military commission tried more than three hundred Dakota men. Some of the trials took only minutes. Three hundred and three were sentenced to death. President Lincoln reviewed the records himself and cut the list to thirty nine. One more was reprieved. The remaining thirty eight were hanged on December 26, 1862.
Every December, riders leave the Lower Brule reservation in South Dakota and cross about three hundred and thirty miles of winter country on horseback to reach Mankato on the twenty sixth. Runners come from Fort Snelling to meet them. They read the names out loud. 🕯️
