Name: Solon A. Trescott Company: B
Sergeant; killed August 18, 1862, at Redwood
Birth
Date: about 1835
Place: Ohio
Mustered In
Date: February 10,
1862
Rank: Sergeant
Age: about 27
Residence prior to
military service: Ohio; Chatfield, Fillmore County, Minnesota
Vocation prior to
military service: Farmer
Death
Date: August 18,
1862
Place: Redwood
ferry crossing, Minnesota River, Minnesota
Burial: Fort
Ridgely, Renville County, Minnesota
Solon A. Trescott Biography and
Civil
War Narrative
Solon (or Salon) A. Trescott was
born about 1835 in Ohio. He married Louisa Culver, daughter of Norman
K. Culver and older sister of Charles M. Culver; both Norman and
Charles served in Company B along with Solon. Louisa was born February
14, 1841 in New York. Solon and Louisa had
three daughters: Effie (born about 1858 in Ohio), Ella (born about 1860
in Minnesota), and Maud (born about 1862 in Minnesota). At the time of
the 1860 U.S. Census, Solon, Louisa, Effie, and Ella
were living with Louisa's parents in Chatfield, Fillmore County,
Minnesota. Solon worked as a farmer.
On February 10, 1862, Solon enlisted in Company B of the 5th Minnesota
Volunteer Infantry Regiment and was made a Sergeant. Also enlisting
were his father-in-law (Lieutenant Norman
K. Culver) and his
brother-in-law (drummer boy Charles M.
Culver).
The first order of duty for
Company B was to report to Fort Ridgely. They
left Fort Snelling at noon on March 22, 1862, under the command of
First Sergeant Thomas
P. Gere. Through
the snow they traveled up the
Minnesota Valley, stopping at the Scott County court house at Shakopee
the evening of the 22nd, passing through Belle Plaine, and Le Sueur,
Minnesota on the 23rd. They crossed the Minnesota River on the ice at
Traverse de Sioux after dark and spent the night of the 23rd at the
Nicollet County court house at St. Peter. The company reached La
Fayette, Minnesota, on the 24th -- 18 miles from their destination. The
Company
arrived at Fort Ridgely at noon on March 25th, serving garrison duty
and continuing their military instruction and drills.
On June 30, 50 men from Company B, including Sergeant Trescott, marched
from Fort Ridgley, their destination being the Upper Sioux Agency at
Yellow Medicine, a distance of 52 miles. Accompanying them was a
detachment of 50 more soldiers from Company C. All were under the
command of Company C's Lieutenant
Timothy J. Sheehan. They took with
them fifteen days' rations and a twelve-pounder mountain howitzer. The
purpose of the expedition was to preserve order and protect United
States property during the 1862 annuity payment to the Sioux. They
arrived at the Upper Sioux Agency on July 2nd, and set up camp about
150 yards from the goverment buildings at the Agency.
While the soldiers waited for the annuity payment to arrive, Indians
gathered in anticipation -- not only the annuity Indians, but also
Yanktonais, Cut-heads, and Winnebagos who were not entitled to the
annuity. As the days passed, additional rations for the men of
Companies B and C were secured, as well as a second mountain howitzer,
which arrived on the 21st. The Indians -- who were also running out of
food -- remained quiet and peaceable until July 24th. On that morning a
war party of about 1200 Sioux passed by the Agency in pursuit of a
party of Chippewas who had killed two Sioux a day or two earlier. The
day of July 26th was devoted to the 12 and a half hour task of counting
the Indians.
On August 4th, 800 Indian warriors surrounded the soldier camp, yelling
and firing their guns in the air. The leader of one of the parties rode
past the camp and rushed to the door of the government warehouse,
striking it with his hatchet. Surrounded and outnumbered 8 to 1, the
soldiers of the detachment sprang promptly into line. The Indians broke
into the warehouse and were removing sacks of flour. When the men of
Company B uncovered one of the howitzers and pointed it at the door of
the warehouse building, the Indians immediately fell back to both sides
of the line covered by the gun. Sergeant Trescott led a squad of
sixteen men who marched straight to the government building between the
Indians. (In recounting this march to the warehouse in his
"Recollections of the Sioux Massacre," Oscar
G. Wall described Sergeant Trescott as "a man of resolution and
coolness.") While Lieutenant Sheehan confered with the government
agent, Major Galbraith, Trescott and his men drove remaining Indians
out of the warehouse. As the remaining soldiers at the camp stood and
watched steadily in line, the Indians made their way toward the
warehouse. Major Galbraith decided to make an issue of pork and flour
to the Indians, who promised that they would immediately return to
their camps and send their chiefs for a council the next day. When the
Indians still remained after receiving the provisions, the entire
detachment of troops was moved to the warehouse where they formed a
line of battle with both howitzers in position. The Indians finally
withdrew sullenly to their camps.
The soldiers moved their camp in close proximity to the government
buildings. Agent Galbraith called for Captain
John S. Marsh, who had joined Company B at Fort Ridgely on April
16, to come from the Fort
to the Agency.
He arrived on August 6th, and following a council with the Indians on
August 7th, the Agency started issuing annuity goods immediately and
continuing on the 8th and 9th. By the 10th of August the Indians had
left and on the 11th the detachment marched back to Fort Ridgely,
arriving there on the evening of Tuesday, August 12th.
The following Monday, August 18th,
word was
received at Fort Ridgely that a massacre of
whites was taking place at the Lower Sioux Agency. Captain
Marsh immediately led
a rescue party of 46 soldiers, including Sergeant Trescott, and an
interpreter to the Lower Sioux Agency.
About three miles out of Fort Ridgely, the party was overtaken by
wagon teams who followed them, carrying extra ammunition and otherwise
empty
wagons. Picking
up the marching rescue party, the wagons continued on toward their
destination, passing fleeing citizens, burning houses, and mutilated
corpses. About six miles out of Fort Ridgely, the rescue team continued
on by foot.
When the rescue party neared the Redwood ferry crossing on
the
Minnesota River shortly after noon, they found the ferryman's beheaded
and disemboweled body with the ferry on their side of the river. As two
of the soldiers carefully went to the riverbank for a drink, they
noticed Indians concealed on the opposite side. Captain Marsh
nevertheless ordered his soldiers to prepare for crossing. As
preparations were being made, Sergeant John
F. Bishop also
went to the
riverbank for a drink and noticed that the water was muddy -- evidence
that Indians may be crossing upstream to surround them. Within moments
the Indian warriors across the river opened fire on the men from
Company B. Soon after, the Indians who had crossed the river joined in
the
attack. During the course of the battle Sergeant Trescott and 23 others
were killed. Sergeant Bishop, who was wounded in the battle, described
Trescott's death:
Indians
rushed in upon us from behind, firing mostly double-barrel shotguns,
when Captain Marsh and his surviving comrades turned about, advanced to
the top of the river bank and fired a volley at them. Then a
hand-to-hand encounter took place, every man fighting the best he knew
how to cut his way out of the terrible looking mob around us. They were
all painted and naked, except breech-clouts. Sergeant Trescott of
Chatfield, two others and myself, tried to cut our way through, in
order to get into the ferryman's log house or barn, which stood on
opposite sides of the road leading to the ferry on our side of the
river. Trescott fell about two hundred feet from the house; the others
fell before they reached it, shot by Indians inside the house or barn.
[Minnesota in the Civil and Indian Wars, Volume II, p. 168]
Most of the survivors reached Fort Ridgely later that evening under the
leadership of Sergeant Bishop. Some weeks later, the recovered bodies
of all those killed at Redwood were buried together in two trenches at
Fort Ridgely. Sergeant S. A. Trescott was buried in the west trench
between Captain Marsh and Corporal J. S. Besse.
On March 9, 1869, Solon's widow
Louisa
Culver Trescott
remarried. Her new husband was Isaac Lindsey, born January 29, 1816, in
Scredington, Lincolnshire, England. The children of Solon and Louisa --
Effie, Ella,
and Maud -- would live with their
grandparents, Norman and Eliza Culver, as they grew up. Isaac and
Louisa Lindsey moved to Marshall, Lyon County, Minnesota, where they
raised 8 or 9 other children.
Solon A. Trescott