near the present site of the Winnebago agency. Following the trail, they discovered a Dakota encampment consisting of about forty lodges, located on the banks of Long Prairie River, which they determined to attack.
The encampment was surrounded during the night, and at a given signal, early in the morning, the Ojibways fell on the sleeping Dakotas. They fired volley after volley into the defenceless lodges, before a single warrior appeared to resist the attack. The sharp yell of defiance was at last heard issuing from the lips of a Dakota warrior, as he rushed bleeding from his lodge, and took a stand to the fire of the assailants. Yell after yell succeeded his, and following his brave example, form after form were seen issuing from the perforated lodges, till nearly sixty Dakotas stood forth to confront their foes, and defend their families. The fight is said to have been close and most fiercely contested. It lasted till nightfall, when all the Dakota warriors but seven had been shot down, and silenced forever. Of these seven men, the most daring acts of valor are related. Retreating into the lodges, they actually kept off the united force of the Ojibways, and finally compelled them to retreat, leaving behind the rich harvest of scalps which they had hoped to reap.
On this bloody occasion the Dakotas sustained a heavy loss of life—fully as great as their enemies had suffered at Cross Lake. Song-uk-um-ig, or Strong Ground, the elder brother of the late celebrated war-chief Hole-in-the-day, first distinguished himself for bravery in this fight. Though but a mere lad, he was one of the few who daringly ran into the very ranks of the Dakotas to secure the scalp of a fallen warrior. This brave man, who died a few years since, could boast in his time, thirty-six eagle plumes on his head-dress, each denoting an enemy whom he had slain, or a scalp which he had secured in battle, the first of which he earned at Long Prairie fight.
