The Fight at Webster

Following the eighteen sixty-two Minnesota Indian Uprising, in which nearly six hundred men, women, and children were killed, the United States Army at Fort Wadsworth recruited friendly Indians as scouts to keep hostile Indians away from white settlements. A half-breed, Jack Campbell, led a group to the Mankato area and massacred the Jewett family, but although Campbell was caught and hanged, his companions escaped and fled west. Near the present site of Webster on May sixteen, eighteen sixty-five, this group was met and recognized by Solomon Two Stars, an Army scout. Solomon and four enlisted scouts—Wahacankaiteton, Kampeska, Tatankawanjidan, and Cankuwanjidan—promptly attacked, killing three of the hostiles, while one escaped and a renegade nephew of Two Stars was captured. The nephew confessed that he and the others were guilty of the murder, and under strict orders to take no prisoners, Two Stars faced the duty of killing his kinsman himself, later saying fifty years afterward, “I shot him before my tears should blind me.”

Webster, South Dakota · United States