Compiled and written by David R. Schleper
Dr. Josiah Schroeder Weiser was born August 17, 1832, in Berks County, Pennsylvania. He, along with his family, moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, and in 1857 was in Shakopee. In fact, his two brothers also moved to the town. Each became actively engaged in the business life of the place: Josiah as a doctor, William as a farmer, and Joel as a mason.
Dr. Weiser was a doctor in Shakopee, and married Eliza Victoria Hunt on June 2, 1859, at St. Peter’s Protestant Episcopal Church, Shakopee, Minnesota. They had two children in Shakopee, Ada (1860) and Florence (1862).
Josiah enlisted in the First Minnesota Cavalry (Mounted Rangers) as a surgeon on October 21, 1862. “Doctor Josiah S. Weiser, regimental surgeon for the 1st Minnesota Mounted Rangers, was from Shakopee, Minnesota, and had lived among the Dakotas, learning their language and serving as their doctor,” said Paul N. Beck in his book, Columns of Vengeance: Soldiers, Sioux, and the Punitive Expeditions 1863-1864. An orderly, also on a horse, was an aide to Dr. Weiser. He was African American.
African Americans served in the in the Civil War on both the Union and Confederate sides. In the Union army, over 179,000 African American men served in over 160 units, as well as more serving in the Navy and in support positions. This number comprised of both northern free African Americans and runaway slaves from the South who enlisted to fight.
Black Union soldiers did not receive equal pay or equal treatment. They were paid $10 a month, with $3 deducted from that pay for clothing— white soldiers received $13 a month with no clothing deduction – until June 1864, when Congress granted retroactive equal pay. Even in the North, racial discrimination was widespread and African Americans were often not treated as equals by white soldiers.
In total, Minnesota furnished 11 infantry regiments, two companies of sharpshooters, several units of artillery and cavalry, and several dozen sailors. During the war 104 African American men from Minnesota enlisted in the Union Army. These people were from the Minnesota state total African American population of just 259, including men, women, and children.
And one of them was the orderly who worked beside Dr. Josiah Weiser.
Josiah became a surgeon under Colonel Samuel McPhail of the Mounted Rangers who headed to Dakota Territory by General Henry H. Sibley’s Minnesota volunteers.
More than 6,300 Santee, or Eastern Dakota were dispersed of the Santee Sioux or Eastern Dakota in 1862. Of the 6,300 Santee, 2,000 were taken prisoner. About 700 of the Lower Sioux from the Mdewakanton and Wahpekute bands remained at large. Most of the 4,000 Upper Sioux from the Sisseton and Wahpeton bands, who had been reluctant participants in the war, also remained free. A few of these refugees from the war fled to Canada, but more than 4,000 congregated in the summer of 1863 in a large encampment in present-day Kidder County, North Dakota. They were joined in the camp by an unknown, but probably sizable, number of their Teton, Yankton, and Yanktonai relatives.
Dr. Josiah S. Weiser, chief surgeon, First Regiment of the Minnesota Mounted Rangers, spoke Dakota and assisted in the discussions. Next to him, also on a horse, was the orderly, who worked with Dr. Weiser. An orderly, an enlisted soldier, was assigned to perform various chores for a commanding officer. This orderly probably had some experience with healthcare. “Believing he saw men that he knew, Weiser and his African American orderly rode out of camp to a nearby hill, where scouts were meeting with some young warriors,” said Beck. when he was unexpectedly shot. A member of Iŋkpáduta’s band suddenly pulled out a gun and shot Dr. Weiser in the back, probably thinking he was Sibley.
Both parties scurried for cover while exchanging gunfire and retreating to defensible positions. Several chiefs and elders caught in the open were killed by the soldiers. The chance of a peaceful outcome was gone.
The orderly raced back to camp, screaming, “They killed the doctor!”
Henry Sibley ordered the army to prepare for combat. The Battle of Big Mound commenced. Paul Beck noted that Ṡakpedaŋ (Little Six) placed the number of Indians killed at 26, with most of them being “old men and women who could not get away.”
The Santee were poorly armed. Only about half had firearms and those had little ammunition. Several hundred of the Mounted Rangers pursued the Indian warriors, protecting the flight of their women and children, until nightfall. Most of Sibley’s infantry devoted themselves to destroying the large quantities of jerky, buffalo robes, cooking utensils, and other goods left behind by the Sioux in their hasty flight. According to records, “…the majority of the Santee whose villages they had destroyed and who were now economically devastated by the battle, left with no food or shelter for the winter, had had little or nothing to do with the uprising.”
Dr. Joseph S. Weiser was killed on July 24, 1863, in the Battle of Big Mound, Dakota Territory. Located in Kidder County, a headstone marks the place where Dr. Josiah S. Weiser was shot.
Dr. Weiser’s orderly, other than noting that he was African American, was not named in any of the documents, according to Paul Beck.
Bibliography
Beck, Paul N. Columns of Vengeance: Soldiers, Sioux, and the Punitive Expeditions 1863-1864, 2013.