On December 26, 1862, fol­low­ing the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862, the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment hanged 38 mem­bers of the Dakota tribe in Minnesota. It was the largest mass exe­cu­tion in United States history. 

Two days after the Dakota sur­ren­dered at Camp Release on September 26, 1862, a mil­i­tary com­mis­sion began try­ing Dakota men accused of par­tic­i­pat­ing in the war. The rapid tri­als — some no more than five min­utes — of 392 pris­on­ers were com­plet­ed in November. According to the Minnesota Historical Society, 303 men were sen­tenced to death and 16 received prison terms.

After review­ing the tri­al tran­scripts, President Abraham Lincoln pro­vid­ed a list of 39 names of pris­on­ers to be exe­cut­ed. One received a last minute reprieve. On the morn­ing of December 26, 1862, in front of an esti­mat­ed crowd of 4,000 spec­ta­tors and on a spe­cial­ly con­struct­ed mass-hang­ing scaf­fold, the men were exe­cut­ed. They were left dan­gling from the scaf­fold for a half hour.

After the exe­cu­tion, it was dis­cov­ered that two men had been mis­tak­en­ly hanged. The Minnesota Historical Society reports that ​“Wicaƞḣpi Wastedaƞpi (We-chank-wash-ta-don-pee), who went by the com­mon name of Caske (mean­ing first-born son), report­ed­ly stepped for­ward when the name ​‘Caske’ was called, and was then sep­a­rat­ed for exe­cu­tion from the oth­er pris­on­ers. The oth­er, Wasicuƞ, was a young white man who had been adopt­ed by the Dakota at an ear­ly age. Wasicuƞ had been acquitted.”

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