Jacob Nix

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Jacob Nix, about 1860. Courtesy Brown County Historical Society, New Ulm, MN. Jacob Nix was an immigrant from Bingen on the Rhine, Germany.  

When the revolution of the German states broke out in 1848, Nix joined the struggle and became a captain in the “Free Corps.” Sentenced to death for treason, Nix escaped to the United States and in 1858 settled in New Ulm and opened a general store.
 
Due to his previous military experience, Nix was appointed commander of the New Ulm forces when the Dakota War broke out. He successfully defended the town during the first onslaught. After the war, Nix joined the Union army and participated in punitive expeditions.
 
From The Sioux Uprising in Minnesota, 1862 : Jacob Nix's Eyewitness History:
 
"One should not, of course, have provoked the Indians with injustices, but they also should not have made the inhabitants of an entire region pay for the wrongs committed by specific individuals by murdering, burning, and scorching the earth, and attacking settlers, destroying everything -- men and women, old people and children -- which came before their rifles and bows and arrows.  Then, of course, there suddenly appeared the fanatics who immediately took up the cause of the captured red murderers after the defeat of the uprising.  The following momentous words from the Bible should have been cast before these crazy, hypocritical puritans:  An eye for an eye!  A tooth for a tooth!  That means:  Immediately after the capture of the red scoundrels, one should not have wasted any time in shooting or hanging every one who took part in the horrible crimes which occurred in the summer of 1862 in Minnesota." 
 
Contemporary Comment:
 
"If it wasn’t for Captain Nix, I wouldn’t be alive today, because Grandma refused to leave the farm. . . . He heard about the Uprising occurring, and that it got to New Ulm. So he came back and dragged her out of the house. She wouldn’t go. He said: ‘You can stay here, but I’m taking the kids.’ She finally went along with it, reluctantly."
Richard Runck, oral history, New Ulm, 2011
Theme: 
Bibliography: 

Nix, Jacob, Gretchen Steinhauser, Don Heinrich Tolzmann, and Eberhard Reichmann. The Sioux Uprising in Minnesota, 1862: Jacob Nix's Eyewitness History. Indianapolis: Max Kade German-American Center, Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis and Indiana German Heritage Society, 1994. 

Resources for Further Research: 

Primary

Nix, Jacob, Gretchen Steinhauser, Don Heinrich Tolzmann, and Eberhard Reichmann. The Sioux Uprising in Minnesota, 1862: Jacob Nix's Eyewitness History. Indianapolis: Max Kade German-American Center, Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis and Indiana German Heritage Society, 1994. 

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