text: Some feared incorrectly that it might represent a Confederate conspiracy to start a war on the Northwestern frontier.Lincoln ordered thousands of Confederate prisoners of war sent by railroad to put down the uprising.When the Confederates protested forcing Confederate prisoners to fight Indians, Lincoln revoked the policy and none set foot in Minnesota.Lincoln sent General John Pope to Minnesota as commander of the new Department of the Northwest a couple of weeks into the hostilities.Before he arrived, the Fond Du Lac band of Chippewa sent Lincoln a letter begging to go to war for the United States against the Sioux, so Lincoln could send Minnesota's troops to fight the South.Shortly after, a Mille Lacs Band Chief offered the same at St.Cloud, Minnesota.In it the Chippewa specified that they wanted to use the indigenous rules of warfare.That meant there would be no prisoners of war, no surrender, no peace agreement.Lincoln did not accept the Chippewa offer, as he had no means to control the outcome and women and children were considered legitimate casualties in native American warfare.One of the Chippewa signing the letter, Chief Naw-Gaw-Nub, had received a Presidential medal from Lincoln earlier in the year.Serving under Gen.Pope was Minnesota Congressman Henry H.Sibley.Minnesota's Governor had made Sibley a Colonel United States Volunteers to command the US force tasked with fighting the war and that eventually defeated Little Crow's forces at the Battle of Wood Lake.The day the Mdewakanton force surrendered at Camp Release, a Chippewa war council met at Minnesota's capitol with another Chippewa offer to Lincoln, to fight the Sioux.Sibley ordered a military commission to review that actions of the captured to try those that had committed war crimes.The legitimacy of military commissions trying opposing combatants had been established during the Mexican War.Sibley thought he had 16 to 20 of men he wanted for trial while Gen.