a few minutes. By November 5, the commission had sentenced 307 men to death and given 16 prison terms. Sibley approved all death sentences except for one and passed the results on to General John Pope; by November 7, they had cut the total number of death sentences to 303. On December 6, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln approved only 39 of the 303 death sentences after having two advisors review them. Thirty-eight men were hanged at Mankato, December 26, 1862, including at least one whose sentence had been commuted by President Lincoln. The remaining 300 Dakota warriors were imprisoned and more than 1,600 non-combatants: women, children and elderly were held in a crowded encampment on Pike Island below Fort Snelling until river transportation resumed in the spring . A palisade was erected to protect the interned from the soldiers and settlers after one of the women was assaulted. Many died as a result of a measles epidemic that swept the camp in December. For his efforts, Sibley was promoted to brigadier-general of volunteers, September 29, 1862 after the hostilities had ended. Sibley turned over his command to Colonel Stephen A. Miller of the 7th Minnesota Infantry Regiment. On November 25, he became commander of the newly created Military District of Minnesota, with headquarters in St. Paul. Expedition of 1863 Meanwhile, treaties with the Dakota were nullified and Sibley proceeded with leading the banishment of all tribal members from the state to reservations in the Dakotas and Nebraska. The state offered a reward for the scalp of any Dakota man killed in Minnesota. For the next two years Sibley and General Alfred Sully led enormous and brutal campaigns to pursue Dakota escapees as far west as the Yellowstone River. In 1863, Sibley led what was then-considered a successful expedition against the Sioux in Dakota Territory. This campaign included the battles of Big Mound (July 24), Dead Buffalo Lake (July 26), and Stony Lake (July 28). This period would become the start of bloody wars between the U.S. government and Dakota that lasted until nearly twenty years. On November 29, 1865, he was brevetted as major-general of the volunteers for "efficient and meritorious services." He was honorably mustered out on April 30, 1866. He was relieved from the command of the district of Minnesota in August 1866 after the end of the American Civil War. Involvement in Indian affairs After his military