Ransom County Notes: In his diary, Oscar Garrett Wall, a cavalryman with Co. F, 1st Minnesota Mounted Rangers wrote his impressions of the Sibley Expedition’s stay in Ransom County on July 4, 1863. “This was indeed a strange Fourth of July. No man in the command had ever before seen one like it. No mark of civilization had ever been raised in this country. No surveys had been made. No white men had disturbed the solitude into which we had entered. Herds of buffalo were visible in almost any direction. Aside from these nothing was seen but arched skies and boundless plains.”
