November 19, 2024

It’s 1862. Frustrated, desperate Dakota Indians, taken advantage of by a corrupt government system that promised to provide for them, have attacked and killed over 600 settlers in southwestern Minnesota, resulting in a panic evacuation of a large part of the state. Hundreds of Dakota are captured and sentenced to death in military trials.

A thousand miles away in Washington, D.C., the case lands on the desk of president Abraham Lincoln, embroiled in a seemingly endless civil war with the November midterm elections fast approaching. What is to be done? We will hear the events from the president’s perspective, based on accounts and documents from the period.

Randy Duncan has been an Abraham Lincoln presenter for many years at schools, churches, civic groups, businesses, libraries, Civil War re-enactments, theater productions, and museums (including the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum and the Abraham Lincoln Home National Historic Site). He lives a little south of Springfield, IL with his wife, a dog, and a cat, and he writes his own bios.