Sioux Wars - Dakota War of 1862

Dakota War of 1862

The Santee Sioux or Dakotas of Western Minnesota rebelled on August 17, 1862 after the Agency traders wouldn't distribute them their food supplies, they were accounted for. After pillaging part of the nearby village of New Ulm and attacks on Fort Ridgely, from which the whites suffered severe losses, and the victorious Battle of Birch Coulee on September 2, the Indians were eventually defeated on September 23 in the Battle of Wood Lake. Most of the warriors who took part in the fighting escaped to the west and north into Dakota Territory to continue the conflict, while the remaining Santees surrendered on September 26 at Camp Release to the US Army. In the following war-trials 303 Indians were sentenced to death of which, after closer investigation from Washington, eventually 38 were hung on December 26 in the Town of Mankato in America's largest mass-execution.

In the aftermath, battles continued between Minnesota regiments and combined Lakota and Dakota forces through 1864 as Col. Henry Sibley's troops pursued the Sioux. Sibley's army defeated the Lakota and Dakota in three major battles in 1863: the Battle of Dead Buffalo Lake on July 26, 1863; the Battle of Stony Lake on July 28, 1863; and the Battle of Whitestone Hill on September 3, 1863. The Sioux retreated further, but faced a United States army again in 1864. General Alfred Sully led a force from near Fort Pierre, South Dakota, and decisively defeated the Sioux at the Battle of Killdeer Mountain on July 28, 1864.

The survivors were forced to move to a small reservation on the Missouri river in central South Dakota. There, on the Crow Creek Reservation their descendants still live today.