Legends of the Old West - DAKOTA WAR Ep. 6 | “Killdeer Mountain”

Episode Date: February 19, 2025

In the wake of the executions of 38 Dakota warriors, the Dakota are forced to leave Minnesota. As they try to build new lives on a barren reservation in present-day South Dakota, U.S. army columns march west on punitive expeditions against the wider Sioux Nation. General Henry Sibley’s column fights three battles near Bismarck, North Dakota, and then General Alfred Sully’s column attacks a Lakota camp that is home to a rising star in the Lakota community, Sitting Bull.   Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join   Apple users join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes, bingeable seasons and bonus episodes. Click the Black Barrel+ banner on Apple to get started with a 3-day free trial.   On YouTube, subscribe to LEGENDS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: hit “Join” on the Legends YouTube homepage.   For more details, visit our website www.blackbarrelmedia.com and check out our social media pages. We’re @OldWestPodcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the Fizz loyalty program, you get rewarded just for having a mobile plan. You know, for texting and stuff. And if you're not getting rewards like extra data and dollars off with your mobile plan, you're not with Fizz. Switch today. Conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. Six months after 38 Dakota men were hanged in Mankato, Minnesota, Dakota leader Little Crow returned to his homeland. He was one of the principal leaders of the Dakota War from August 18th to September 23rd, 1862. He had been reluctant to go to war

against the United States because he believed the Dakota had no chance to win. And he was right. After Colonel Henry Sibley's force of about 1,600 soldiers survived an ambush and then defeated Little Crow's army, more than 2,000 Dakota men, women, and children surrendered or were captured. But Little Crow and some of his followers fled. They moved west in search of sanctuary with other tribal groups of the Sioux Nation, but they found no help. No one was willing to risk the wrath of the U.S. by sheltering the refugees.

So Little Crow and his people fled north, hoping to find sanctuary in Canada. But they were rebuffed again. Even as they were forced to keep moving, Little Crow vowed he would never return to southern Minnesota, the land that had once belonged to his people but had been given to the U.S. in a series of complicated treaties. He had led an uprising to reclaim his land and to find a way to keep his people from starving after a litany of broken promises

and corrupt practices by American officials. After the uprising failed, and after more than nine months on the run, Little Crow returned to Minnesota in the summer of 1863. 38 of his former comrades-in-arms had been hanged in the town of Mankato six months earlier, one day after Christmas 1862. Initially, 303 Dakota men had been sentenced to death

by a military commission, but President Abraham Lincoln had commuted 265 of the sentences to prison terms. Those 265 warriors were currently suffering grueling conditions in a military camp in Iowa. In central Minnesota, 400 miles north of the camp, Little Crow was picking raspberries with his son on the evening of July 3, 1863. They were near the town of Hutchinson, Minnesota when they were spotted by a local farmer, Nathan Lamson and his son Chauncey.

The father and son pairs drew their weapons and exchanged gunfire in a brief but fatal encounter. Little Crow wounded Nathan Lamson, but Lamson and his son shot and killed Little Crow. As Little Crow lay dying, he urged his son to flee. His son escaped while the Lampsons hurried into Hutchinson to raise the alarm. The following day, a search party found the body of Little Crow, but they didn't know who he was. To them, he was an unidentified Dakota man

who was wearing a coat that had belonged to a white settler who had been killed a few days earlier. The settlers scalped the unknown Dakota man and took his body back to Hutchinson. In a gruesome display, they dragged the body down Main Street, stuffed firecrackers into the ears and nose, and lit them. Then, Little Crow's remains were tossed into a pit at a local slaughterhouse. Six weeks later, on August 16, 1863, Little Crow's son was captured, and he revealed his father's fate. Little Crow's body was exhumed and identified by the scars on his wrists. The scars were the result of an injury years earlier

when Little Crow had fought his brother for the right to lead the Meadowonkanton band of the Dakota people. When Little Crow's identity was confirmed, the state of Minnesota awarded Nathan Lamson $500 for killing the Dakota leader. Little Crow's death marked the end of one era and the beginning of another. When newly promoted Brigadier General Henry Sibley and Brigadier General Alfred Sully led Army columns out to find and punish other villages of Sioux people, they ran into an

emerging leader named Sitting Bull in a clash that signaled the start of a new and fierce chapter in the ongoing struggle between the Sioux and the United States. From Black Barrel Media, this is Legends of the Old West. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this season we're telling the story of the Dakota War of the early 1860s. It follows the largely untold tale of Dakota leader Little Crow, an historic judgment against Dakota warriors, and then Sitting Bull's first major confrontation with the U.S. Army. This is Episode 6, Killdeer Mountain. After the mass execution of 38 Dakota men in Mankato on December 26, 1862, the fate

of the remaining 265 prisoners was hardly more merciful. They were transported under armed guard to Camp McClellan, a military installation near Davenport, Iowa. The men were packed tightly into rail cars under the watchful eyes of soldiers. They traveled for days without adequate food or water, and when they arrived at Camp McClellan, they were herded into barracks that were woefully unprepared to house them. The camp had been hastily expanded to accommodate the influx of prisoners, and it was overcrowded and poorly maintained. The Dakota men were crammed into drafty wooden

structures with little more than thin blankets to ward off the cold. Frigid winds sliced through the cracks in the walls, and the prisoners huddled together for warmth as they tried to sleep in their freezing quarters. Disease soon followed. Malnutrition and exposure weakened the men's immune systems, and without proper medical care, illnesses swept through the camp. Typhoid fever, dysentery, and pneumonia became commonplace, and it wasn't long before prisoners started dying.

For those who survived, the food was barely enough to sustain them. It was thin gruel, hard bread, and the occasional portion of salted meat. Many prisoners sat for hours and stared at their food in silent resignation, knowing it wouldn't be enough to stave off the mounting hunger. Some of the more resourceful Dakota men began to make small items, beadwork, carvings, and other trinkets they hoped to sell to sympathetic guards or visiting townspeople. The small acts of resistance and survival helped them eke out a meager existence, but they were no substitute for the life and freedom that had been lost.

for the life and freedom that had been lost. Despite the appalling conditions, the Dakota men clung to their traditions and to each other. They continued to practice a few rituals, which were now very different in the confines of the prison. They sang songs which had once rolled over the wide open prairie and been accompanied by the steady beat of drums. Now the songs echoed off the cold wooden walls of the barracks. Communication with their loved ones was rare, but some Dakota prisoners managed to send

letters to their families, many of whom had been forcibly relocated to reservations or other camps far from Minnesota. The letters were often smuggled out of the camp by sympathetic supporters, and they spoke of the men's hope for release, their concern for their families, and their prayers that the Creator might watch over them in all their dark times.

The men who survived that first brutal winter at Camp McClellan were changed forever. Many lost significant weight due to the months of hunger and illness. Their spirits were dulled by the constant grind of prison life. They were not entirely broken. And while the prisoners maintained a grim existence at the camp in Iowa, the U.S. government organized the removal of their friends and family members in Minnesota. The other 2,000 Dakota people who had been captured or surrendered after the war were scattered amongst camps and reservations in Minnesota.

Minnesota's Governor, Alexander Ramsey, had infamously said the Dakota should be exterminated or permanently removed from his state. The American government pursued the second option. In 1863, the government nullified all treaties with the Dakota and passed a federal law that was commonly called the Minnesota Indian Removal Act. The Dakota were stripped of their rights and their land, and they were ordered into exile. They were going to be relocated to the Crow Creek Reservation, a barren patch of ground in present-day South Dakota. Do it with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card, the credit card that rewards your good financial habits.

Earn points for paying your credit card bill in full and on time every month. Level up from bill payer to reward slayer. Terms and conditions apply. The journey to Crow Creek was a death march. U.S. Army soldiers herded the Dakota-like cattle and forced them to walk 250 miles west to the Missouri River in Dakota Territory. For the elderly, the very young, and the sick, the journey was especially cruel. With each passing mile, the Dakota grew weaker, and many fell victim to exhaustion, malnutrition,

and disease. The rations provided by the government were pitiful. Hard tack, dried meat, and contaminated water, which were barely enough to sustain a healthy person, let alone a person who was already weakened by months of imprisonment. Those who died along the way were buried in shallow graves by the roadside, while their families were forced to press on. The Dakota were no strangers to hardship, but this was something else. As the survivors drew closer to their new home, they could see the stark difference between their past and their future.

The plains of Minnesota were fertile and had everything the people needed to live comfortably. There were endless rivers, streams, and lakes. The soil was rich for planting, the timber was thick for wood, and the animals to hunt for food were abundant. The Crow Creek Reservation along the Missouri River was a patchwork of 420 square miles of desolate landscape. For many, it felt like they were marching not just to a new location, but to the very edge of the world.

The reservation was a wasteland. The land was prone to drought. The soil was parched and rocky and unfit for farming. The Missouri River was a sluggish muddy ribbon that provided little in the way of drinkable water. The Dakota were forced to rely on the U.S. government for food, and as always, it arrived sporadically or not at all. The hunger and desperation that had driven them to war was back. Disease, which had followed them from the crowded camps and prison barracks of Minnesota, now spread unchecked across the reservation. Measles, tuberculosis, and dysentery swept through the camp and killed more people every day.

Hundreds died and were buried in unmarked graves. The land offered no shelter from the biting winds, and the Dakota had no proper homes to protect them. Many huddled together in makeshift huts or lean-tos with only thin blankets for warmth. The winters, as harsh as they were in Minnesota, were worse on the reservation. But despite the adversity, the Dakota refused to surrender their identity. They maintained their traditions as best they could. Elders passed down stories of their ancestors, songs of their people, and lessons of survival.

Though it was hard for the stories to have the same resonance when the people no longer lived in the lands of their ancestors. Letters written by Dakota men at Camp McClellan contained lines like this, We have been driven from our homes, and now we are driven from our graves." The bond with the land of their ancestors was broken. Little Crow and other leaders of the uprising like Red Middle Voice had been extremely hesitant

to go to war. They knew they would lose, but in the end, they felt they had no choice. They believed war with the US would bring devastation to their people. But it's unlikely that even they thought it would be this bad. Little Crow had been killed. 38 warriors had been hanged. More had died in prison camps in Iowa and Minnesota. And many more had died during the march

and on the reservation. By the summer of 1863, the lands of Minnesota were firmly in the hands of the settlers, and the U.S. Army wasn't done with its work. At the same time Little Crow was killed, General Henry Sibley was leading a column of soldiers west from Minnesota to strike camps that were predominantly Lakota,

one of the three tribal groups of the Sioux people, but one which had not participated in the Dakota War. While 265 Dakota prisoners remained at Camp McClellan in Iowa, and most of the rest of the Dakota were trying to begin a new life on the Crow Creek reservation, General Sibley led about 2,000 soldiers back into the field. Major General John Pope was the overall commander in Minnesota, and he had ordered a classic three-column expedition. General Sibley would lead a column straight west from Minnesota toward Dakota territory. General Alfred Sully would lead a column up the Missouri River and they would meet near Bismarck in modern-day North Dakota, and a third column would march up from Iowa.

That column ended up being canceled, which left only Sibley and Sully's columns to execute the expedition. In present-day North Dakota, some Dakota warriors had successfully evaded capture. Some had been denied sanctuary with other tribal groups of the Sioux Nation as they followed Little Crow, but others were able to join camps with their distant cousins, the Lakota. The Dakota War might be done, but the wider conflict between the U.S. government and the Native American people on the northern plains was just beginning in earnest. General Sibley had led the Minnesota militia against the Dakota for a month at the height of the Dakota War in the late summer of 1862, and now, in the early summer of 1863, his

goal was to track down the remaining Dakota warriors and crush any resistance along the way. In late July, three weeks after Little Crow was killed in Minnesota, Sibley's men fought three engagements in four days outside Bismarck, North Dakota. In essence, Sibley's column marched westward on a line that roughly followed modern-day Interstate 94. On July 24, about 50 miles east of Bismarck, in the region of the small town of Dawson, North Dakota, Sibley's forces encountered a group of Dakota and Lakota warriors who

had been following their movements. What began as a skirmish escalated into a full-blown battle that would be called the Battle of Big Mound. The Dakota and Lakota fought fiercely and used the terrain to their advantage as they harassed Sibley's troops with hit-and-run tactics. But the U.S. soldiers were equipped with superior firepower, and they gradually gained the upper hand. After several hours of fighting,

the warriors disengaged and retreated westward. Sibley's troops followed, and two days later, on July 26th, they met the warriors again at the Battle of Dead Buffalo Lake. The soldiers pushed the Native American forces back, but the army couldn't force the warriors to surrender. Again, the warriors retreated west, toward Bismarck and the Missouri River.

Two days later, on July 28th, the warriors attempted to surprise the soldiers, but Sibley's scouts had warned him that the warriors were close. The resulting action was called the Battle of Stony Lake. When the warriors realized they wouldn't succeed, they backed off and hurried for the safety of the Missouri River, about 20 miles to the west. Sibley's army followed, but the Native American force crossed the river and effectively escaped. Sibley's men camped along the Missouri River for a few days and experienced some sporadic long-distance attacks at night, but nothing major.

All three engagements were more like skirmishes than battles, and they didn't have the high number of casualties that were seen in the Dakota War the previous summer. And at that point, Sibley was expecting a rendezvous with General Sully and his 1,200 troops who were supposed to be moving upriver by steamboat. But Sibley didn't know that Sully's column had been delayed by the unpredictable waters of the Missouri River. After three days of waiting, Sibley decided to end his pursuit of the Dakota.

His men and horses were exhausted, and they still had a long walk back to Minnesota ahead of them. General Sully's column did get a taste of action about five weeks after General Sibley's column turned around and headed for home. Based on accounts of the action, it was much bloodier and more controversial than anything Sibley's troops experienced. On the morning of September 3, General Sully's scouts found a large Native American village near a prominent feature called Whitestone Hill.

It took all day for Sully's main column to reach the location, and when it did, the people in the village were scattering as fast as they could. Sully divided his force into three units. He sent two around the sides of the village to cut off avenues of escape, and he led the third unit straight through the middle of the village. The fighting was relatively brief but intense. Pockets of warrior battled the various army units, and it seems likely that Sully's detachment shot anything

that moved. Women, children, and elders were caught in the crossfire. Accurate numbers are hard to come by, but when the fight was done, estimates say the army suffered 14 dead and 34 wounded, and the villagers suffered 150 to 300 dead. The next morning, soldiers burned the lodges that had been left behind and destroyed hundreds of thousands of pounds of buffalo meat that the villagers had spent all summer collecting. General Sully characterized the fight as a, quote,

respectable engagement in his report. And the engagement is often referred to as the Battle of Whitestone Hill. But for the Dakota and Lakota, it's called the Massacre at Whitestone Hill, and it's sometimes grouped together with infamous tragedies like the Sand Creek Massacre, which would happen one year later, and the Wounded Knee Massacre. The action at Whitestone Hill was General Sully's only engagement of the 1863 campaign. It was a decisive victory from the Army's point of view, and winter was approaching, so he led his column back to its base at Fort Pierre in modern-day South Dakota.

When the campaign season resumed the following summer, General Sully led his men back into the field, and he was the first American commander to seriously lock horns with a future Lakota legend. In the aftermath of the Dakota War of 1862, the U.S. military turned its attention westward to punish the Dakota and also the Greater Sioux Nation. Among those who emerged as central figures during that time was Sitting Bull, a Hunkpapa Lakota leader who was destined to become one of the most iconic Native American figures in history. From an early age, Sitting Bull demonstrated qualities that set him apart.

At birth, he was given the name Jumping Badger. During a horse-stealing raid against the crow when he was 14, he displayed extraordinary bravery by counting coup, which was the act of touching an enemy in combat without killing him. After the raid, the teenager's father hosted a feast to honor his son's passage into manhood. Father presented son with an eagle feather for his hair, a buffalo hide shield, a new horse and a new name. The young warrior would now be called Buffalo Bull Who Sits Down, which was translated by

Americans to Sitting Bull. Sitting Bull and the Hunk Papa Band of the Lakota had not participated in the Dakota War, but the punitive expeditions led by General Sibley and General Sully swept indiscriminately through Sioux lands and targeted bands regardless of their involvement in the initial uprising. The Army campaign, ostensibly to secure the Western frontier and protect routes to the Montana goldfields, escalated tensions with the Lakota and brought Sitting Bull into the fray. Sitting Bull may have faced U.S. Army soldiers during the 1863 campaign, but his eye-opening experience happened in 1864. eye-opening experience happened in 1864. On July 28, General Sully, commanding a force of 2,200 men and eight cannon, bore down on a vast encampment of Lakota, which was also home to some Dakota families.

The encampment was at the foot of the Kildear Mountains in present-day Dunn County, North Dakota. It boasted 1,500 to 1,800 lodges, which meant there were probably 5,000 to 6,000 people in the camp. Sully's troops marched on the village, and a force of warriors assembled as a defensive screen for the camp. About five miles from the camp, a Hunk Papa warrior named Lone Dog rode out to taunt the soldiers. The soldiers fired at him, and that started a running battle that rolled over the hills toward the Kildare Mountains. Sitting Bull and his friend Gaul, who would be key leaders in the famous clashes

with the army in the 1870s, were in the thick of the fighting. The Sioux warriors, armed with little more than bows, arrows, and a handful of muskets, continued to retreat toward the camp. For many, this was their first taste of battle against the US Army. When Sully's troops put their long-range rifles and eight cannon to work, the bombardment was shocking and devastating. The warriors continued to use their frenetic hit andand-run tactics as they retreated, but

they couldn't compete with the methodical and overwhelming force of the army column. Behind the battle lines, women packed tipis, gathered children and the elderly, and tried to guide them away from the intensifying battle. In the chaos, villagers were forced to leave behind nearly everything and just run for their lives. Warriors continued to charge the soldiers and howl their war cries, but they couldn't stop the army's advance. When the troops were within range, they unleashed their cannon on the village.

The cannon pounded the village until sundown and sent warriors and villagers scattering into the ravines, hills, and mountains. When the fighting ceased, the destruction was total. Sully's soldiers stormed the encampment and destroyed everything the Sioux left behind. The Sioux fled west into the rugged terrain of the Badlands. Sully pursued them in an effort to push them clear out of Dakota territory. From August 7th to August 9th, Sitting Bull, Gaul, and other warriors conducted a series of ambushes and guerrilla-style attacks on Sully's slow-moving column. The small-scale engagements would be collectively known as the Battle of the Badlands.

The harassment slowed Sully's westward progress, but didn't stop it. Sully's column marched all the way to the Yellowstone River on the border between present-day North Dakota and Montana before finally ending the campaign. General Sully succeeded in pushing many of the Lakota and the remaining Dakota into Montana, but he also succeeded in exploding the fire of resistance in Sitting Bull. In the second half of the 1860s,

while Red Cloud and Crazy Horse led a war against the army in Northern Wyoming, Sitting Bull led raids against army outposts in Dakota territory. In the early 1870s, with Red Cloud retired to a reservation in Nebraska, Sitting Bull, Gall, and the others moved west and eventually united with Crazy Horse to continue the resistance, which culminated in the Pyrrhic victory at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in June 1876. The Dakota War of 1862 left deep scars on both the settlers of Minnesota and the Dakota people. The Dakotas started making treaties with American representatives in 1805, right

after the Lewis and Clark Expedition. More than 50 years of broken promises and worsening conditions led the Dakota to their final breaking point in 1862. The result was 37 days of violence that shocked, horrified, and traumatized Minnesota settlers for years afterward. And for the Dakota, the war led to the forced removal of their people from Minnesota. 38 Dakota men were hanged in the largest mass execution in American history, and 265 men were sent to prison at Camp McClellan in Iowa. In April 1866, President Andrew Johnson pardoned

all the Dakota prisoners. They were allowed to leave, but they couldn't go home. They were sent to the Santee Sioux Reservation in Nebraska. That happened at about the same time as the Mountain District of the Department of the Missouri was created. A young Colonel named Henry Carrington was given command of the new district with orders to establish a series of forts along the Bozeman Trail in northern Wyoming and southern Montana.

At the end of the year, in December 1866, a detachment of his troops from Fort Philcarney in northern Wyoming was wiped out by Red Cloud and Crazy Horse in the first big engagement of what would be called Red Clouds War. In Minnesota, the tendrils of the Dakota War of 1862 stretched out for more than 100 years. Little Crow was one of the principal leaders of the war. After he was shot and killed by a farmer in July 1863, his body was subjected to numerous indignities. Initially, the settlers didn't know who the dead Dakota man was. But when Little Crow's son was captured several weeks later, he explained the death of his father, and the settlers realized the dead body they had paraded through the streets and then thrown into a pit at a slaughterhouse was a man of importance.

Little Crow's scalp and skull were put on public display as trophies of war. For more than a century, his remains were treated as curiosities and exhibited by the Minnesota Historical Society. In 1971, more than a hundred years after Little Crow's death, his remains were finally returned to his grandson, who buried the Dakota leader in a private ceremony near his ancestral home. On December 26, 2019, exactly 157 years after 38 Dakota men were hanged, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz traveled to Mankato, the site of the execution.

He offered a formal apology on behalf of the state. Governor Walz said, On behalf of the people of Minnesota, and as governor, I express my deepest condolences for what happened here and our deepest apologies for what happened to the Dakota people. While we can't undo over 150 years of trauma inflicted on native people at the hands of state government,

we can work to do everything possible to ensure that Native people are seen, heard, and valued today. The Apology marked a turning point in Minnesota's relationship with its Native population. Alongside the Apology, efforts have been made to return land to Dakota communities, and new memorials have been created to honor the victims of the war. In Mankato, there is now a permanent memorial for the men who were hanged in the mass execution. For years, members of the Native American community participated in the annual Dakota 38 Memorial Ride. It was a 330 mile horseback ride in the freezing cold of winter from South Dakota to Mankato to honor the executed and to serve

as a reminder of the resilience of the Dakota people. The original ride stopped in 2022, but it restarted in December 2024 with some slight changes. In the spring of 1863, the U.S. government passed the law that is commonly called the Minnesota Indian Removal Act. It authorized the removal of the Dakota people from Minnesota to reservations in South Dakota. In 2009, the Minnesota legislature passed a resolution that was signed by then-Governor Tim Pawlenty, which urged the President and the U.S. Congress to repeal the old law from

1863. In 2019 and 2020, attempts to begin the repeal process in the U.S. House of Representatives failed. As of 2024, the federal law that is the Minnesota Indian Removal Act remains in effect. Next time on Legends of the Old West, we're going back to the stories of infamous outlaws, including the Gentleman Bandit, Black Bart, a rustler and robber who was chased by Wyatt Earp and ran with Billy the Kid for a while, Dirty Dave Rudabah, and then the Doolan Dalton Gang. Those stories are next time on Legends of the Old West.

Members of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have to wait week to week to receive new episodes. They receive the entire season to binge all at once with no commercials. And they also receive exclusive bonus episodes. Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. Memberships are just $5 per month. This series was researched and written by Matthew Kearns. Original music by Rob Valier. I'm your host and producer, Chris Wimmer. Thanks for listening.

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