Battle of Whitestone Hill

Battle of White Stone Hill

The Battle of White Stone Hill from
Harper's Weekly, October 31, 1863

Date	September 3, 1863 (1863-09-03)–September 5, 1863 (1863-09-05)
Location	Dakota Territory Present-day Dickey County, North Dakota
Result	United States victory

Belligerents

United States of America

Yanktonai, Santee, and Teton (Hunkpapa and Sihasapa) Sioux

Commanders and leaders

Alfred Sully

Inkpaduta

Strength

1200 soldiers; 600 to 700 engaged

600 to 1,500 warriors; 2,000 to 3,000 women and children

Casualties and losses

22 killed, 38 wounded

~200 killed and wounded, including women and children
156 prisoners

The Battle of Whitestone Hill was the culmination of the 1863 operations against the Sioux Indians in Dakota Territory. Brigadier General Alfred Sully attacked a village September 3–5, 1863. The Indians in the village included Yanktonai, Santee, and Teton (Lakota) Sioux. Sully killed, wounded, or captured 300 to 400 Sioux, including women and children, at a cost of about 60 casualties. Sully would continue the conflict with another campaign in 1864 – Sully's Expedition Against the Sioux in Dakota Territory.

The defeat of the Santee Sioux, also called the Dakota and Eastern Sioux, in the Dakota War of 1862 caused about 4,000 Santee, fearing retribution, to flee from Minnesota to Dakota Territory where they united with other elements of the Yanktonai, Yankton, and Lakota or Teton Sioux. Sioux warriors continued to carry out small scale raids on civilian and military targets in Minnesota.

In mid-1863, the United States army under General John Pope in Minnesota mounted two large military expeditions against the Sioux in eastern Dakota Territory. The objectives of the expeditions were to prevent a renewal of the 1862 war, promote white settlement in the eastern Dakotas, and protect access to the Montana goldfields via the Missouri River. Brigadier General Henry Hastings Sibley commanded one of the two prongs of the operation. He led 2,000 soldiers overland from Minnesota to the Missouri River, fighting three battles in July with the Sioux at Big Mound, Dead Buffalo Lake, and Stony Lake. Although he did not inflict heavy casualties, Sibley’s men pushed the Sioux to the western side of the Missouri River and destroyed much of their property including winter supplies of jerky and many of their tipis.

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