The Battle of Birch Coulee occurred September 2–3, 1862 and resulted in the heaviest casualties suffered by U.S. forces during the Dakota War of 1862. The battle occurred after a group of Dakota warriors followed a U.S. burial expedition, including volunteer infantry, mounted guards and civilians, to an exposed plain where they were setting up camp. That night, 200 Dakota soldiers surrounded the camp and ambushed the Birch Coulee campsite in the early morning, commencing a siege that lasted for over 30 hours, until the arrival of reinforcements and artillery led by Colonel Henry Hastings Sibley.
Background
After the Battle of Fort Ridgely and the Battle of New Ulm, Colonel Henry Hastings Sibley was planning to retaliate against Little Crow and the belligerent Dakota and obtain the release of the settlers they were holding captive. While Sibley was training his inexperienced soldiers and struggling to procure arms, family and friends of settlers who had been killed reminded him that their bodies remained unburied. On August 29, Sibley sent two scouts north who reported back that the Dakota were camped well north of the Yellow Medicine River, near the missions. Sibley concluded that it was safe to send an expedition to bury the dead at the Lower Sioux Agency and near Beaver Creek and Birch Coulee, and ascertain what had happened to Colonel John S. Marsh and his soldiers on August 18. He sent a burial party of 153 men from Fort Ridgely on August 31, 1862.
On the evening of August 31, warriors in Little Crow's camp were divided about what course to follow. Mdewakanton scouts had reported sighting more troops arriving at Fort Ridgely. After a heated debate, the decision was made to split into two groups. Over 100 men followed Taoyateduta Little Crow and Walker Among Sacred Stones (Tukanmani) into the "Big Woods" west of Hutchinson, where they planned to hit Cedar Mills for flour and disrupt Sibley's supply trains heading to Fort Ridgely. Meanwhile, Gray Bird (Zitkahtahhota), Mankato, Big Eagle (Wamditanka) and others would lead more than 200 soldiers, plus many women and wagons, south along the river with the objective of collecting plunder left behind in Little Crow's village and in New Ulm, which had been abandoned.
The burial detail
On August 31, Sibley sent two militia units along with 17 teamsters from Fort Ridgely who would bury the dead: Company A of the 6th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment commanded by Captain Hiram P. Grant, and Company A of the Cullen Frontier Guards, including 70 mounted men under Captain Joseph Anderson. They were accompanied by approximately 20 civilians who had asked to join the burial party, including former Indian agent Major Joseph R. Brown, who would be able to lend his expertise in the Dakota "character and country." Brown himself was looking for his wife and children, unaware that they were alive and safe in the "friendly" Dakota camp with Gabriel Renville (Ti'wakan) after being rescued by Akipa on August 23.
Symptomatic of the challenges in coordinating the volunteer militia, the question of whether Grant or Brown was actually in command of the expedition became a topic of major controversy in the disastrous aftermath of the battle, continuing among historians today. (See "Aftermath" below.) Written accounts by Grant and a member of the burial party, Robert K. Boyd, make it clear that Captain Grant believed he was in command and that Major Brown was merely in an advisory capacity. Captain Anderson, on the other hand, was told from the start that the commander of the expedition was Major Joseph R. Brown, and later insisted he never took a single order from Grant.
The burial expedition
On the first day, the combined forces left Fort Ridgely in the direction of the Lower Sioux Agency. After about four miles, they stopped at a farm house in the vicinity of Redwood Ferry where a doctor and others had been killed. Finding dozens of bodies on both sides of the road, they buried an estimated 28 victims.
On the second day, after burying more bodies near the log house, the company split up. Grant's group went north into the Beaver Creek region and buried 30 more bodies, many of which were severely decomposed. They also found a wounded survivor, Justina Kreiger, who had been shot in the back.