Trapped at Birch Coulee: The Deadliest Battle of the 1862 Dakota War
On September 3, 1862, Colonel Henry Hastings Sibley's relief column marched into a horrific scene near Birch Coulee Creek. A 170-man U.S. burial detail had just endured a brutal 31-hour siege—the deadliest single engagement for U.S. military forces and the longest continuous battle of the U.S.–Dakota War. Cut off from water, pinned behind slaughtered horses, and shaving down lead bullets with pocketknives to fit their rifles, green volunteer recruits held out on an open prairie knoll until relief arrived on this date in history. On this episode of Pionerd: The Minnesota Edition, host Robert…
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