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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. ==Background== 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.〔Clodfelter, Michael. ''The Dakota War: The United States Army versus the Sioux, 1862-1865''. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. Publishers, 1998, p. 80〕 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.〔Clodfelter, pp. 113-114〕 The second prong of the operation was led by Sully who was supposed to ascend the Missouri River with 1,200 men, rendezvous with Sibley, and crush the Sioux between the two forces. Because of low water in the river, Sully was delayed in ascending the Missouri in steamboats. When Sully arrived in the vicinity of present day Bismarck, North Dakota in mid-August, Sibley had already returned to Minnesota.〔State Historical Society of North Dakota. ”Sibley and Sully Expeditions of 1863 – History – Part 3: The Expeditions.” http://www.history.nd.gov/historicalsites/sibleysully/histoyr3.html, accessed 31 March 2012〕 Sully's 1,200 men included the 6th Iowa Cavalry, commanded by Colonel David Wilson, the 2nd Nebraska Cavalry, commanded by Colonel Robert Furnas, plus eight mountain howitzers, scouts and a wagon train.〔Keenan, Jerry. “The Battle of Whitestone Hill.” Wild West, June 2008, Vol. 21, No. 1, pp 44-49〕 Sully's men were armed with long-range rifles, rather than the usual cavalry carbines, which gave them a decided advantage over the Sioux, mostly armed with muskets, shotguns, and bows and arrows.〔Clodfelter, pp. 140, 143〕 Meanwhile, some of the Sioux Sibley had chased west across the Missouri River had returned to the east of the river to replenish their winter supplies of buffalo meat. Sully searched for the Indians toward the southeast On September 3, Sully found numerous remains of recently killed buffalo near a lake and that afternoon his scout, Frank LaFramboise, a mixed-blood Santee, reported a village of 400 lodges 10 miles ahead. LaFramboise was captured briefly by a party of Sioux warriors, but released, a sign perhaps that the Sioux were not looking for a battle.〔"White Stone Hill Massacre September 3, 1863." http://thpo.standingrock.org/programs/display.asp?program_id=THPO&pg=White Stone Hill, accessed 2 April 2012; United States War Department. ''The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies'', Series 1, Vol. 22, pp. 557-558〕 Sully ordered his advance force, a battalion of the Sixth Iowa, numbering 300 men, under Major A. E. House to surround the encampment and to prevent the Indians from leaving. He left four companies to guard his supply train and then advanced with his main force at a gallop covering the 10 miles in one hour.〔United States War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series 1, Vol. 22, pp. 557-558〕 While Major House and his battalion of the Sixth Iowa were scouting the Indian camp and waiting for Sibley to come forward with additional soldiers, a delegation from the Sioux advanced with a white flag, claimed to be peaceful and only interested in hunting, and offered to surrender several of their chiefs. House, lacking instructions, demanded that the whole camp of Indians surrender unconditionally. He suspected that the Indians were stalling so the women would have time to pack up the camp and escape. House was likewise stalling until reinforcements arrived.〔Keenan〕 Yanktonai, including the Cuthead band, were probably the most populous of Sioux peoples in the encampment which also contained Santee, Hunkpapa (possibly including a rising leader named Sitting Bull), and Sihasapa or Blackfoot Sioux. Sully believed the number of warriors in the encampment to be about 1,500. That seems exaggerated. Four hundred lodges with 5 to 10 persons per lodge would house 2,000 to 4,000 persons, including 500 to 1,000 adult males, some women, children, and aged probably having been left behind for safety west of the Missouri River. The Sioux claimed they had 950 men in the battle.〔Bray, Kingsley M. “Teton Sioux: Population History, 1655-1881” ''Nebraska History – Summer 1994'', p.166; Clodfelter, p. 129〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of Whitestone Hill」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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