Battle of the Badlands

Battle of Badlands
Part of Sioux Wars, American Civil War
Date 7–9 August 1864 Location Badlands, Dakota Territory (near present-day Medora, North Dakota) Result United States victory
Belligerents
United States of America	Hunkpapa Sans Arc Miniconjou Yanktonai
Commanders and leaders
Alfred Sully	Sitting Bull
Strength
2,200	~ 1,000
Casualties and losses
~13 dead and wounded	~U.S. estimate 100 dead and wounded (but probably only a few)

The Battle of the Badlands was fought in Dakota Territory, in what is now western North Dakota, between the United States army led by General Alfred Sully and the Lakota, Yanktonai, and the Dakota Indian tribes. The battle was fought August 7–9, 1864 between what are now Medora and Sentinel Butte, North Dakota. It was an extension of the conflict begun in the Dakota War of 1862. Sully successfully marched through the badlands encountering only moderate resistance from the Sioux.

In the aftermath of the Dakota War of 1862, the U.S. government continued to punish the Sioux, including those who had not participated in the war. Large military expeditions into Dakota Territory in 1863 pushed most of the Sioux to the western side of the Missouri River and made safer the frontier of white settlement in Minnesota and the eastern Dakotas. An important impetus to another military campaign against the Sioux was the desire to protect lines of communication with recently discovered goldfields in Montana and Idaho. The lifeline for the American gold miners were steamboats plying the Missouri River through the heart of Sioux territory.

During the winter of 1863-1864, Sully’s superior, Major General John Pope ordered Sully to establish several forts along the Missouri River and in the eastern Dakotas to secure the communication routes to the goldfields and to eliminate the Sioux threat to the settlers east of the Missouri River. Sully's army was the largest ever assembled to combat the Plains Indians, comprising more than 4,000 men, many of them in support and supply roles along the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers.

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