Wood Lake was a Civil War engagement fought in Minnesota, 1862. It was a Union victory.
On September 19, 1862, Col. Henry Hastings Sibley set out from Fort Ridgely with 1,500 volunteers to put down the Santee uprising. As they neared Wood Lake on September 23, Sibley's men escaped an ambush by 700 warriors under Chief Little Crow and engaged them in a battle. Sibley's force won the day inflicting heavy casualties on the Sioux. For this action, Sibley received a promotion to brigadier general. Wood Lake was the first decisive defeat of the Sioux since the uprising began.
On September 23, 1862, U.S. troops under Colonel Henry Hastings Sibley clinched a decisive win over Dakota fighters in what came to be known as the Battle of Wood Lake, bringing the Dakota War of 1862 to a close. Despite its name, the fighting actually unfolded near Lone Tree Lake and lasted only two hours. Chief Little Crow's warriors suffered heavy losses in the clash, and the "hostile" fighters scattered in its aftermath. Little Crow himself, accompanied by 150 followers, headed north toward the plains. Meanwhile, other Mdewakantons slipped away to join the "friendly" Dakota encampment that the Sisseton and Wahpeton bands had established, a site soon to be renamed Camp Release.
On September 22, the troops under Colonel Sibley pitched camp on the eastern side of a small body of water called Lone Tree or Battle Lake, fed by a creek that flowed northeast toward the Minnesota River some five miles above what is today Echo, Minnesota. Historians later determined that the engagement took its name simply from the largest nearby lake, Wood Lake, situated roughly three miles to the southwest of where the fighting actually occurred. Big Eagle
Forces engaged at Wood Lake numbered several distinct groups: the 3rd Minnesota Infantry Regiment, nine companies from the 6th Minnesota Infantry,
The engagement at Wood Lake ended in a lopsided triumph for United States forces, and the Dakota suffered heavy losses in the fighting. Writing to his wife after the September 23, 1862 clash, Colonel Henry Hastings Sibley described the blow dealt to the Dakota as severe and predicted they would not risk another stand against his troops. Organized Dakota resistance in Minnesota effectively ceased after this engagement, though hostilities persisted into the following year while Sibley tracked down the Sioux leaders who had escaped northward. The triumph at Wood Lake also cleared the way for 269 captives, almost entirely women and children, some of whom had endured more than five weeks of captivity, to gain their freedom at Camp Release. It further encouraged numerous Dakota fighters to lay down arms, trusting Sibley's assurance that punishment would fall only on those responsible for killing innocent people. Lincoln later rewarded Sibley's role in the fight by elevating him to brigadier general of volunteers within the Union Army.
This engagement stood as the final major clash involving the Dakota, many of whom had already grown weary of following Little Crow. When he returned to camp that same day, witnesses called him despondent, nearly heartbroken. Standing outside his lodge, he delivered an angry speech that Samuel J. Brown later recorded: seven hundred handpicked warriors had been beaten by cowardly whites, he lamented, and perhaps it would be better to scatter across the plains like buffalo and wolves. He acknowledged the whites carried superior weapons and outnumbered his men four or five to one, yet insisted this excused nothing, since his warriors were brave while their opponents behaved like cowardly women. The humiliating defeat, he conc
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