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Sully’s Heart River Corral

7/26/2008:

In July of 1864 General Alfred Sully escorted settlers west to the gold mines of Montana. Throughout the trip Sully was on the lookout for the Yanktonais and Lakotas who had escaped him earlier that summer at the Battle of Whitestone Hill.

A few days into the march Sully came across the tracks of his adversaries. To launch a more effective attack, General Sully left the settlers at the Heart River, some twenty miles southeast of present-day Richardton on this day in 1864. Following the general’s departure, the settlers built fortifications; certain that Sully had been led on a wild-goose chase and the main Indian forces were waiting to attack the supplies Sully had left behind.

Fortunately, no attack ever came. However the remnants of the settler’s fortification remain; a testament to the dangers faced on the Dakota prairies a century ago.

Written by Lane Sunwall

Sources

Snortland, J. Signe, ed. A Traveler's Companion to North Dakota State Historic Sites. Bismarck, ND: State Historical Society of North Dakota, 1996.

"Whitestone Hill Battlefield", State Historical Society of North Dakota http://www.nd.gov/hist/whitestone/whitestone3.html (accessed July 2, 2008).