Poor hunting grounds remain for the Dakota after their cession of lands east of the Red and Big Sioux Rivers in Minnesota and Iowa; they have become increasingly hostile to white settlers and traders, many of whom encroach on Indian territory and are unscrupulous in their dealings.

When 1862 arrives shortly after a failed crop the year before and a winter starvation, the federal payment is late.

The local traders will not issue any more credit to the Santee and the lead trader trader, Andrew Myrick, goes so far as to tell them that they are 'free to eat grass or their own dung'.

As a result, the Dakota War of 1862 begins when a few Santee men murder a white farmer and most of his family on August 17, 1862, igniting further attacks on white settlements along the Minnesota River.

The Santee now attack the trading post, and Myrick is later found among the dead with his mouth stuffed full of grass.

A band of warriors under Chief Little Crow ambushes and destroys an army detachment from Fort Ridgely, near New Ulm, on the upper Minnesota River, then besiege the heavily defended fort itself, on August 20.

Dakota warriors decide not to attack Fort Ridgely, and instead turn to the settlement of New Ulm, killing white settlers on August 24, 1862.

The Dakota have created panic in Minnesota by their barn-burning, slaughter of men, women and children, and destruction of crops but, due to the Civil War, repeated appeals for help are required before President Lincoln appoints General John Pope to assemble troops from the Third and Fourth Minnesota Regiments to quell the violence.

Minnesota Governor Alexander Ramsey also instructs Colonel Henry Sibley (the state's first governor) to aid in the effort.

Sibley raises a volunteer militia force at Fort Snelling and sets out to punish the Sioux.

At Wood Lake, Sibley decisively defeats Little Crow (September 23, 1862), who escapes westward. (Returning the next year, he will be shot dead by a Minnesota farmer for the bounty on Sioux.)