General H.H. Sibley had gathered at Camp Pope, near present-day Redwood Falls, an impressive force numbering 3,320 men, mostly Minnesota infantry, for operations against the Plains Indians in western Minnesota and the Dakotas. He had been ordered to punish the Santee Sioux for their spring raiding and set out to push hostile groups into the Dakotas. In an ungainly and slow march west, Sibley's force, the largest up to that date to campaign against Native Americans, eventually forced three significant engagements in a four month campaign. (By John Osborne)