A New Ulm-area archaeological study this spring will scour the countryside looking for battle site evidence from the Dakota Conflict of 1862.
The Brown County Historical Society is using a $33,000 federal grant to contract with a Sauk Rapids-based group.
Richard Rothaus, principal investigator for Trefoil Cultural and Environmental Heritage, said archaeologists and historians will be looking for cabin depressions, historic artifacts, road traces and other evidence of the war and its impact on Brown County.
“We’ll be focusing on actual physical remains — where people were positioned, where people skirmished and moved,” Rothaus said.
There were two battles in New Ulm four days apart in August 1862. But because they weren’t battles in the traditional military sense — settlers and Dakota were involved — ascertaining where they took place and to what extent can be problematic.
“Is it a battle if two guys are on a bridge taking pot shots at each other? We’re going to have to answer these questions,” Rothaus said.
Trefoil historian Dan Hoisington said the random battles that flared in 1862 have logistical kin in contemporary times.
“It was almost asymmetrical warfare, as in Iraq,” he said.
Historical Society research librarian Darla Gebhard said the investigation will be aided by existing battle site markers, oral narratives of the period and news accounts of the day.
Of particular intrigue are the five or six forts said to have existed in the area — places where settlers are thought to have periodically sought safe haven.
“My eureka moment would be finding information about these forts,” Gebhard said.
The study will begin in May and is slated to conclude by late December.
The findings will dovetail with the Historical Society’s museum opening of a third-floor Dakota Conflict exhibit in 2012, the year of its 150th anniversary.
Battle-site identifications also could serve as a first step toward National Register of Historic Places designation.
“This battle was more important than you might think,” Rothaus said, citing its link to the concurrent Civil War and how it affected the apportioning of Union Army troops.
The American Battlefield Protection Program study grant is one of 33 such awards nationwide totaling more than $1.3 million. The studies assist in the preservation and protection of America’s historic battlefields.
Source: The Free Press