Military
In 1854, Lieutenant Grattan led a party of 29 soldiers from Fort Laramie to arrest a Dakota man accused of killing a settler's ox. When the tribe refused to surrender the man and tensions escalated, Grattan ordered his men to open fire, killing a Chief. The Dakotas retaliated, killing the soldiers. Considered the start of the Indian Wars, Grattan's death led to General William S. Harney's Sioux Expedition in 1856. Needing a place to garrison his troops, Harney chose a strategic site on the west bank of the Missouri to build a new fort. He named it Fort Randall after Colonel Daniel Randall, late Deputy Paymaster General of the U.S. Army. The site offered commanding views in all directions, accessible riverfront for a steamboat landing, and the natural resources needed for water, forage, building, and heating.
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Pickstown, South Dakota · United States
