Just before sunrise on September 2, 1862, a warning shot signaled the start of the Battle of Birch Coulee, one of the bloodiest battles of the U.S.-Dakota War. For a day and a half, the area echoed with gunfire, the moans of wounded men, and the cries of terrified horses. More than 20 men and 90 horses were killed there. The name "coulee" comes from a French word for a deep streambed with steep sides, either dry or filled with water, and Birch Coulee refers to the wooded area where paper birch trees were once plentiful. Dakota people call this place tanpa yukan, or "place of the white birch."