Battle of Hungry Hill | |||||||
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Part of American Indian Wars and Rogue River Wars | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Rogue River Indians | United States | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Chief George | |||||||
Strength | |||||||
200 Native Americans (including non-combatants) | 100 US Army dragoons 200 Militia | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
less than 20 killed or wounded | Army: 4 killed 7 wounded Militia: 7 killed 20 wounded |
The Battle of Hungry Hill, also known as the Battle of Grave Creek Hills [1] or Battle of Bloody Springs, [2] was the largest battle of the Rogue River Wars. [3] It occurred on October 31, 1855. The Native Americans (men, women and children) [4] were camped on the top of a hill, with the soldiers located across a narrow ravine about 1,500 feet deep. [4] Two hundred of the Native Americans were in the mountains southwest of present-day Roseburg [4] armed with muzzleloaders, bows, and arrows and managed to hold off a group of "more than 300 ... dragoons, militiamen and volunteers". [4]
The U.S. troops had planned a surprise attack, but their position was given away by a warming fire. Seeing that they had been discovered, the soldiers attempted to charge down the ravine and up the other side, but were thwarted, as the Native Americans had good cover in the high ground, and many proved to be good marksmen. "U.S. troops and militiamen retreated out of the mountains ... As many as 36 were dead, missing or severely wounded. Native casualties numbered fewer than 20." [4]
In 2012, the location of the Battle of Hungry Hill was discovered by archeologists from Southern Oregon University's Laboratory of Anthropology. [3] Mark Tveskov, who discovered the site using metal detectors, states that although this battle involving 500 people was a "major defeat" for U.S. troops, it is not well known. He attributes this in part to "the disappointment and blame among militiamen and Army regulars over the defeat. Back then, Oregon telegraph cables were in their infancy, and photographers who would document the Civil War several years later were not on hand. If Hungry Hill had happened after the Civil War, it would have been front-page news in the New York Times." [4]
The Battle of the Little Bighorn, known to the Lakota and other Plains Indians as the Battle of the Greasy Grass, and commonly referred to as Custer's Last Stand, was an armed engagement between combined forces of the Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes and the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army. The battle, which resulted in the defeat of U.S. forces, was the most significant action of the Great Sioux War of 1876. It took place on June 25–26, 1876, along the Little Bighorn River in the Crow Indian Reservation in southeastern Montana Territory.
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The Yakima War (1855–1858), also referred to as the Plateau War or Yakima Indian War, was a conflict between the United States and the Yakama, a Sahaptian-speaking people of the Northwest Plateau, then part of Washington Territory, and the tribal allies of each. It primarily took place in the southern interior of present-day Washington. Isolated battles in western Washington and the northern Inland Empire are sometimes separately referred to as the Puget Sound War and the Coeur d'Alene War, respectively.
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The Rogue River Wars were an armed conflict in 1855–1856 between the U.S. Army, local militias and volunteers, and the Native American tribes commonly grouped under the designation of Rogue River Indians, in the Rogue River Valley area of what today is southern Oregon. The conflict designation usually includes only the hostilities that took place during 1855–1856, but there had been numerous previous skirmishes, as early as the 1830s, between European American settlers and the Native Americans, over territory and resources.
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