Soldiers from the 1890s who participated in the Battle of Wounded Knee will keep their Medals of Honor. To some though, that battle is instead a massacre against the Native peoples of South Dakota.
In many circles, the 1890 Battle of Wounded Knee is instead known as the Wounded Knee Massacre. It took place on the land of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said recipients of the Medal of Honor from that event will not change. He made the announcement on his Twitter account.
“Under my direction, we’re making it clear without hesitation, that the soldiers that fought in the Battle of Wounded Knee will keep their medals, and we’re making it clear they deserve those medals," Hegseth said. "This decision is now final, and their place in our nation’s history is no longer up for debate. We salute their memory, we honor their service, and we will never forget what they did.”
After the massacre, the US army awarded 19 Medals of Honor for service at Wounded Knee.
While reports on the exact number of casualties differ, in that battle the US military entered the southwestern South Dakota reservation and killed 250 to 300 Lakota people – mostly civilians.
Even in 1890, the response was not universally celebratory. Maj, General Nelson Miles, described the massacre as “the most abominable military blunder and a horrible massacre of women and children.”
However, Hegseth said the effort to remove these medals including the Removing the Stain Act and a prior inquiry by his predecessor, Lloyd Austin, amounted to little more than political posturing.
“Former Secretary Lloyd Austin for whatever reason — I think we know he was more interested in being politically correct than historically correct — chose not to make a final decision,” Hegseth said.
In recent years, in response to the historic revisionism and a lack of reporting on war crimes against the nations indigenous peoples, some have considered the massacre to be the worst mass shooting event in American history.