The Pentagon has launched a review that could see 20 Medals of Honor awarded to soldiers in the Wounded Knee Massacre rescinded.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the review into the awards handed to those who participated in the 1890 battle in South Dakota.
Around 250 Native Americans, including women and children, were killed in the fight and at least another 100 were wounded.
Medals of Honor were given to 20 soldiers from the 7th Cavalry regiment for their actions on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation near Wounded Knee Creek.
Their awards cited a range of actions including bravery, efforts to rescue fellow troops and actions to ‘dislodge Sioux Indians’ who were concealed in a ravine.
Around 250 Native Americans, including women and children, were killed in the fight and at least another 100 were wounded
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the review into the awards handed to those who participated in the 1890 battle in South Dakota .
Native American groups, advocates, state lawmakers from South Dakota and a number of Congress members have called for officials to revoke the awards.
Congress apologized in 1990 to the descendants of those killed at Wounded Knee but did not revoke the medals despite then deeming it a massacre.
In a memo signed last week, Austin said the panel will review each award ‘to ensure no soldier was recognized for conduct that did not merit recognition’.
Those could include rape or murder of a prisoner or attacking a non-combatant or someone who had surrendered.
In a 2024 University of Oklahoma paper by Dwight Mears, an Army veteran and former professor at West Point, Mears said most recipients failed to meet the requirements.
Mears wrote in his findings that two soldiers might have their medals revoked because of their actions.
While another, Private Matthew Hamilton was awarded the medal for ’rounding up and bringing to the skirmish line a stampeded pack mule’.
Austin has directed the panel to present him with recommendations by October 15 on each medal that was awarded, according to USA Today.
American scout and Indian fighter, William Cody (left), with the American General, Nelson A Miles and two other horsemen near Pine Ridge, South Dakota, a few days after the Massacre at Wounded Knee.
Austin said the panel will review each award. A Medal of Honor is seen here being held up during a ceremony at the White house
His order is significant in part due to the Medal of Honor becoming imbued over the years which borders on a sacred reverence.
One official told the outlet: ‘The Medal of honor is much more than being in combat and doing well.
‘The Medal of Honor goes to those who decide to do much, much, more than fight. They display honor, gallantry – a word we don’t use every day.
‘There’s a case to be made that there was no honor present at Wounded Knee that day. That’s why we need this review.’
President Benjamin Harrison had ordered the army to prevent an uprising in South Dakota and sought to disarm the Lakota tribe.
According to the U.S. version of the story, a deaf tribesman named Black Coyote resisted attempts to disarm him that morning and in the struggle a shot was fired.
This August, 2001 photo shows a monument at the burial site of Lakota Native Americans killed in the 29 December 1890 massacre
U.S. troops then opened fire in response and a small number of Lakota fighters who still had guns fired back.
The 7th Cavalry overwhelmed the Lakota warriors and began shooting haphazardly killing men, women and children of the Lakota Sioux.
Maj. Gen. Nelson Miles ordered an investigation into the massacre at the time, expressing to his superiors his ‘strongest disapproval’.
In a private letter, he wrote: ‘I have never heard of a more brutal, cold-blooded massacre than that at Wounded Knee.’
The Wounded Knee site has since become a place of remembrance for Native Americans.
According to USA Today, the Medal of Honor was the only award available to soldiers at the time.
