AT A GLANCE
Why go?
Camp Release State Monument marks the place where, on 26 September 1862, the fighting of the U.S.-Dakota War effectively ended and more than 260 captives were released to Colonel Henry Sibley's troops. Today a 51-foot granite shaft stands on a bluff above the Minnesota River valley near Montevideo, Minnesota, set within a small roadside wayside that is quick to visit and easy to combine with a drive along the river.↗↗
It is a compact, reflective historic site rather than a big park: you come for the monument and its inscriptions, the story of the Dakota peace faction who handed over the captives, and the open river-valley view. The grounds offer on-site parking and a short, low-key stop that suits families and road-trippers passing through southwest Minnesota.↗
Why the place matters
The name "Camp Release" comes directly from the event it commemorates. In the autumn of 1862, the U.S.-Dakota War convulsed the Minnesota River Valley after two years of broken treaty obligations. Following the U.S. victory at the Battle of Wood Lake on 23 September, a group of Dakota who had opposed the war—the so-called peace faction—gathered near the mouth of the Chippewa River, just below this bluff, and arranged the surrender of the captives they had been sheltering.
