The 6th Minnesota Infantry spent much of the war in the Northwest fighting Dakota Indians rather than participating in the battles with the Confederacy.

Led by William Crooks, the regiment saw action in the American Civil War mainly with the Dakota Tribe.

Company A fought in the Battle of Birch Coulee, the worst defeat suffered by U.S. forces during the war.

Survivors of Birch Coulee defeated Dakota warriors in the decisive Battle of Wood Lake a few weeks later.

During the summer of 1863, under the command of Henry Sibley, the 6th regiment pursued and fought bands of Sioux in the Dakota territory.

The 950 men of the 6th regiment arrived in Helena, Arkansas, on June 23, 1864, spending the next four months in what Private Charles W. Johnson of Company D described as "a series of swamps, bayous and flat lands, overflowed from the Mississippi in high water, reeking with miasma and covered with green scum in dry weather.