Company B of the Tenth Minnesota Infantry Regiment commanded by Captain Richard Strout was sent to protect the citizens of Meeker County.

After being repulsed at Fort Ridgely and New Ulm, Dakota leaders Little Crow, Mankato, and Big Eagle planned their next course of action.

Success in the Big Woods may have also allowed Little Crow to fall on the northern flank of Colonel Henry Hastings Sibley at Fort Ridgely and attack his supply trains.

[4] Meanwhile, realizing the vulnerability of the settlers of central Minnesota, the U.S. Volunteer Army preemptively dispatched mustering units from Fort Snelling to reinforce and protect the frontier.

On this journey, Strout's company consisted of 55-65 men,[4][5][6] most of whom originally enlisted for the Civil War or were civilian volunteers seeking to protect their communities.

[8][4] A party of ten Dakota observed the exchange from a nearby house and hurried back to alert Little Crow that the Minnesotans had been warned.

[6] Strout prepared his company to march at dawn, and stepped off heading southeast along the Pembina-Henderson trail, with 25 miles between his command and the fortified town of Hutchinson.

Scouts ahead of the column on Kelley's Bluff soon heard gunfire and war cries as enemy warriors burst forward.

Some scouts including Albert H. DeLong, a well-known local frontiersman,[11] already left the field in an effort to bring reinforcements from Hutchinson.

The next day, the Dakota attacked the settlements of Hutchinson and Forest City, burning and looting numerous outlying buildings but failing to breach either town's defenses, forcing the Chief to withdraw southwest to friendlier ground.