A week later 40 odd Chippewa leaders from nearly every band in Minnesota, plus a couple from Wisconsin, arrived in St Paul at Gov.

They proposed a mounted unit of 1000 "auxiliary Chippewa warriors",[5][6] on "Indian ponys", commanded E.A.C.

The result was a mounted unit that reported to his command, solely for the Indian war, with only a few Native Americans in its ranks.

Major Hatch sent letters to the media with the letterhead "Indian Battalion of Minnesota Volunteers".

[13] In 1865 newspapers reported that Hole-in-the-Day regretted not having been able to raise the Chippewa battalion for Major Hatch.

[14] Hatch's Battalion was organized at Fort Snelling and St. Paul, Minnesota, with Companies A, B, C, and D being mustered in from July 25, to September, 1863.

General Pope created a line of defense in the war's theater of operations starting at Sioux City, Iowa, through Minnesota to Fort Abercrombie, Dakota Territory and north to the international border.

In October 1864 Major Hatch received orders from Fort Snelling to retrieve Sioux leaders who had crossed into lands of the British Crown owned by the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC).

Hatch made an encampment, sending 20 men across the border to meet a HBC trader named John McKenzie.