WASHINGTON (South Dakota Searchlight) – Three military members of a panel that reviewed Medals of Honor awarded to soldiers who were at the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre concluded there was no evidence of disqualifying conduct by the honorees, despite scholarly research to the contrary.
Those and other details are in a previously unreleased report from the panel obtained by South Dakota Searchlight.
“While the actions of leadership were suspect, circumstances chaotic, and non-combatants tragically killed,” wrote the panel’s chairman, a retired Army lieutenant general, “three of the five panel members believe that individual soldiers distinguished themselves in action and found no disqualifying information.”
The massacre occurred on Dec. 29, 1890, near Wounded Knee Creek in southwestern South Dakota, where a large group of Lakota people camped while traveling to the Pine Ridge Agency. They were surrounded by hundreds of Army soldiers. A shot rang out while the soldiers were attempting to disarm the camp — some sources say it was the result of a struggle with an armed Lakota man — and the soldiers opened fire.
Fewer than 40 soldiers were killed (some by friendly fire, according to historians), while estimates of Lakota deaths ran from 200 to 300 or more, including men, women and children. After some of the bodies froze on the ground for several days, a military-led burial party placed them in a mass grave.
One hundred years later in 1990, Congress passed a resolution expressing “deep regret” for the massacre. But the medals awarded to soldiers have never been rescinded.
Panel’s views slow to emerge
The Department of Defense created a panel to review the medals during the Biden administration in 2024, but never announced or published the panel’s findings or recommendations. At the time, the department said about 20 soldiers had received a Medal of Honor for their actions during the massacre. Historians have said the records associated with some of the medals are incomplete or unclear.
President Donald Trump’s defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, announced in a September social media video that the medals will not be rescinded. He called the massacre a “battle” and said the soldiers “deserve those medals.” He cited the panel’s work as justification and held a copy of the panel’s report in the video, but the department did not immediately release the report.
The five-member panel included two retired Army veterans and one Army Medal of Honor recipient. Their names were redacted in most references in the report, but retired Lt. Gen. Thomas James’ name does appear in one portion of the document.
The panel also included two Department of the Interior officials: Robert T. Anderson and Wizipan Little Elk Garriott, whose names are not redacted in the report. Garriott, a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, told Searchlight he was not asked if his name should be redacted, “and we all operated under the assumption that our names wouldn’t be redacted.” Garriott left the department when the Biden administration ended.
‘The totality of the circumstances’
The report aligns with what Garriott previously told Searchlight shortly after Hegseth announced the medals will not be rescinded. Garriott said then that the panel’s majority military members focused narrowly on whether individual soldiers could be tied by evidence to specific misdeeds, rather than the broader question of whether any medals should be awarded for a massacre.
Interior Department panelist Robert Anderson’s written assessment in the report argued that “actions do not occur in a context separate from the actions of the whole.” He wrote that the Army’s actions at Wounded Knee were not honorable and that awarding medals to any soldier who took part in the massacre was unmerited, regardless of any individual soldier’s role.
Garriott wrote in the report that the massacre was “one of the most shameful moments in the nation’s history” and recommended rescinding the medals, apologizing to the Lakota nation and descendants, and creating another panel to work with Lakota people on healing.
“People living under the banner of peace — infants, children, women, and elders — were killed indiscriminately,” he wrote.
Garriott said this week in an interview with Searchlight that the panel was “not given nearly enough time” to complete a thorough review. The panel was created in July 2024 and was given a deadline in October of that year to file a report.
“Only three of the five individuals took the time to go and do a thorough review of the site and to meet with descendants and survivors,” he said.
Garriott said that when the panel was created, “we were directed to look at the totality of the circumstances and the treaties,” but the review itself “did not.”
Report findings
The report says 19 soldiers received the Medal of Honor. The panel’s retired military chairperson wrote in the report’s introduction that the review’s scope was limited to each “awardee’s individual actions during the specific engagement,” and that the panel answered two questions: whether each soldier distinguished himself, and whether each performed individual actions violating the “law of war.” The report says the panel was directed to conduct its review through the lens of standards, laws and regulations in effect when the medals were awarded.
The three military panelists concluded that all 19 soldiers distinguished themselves in action and that none performed individual actions that violated the rules under the law of war.
Anderson and Garriott concluded that none of the 19 soldiers distinguished themselves, and there was inadequate information to determine whether 18 of the 19 had committed individual law-of-war violations.
One of the military panelists wrote in the report that the panel had “discovered no evidence” that any of the 19 recipients were involved in the deliberate wounding or killing of noncombatants or other disqualifying conduct.
“I do not minimize the non-combatant loss of life,” the military panelist wrote. “This loss is a tragedy and rightfully outrages us. After years of service in combat zones, I know firsthand that there are often very bad actions (Law of War violations, loss of life, loss of non-combatant lives) and very positive actions (bravery, humanitarian action, acts of kindness and empathy) that occur on the same battlefield.”
The same panelist wrote that an artificial intelligence-assisted review of more than 3,000 pages of documents “did not reveal any evidence of disqualifying behavior either.”
Historical references to soldier conduct
A 2024 law review article by Dwight S. Mears was listed among the materials reviewed by the panel. Mears is an Army veteran with a doctorate in history.
In that article, Mears identified potential grounds for rescinding medals awarded to individual soldiers, including Paul H. Weinert and Harry L. Hawthorne, who were among the 19 ultimately reviewed by the panel.
“Weinert later attested that he continued firing his M1875 Hotchkiss mountain gun into the ravine full of commingled combatants and noncombatants even after being directed by an officer ‘to come back’ and that he ‘expected a court-martial’ for disobedience,’” Mears wrote. He added that Weinert “continued firing into the ravine until ‘everything was quiet at the other end of the line.’”
Similarly, Mears wrote that Hawthorne was an artilleryman and platoon leader at Wounded Knee who earned a Medal of Honor in part for the “effect with which he handled and served his [artillery] guns in action against hostile Sioux Indians.”
Mears wrote that Hawthorne took offense to an editorial criticizing the firing of the M1875 Hotchkiss mountain guns after resistance had ceased.
“In his rebuttal,” Mears wrote of Hawthorne, “he admitted that the mountain guns continued firing at Natives” and the firing continued “well after ‘cease firing’ had sounded, but he claimed that this was necessary because ‘resistance had not ceased.’”
Mears’ article did not argue that every Wounded Knee medal should automatically be rescinded. He warned against blanket revocation without review of individual conduct and wrote that some medals might survive a case-by-case review.
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