Last year, former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered a formal review ahead of the possible rescission of the Congressional Medals of Honor awarded to U.S. soldiers who fought in the controversial 1890 Battle of Wounded Knee.

On Thursday, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced that the 19 U.S. Army soldiers who'd received the prestigious award for their brave heroics would continue to be honored for their service and sacrifice, according to South Dakota's KOTA.

There has been a modern-era push by some Democrats to strip those troops of their medals in light of current political correctness that denounces the battle as an unwarranted "massacre" of hundreds of Lakota Sioux natives, some of whom were unarmed women and children.

"This decision is now final"

In a video posted to X on Thursday, War Secretary Hegseth referenced the official review ordered by his predecessor last year to determine whether or not the long-deceased soldiers involved in the 1890 Battle of Wounded Knee should be allowed to keep their Congressional Medals of Honor.

The purpose of that review was to individually assess the reported actions of each honored soldier in that battle, under the standards in place at that time, to ensure that those actions were consistent with the nation's top award for military service.

Hegseth revealed that the commissioned report, which was completed in October, recommended that the troops should keep their awards, only for former Secretary Austin, likely in an effort to be more "politically correct" than "historically correct," to refuse to make a final decision on the matter.

"Such careless inaction has allowed for their distinguished recognition to remain in limbo, until now," Hegseth said. "Under my direction, we’re making it clear -- without hesitation -- that the soldiers who fought in the Battle of Wounded Knee in 1890 will keep their medals. And we’re making it clear that they deserve those medals."

"This decision is now final, and their place in our nation’s history is no longer up for debate," he added. "We salute their memory, we honor their service, and we will never forget what they did."

Modern Sioux tribe outraged by Hegseth's decision

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Axios reported that the president of the modern Oglala Sioux tribe, Frank Star Comes Out, was infuriated by Secretary Hegseth's decision to continue to honor the 19 U.S. Army soldiers who'd received the most prestigious awards for their particular acts during the Battle of Wounded Knee in 1890.

He assailed the secretary's remarks as "despicable, untruthful, and insulting," and asserted that the awarded medals themselves were a "stain on the country's history."

"To call Wounded Knee a 'battle' dishonors the truth, desecrates the memory of our relatives, and insults Native American veterans who fought and died for this country from Normandy to present," the tribe president said.

He further claimed that the Wounded Knee engagement was a deliberate act of "revenge" by the U.S. Army in response to the loss it had suffered at the Battle of Little Bighorn more than a decade earlier, and added, "The Oglala Sioux Tribe will never stop demanding that these medals be rescinded, that history be told with accuracy."

Details of the battle remain under dispute

While some of the details of the Battle of Wounded Knee remain a subject of debate, it is believed that U.S. soldiers killed anywhere from 250 to more than 350 Native American men, women, and children, many of whom were unarmed, as part of a broader campaign to suppress unrest and uprisings among the local tribes in the area.

Notably, Congress passed a resolution in 1990 that formally apologized on behalf of the government to the descendants of the Wounded Knee victims, but left in place the medals awarded for individual acts of bravery and heroism above the call of duty in that engagement -- which some Democratic politicians are now trying to strip posthumously.