Moses Coulee glaciation on the Waterville Plateau includes polished and striated bedrock, glacial erratics, drumlinoid topography, eskers, moraines, meltwater channels, and glacial till. The Withrow Moraine complex marks the maximum southern extent of the Okanogan Lobe, and a series of recessional moraine complexes represent retreating ice margins. Ice damming of the Columbia River formed Glacial Lake Columbia and Lake Spokane, larger lakes than Lake Roosevelt, which is currently backed up in the same location behind the Grand Coulee Dam. A precursor to glacial-flood-cut Moses Coulee existed prior to the glacial floods as a drainage basin with a number of side streams, draining
Birch Coulee Battlefield edge is a steep wooded ravine, a landform known locally by the French term "coulee," also spelled "coulie" or "cooley." Birch Coulee, known to the Dakota as "Tanpa Yukan" (Place of the White Birch), is deep and runs for a total of down to the Minnesota River. A few hundred yards to the west of the coulee, the prairie rises slightly onto a gentle knoll. On September 1, 1862, a burial detail of about 170 Union Army volunteers and civilians under Major Joseph R. Brown camped on the prairie west of Birch Coulee. The site was selected by Captain Hiram