cers. Their opinions were based on reports from the Indian agents at the various reservations. They concluded that not more than 500 to 800 warriors would be encountered, but over 5000 were engaged in the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
General Crook was instructed to reduce the hostiles. Crook with a force of ten thousand and forty-nine officers and men left Fort Fetterman on May 29th. On June 17, he fought with Crazy Horse in the all-day engagement known as the Battle of Rosebud, which seemed a victory for the Indians. Crook fell back to await reinforcements, and Crazy Horse, without following, left the field and rejoined Sitting Bull on the Little Bighorn.
Terry moved out of Fort Abraham Lincoln on May 17 with a force of six hundred cavalry and four hundred infantry. He met the steamboats with supplies at the mouth of Powder River on June 9, and proceded up the mouth of the Rosebud. On June 21, he received scouts from Gibbon, who had arrived from Fort Ellis with four hundred and fifty men.
Custer with eight hundred and fifty men, Indian scouts and guides started up the Rosebud on June 22. Early in the morning of the twenty-fourth, while the Custer command was passing up the Rosebud, scouts reported to Custer that they had seen a few Sioux scouts or hunters and that the Sioux had crossed over to the valley of the Little Bighorn. Custer seemed a little excited, and instructed the scouts to go first to the mountains forming the divide between the Rosebud and the Little Bighorn. The scouting party followed up the Rosebud until they reached a small creek that heads in the mountains. Following the stream, they reached the summit of the divide before daylight. They rested until dawn. Boyer and White Man Run Him left the others asleep and went to a high point on the summit. They
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