Joe Medicine Crow became a war chief. He set a standard for aspiring warriors and was his son's inspiration. His maternal step-grandfather, White Man Runs Him, was a scout for US General George Armstrong Custer and an eyewitness to the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. Joe Medicine Crow's cousin is Pauline Small, the first woman elected to office in the Crow Tribe of Indians. When he was young, Medicine Crow heard direct oral testimony about the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 from his step-grandfather, White Man Runs Him, who had been a scout for General George Armstrong Custer. Beginning
Battle of the Little Bighorn Riley, Kansas, during which time it fought one major engagement and numerous skirmishes, experiencing casualties of 36 killed and 27 wounded. Six other troopers had died of drowning and 51 in cholera epidemics. In November 1868, while stationed in Kansas, the 7th Cavalry under Custer had successfully routed Black Kettle's Southern Cheyenne camp on the Washita River in the Battle of Washita River, an attack which was at the time labeled a "massacre of innocent Indians" by the Indian Bureau. By the time of the Little Bighorn, half of the 7th Cavalry's companies had just returned from 18 months of