Battle of the Rosebud on the reservation by January 31, 1876 to negotiate the sale. A few bands did not comply and when the deadline of January 31 passed the US undertook to force Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and their followers onto the reservation. The first military expedition against the recalcitrant Indians in March 1876 was a failure, ending in the Battle of Powder River. In June 1876, the US military renewed the fight with a three-pronged invasion of the Bighorn and Powder river country. Colonel John Gibbon led a force from the west; General Alfred Terry (with Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer) came
Little Bighorn River The Lakota Sioux, who began to contest control of this area with the Crow in the 1840s to 1860s as they pushed westward, continued to call the river the "Greasy Grass". Native Americans called the river the Greasy Grass before the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876, and Lakota people still commonly refer to the Battle of the Little Bighorn as the Battle of the Greasy Grass. In historical references in Wikipedia articles, the Battle of the Little Bighorn is also referred to as the Battle of the Greasy Grass, as it is in the discussions of the