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
Battle of the Little Bighorn to why he refused them and what advantage their availability might have conferred on his forces at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. One factor concerned Major Marcus Reno's recent 8-day reconnaissance-in-force of the Powder-Tongue-Rosebud Rivers, June 10 to 18. This deployment had demonstrated that artillery pieces mounted on gun carriages and hauled by horses no longer fit for cavalry mounts (so-called condemned horses) were cumbersome over mixed terrain and vulnerable to breakdowns. Custer, valuing the mobility of the 7th Cavalry and recognizing Terry's acknowledgement of the regiment as "the primary strike force" preferred to remain unencumbered by the Gatling