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 size of cavalry companies to 100 enlisted men on July 24. The committee temporarily lifted the ceiling on the size of the Army by 2,500 on August 15. As a result of the defeat in June 1876, Congress responded by attaching what the Sioux call the "sell or starve" rider () to the Indian Appropriations Act of 1876 (enacted August 15, 1876), which cut off all rations for the Sioux until they terminated hostilities and ceded the Black Hills to the United States. The Agreement of 1877 (, enacted February 28, 1877) officially took away Sioux land and permanently established