4th Cavalry Regiment (United States) companies of the 4th Cavalry to Fort Clark. This time Mackenzie led a larger and more extensive expedition into Mexico, restored a system of patrols, and reestablished peace in the devastated region of South Texas. Outside Texas, Mackenzie and the 4th Cavalry administered and controlled the Kiowa-Comanche and the Cheyenne-Arapaho reservations for several years, and, after the defeat of George Armstrong Custer's command at the Battle of Little Bighorn in June 1876, forced Crazy Horse and his band of Sioux and the Northern Cheyennes to surrender. In the autumn of 1879, Mackenzie with six companies of the 4th Cavalry subdued
George Armstrong Custer agencies (reservations) or be considered "hostile". At that time the 7th Cavalry's regimental commander, Colonel Samuel D. Sturgis, was on detached duty as the Superintendent of Mounted Recruiting Service and in command of the Cavalry Depot in St. Louis, Missouri, which left Lieutenant Colonel Custer in command of the regiment. Custer and the 7th Cavalry departed from Fort Abraham Lincoln on May 17, 1876, part of a larger army force planning to round up remaining free Indians. Meanwhile, in the spring and summer of 1876, the Hunkpapa Lakota holy man Sitting Bull had called together the largest ever gathering of