Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant trial in the Senate during the Summer of 1876 and acquitted. Congressional reaction to the losses suffered by Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer's unit at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876 was shock and dismay at the failure of the Peace Policy. Grant blamed Custer wholly for the defeat stating that the sacrifice of troops was unnecessary. The Indian appropriations measure of August 1876 marked the end of Grant's Peace Policy. The Sioux were given the choice of either selling their lands in the Black Hills for cash or not receiving government gifts of food and other
Giovanni Martino assignment to the U.S. Seventh Cavalry Regiment, led by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer. In 1876, he was attached to Company H but on the morning of June 25, Martin was temporarily assigned to serve as one of Custer’s bugler-orderlies. As Custer and nearly 210 troopers and scouts began their final approach to the massive Indian village located in the Little Big Horn River valley, Martin was dispatched with an urgent note for reinforcements and ammunition. Newspaper accounts of the period referred to him as “Custer massacre survivor” and “the last white man to see Custer alive”. Martin and the