Battle of Slim Buttes According to one newspaper account, it was on Cody's recommendation that Col. Wesley Merritt subsequently appointed Crawford to succeed Cody as chief of scouts of the 5th Cavalry Regiment." News of the defeat of General Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn on June 25 and 26, 1876, arrived in the East as the U.S. was observing its centennial. The American public was in dismay, called to punish the Sioux, and awaited the government's response. War correspondents with national newspapers fought alongside General Crook and reported the campaign by telegraph. Correspondents embedded with Crook were Robert E. Strahorn
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