Half Yellow Face Half Yellow Face Half Yellow Face (or Ischu Shi Dish in the Crow language) (1830? to 1879?) was the leader of the six Crow Scouts for George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry during the 1876 campaign against the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne. Half Yellow Face led the six Crow scouts as Custer advanced up the Rosebud valley and crossed the divide to the Little Bighorn valley, and then as Custer made the fateful decision to attack the large Sioux-Cheyenne camp which precipitated the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876. At this time, the other Crow Scouts witnessed a
Great Sioux War of 1876 To combat the Sioux the U.S. army had a string of forts ringing the Great Sioux Reservation and unceded territory. The largest force arrayed against the Indians at one time was in summer 1876 and consisted of 2,500 soldiers deployed in the unceded territory and accompanied by hundreds of Indian scouts and civilians. Many of the soldiers were recent immigrants and inexperienced on the frontier and in Indian warfare. Cavalry soldiers were armed with .45 caliber, single-action revolvers and the Springfield Model 1873, a single-shot, breech-loading rifle which gave the soldiers a large advantage in range over most Indian weapons.