Great Sioux War of 1876 Col. George Armstrong Custer and the Seventh Cavalry were ordered out from the main Dakota Column to scout the Rosebud and Big Horn river valleys. On June 25, 1876, they encountered a large village on the west bank of the Little Bighorn. The US troops were seriously beaten in the Battle of the Little Bighorn and nearly 270 men were killed, including Custer. Custer split his forces just prior to the battle and his immediate command of five cavalry companies was annihilated without any survivors. Two days later, a combined force consisting of Colonel Gibbon's column, along with Terry's headquarters
7th Iowa Volunteer Cavalry Regiment the Battle of Killdeer Mountain and in the Battle of the Badlands. Units of the regiment were at Camp Rankin on the South Platte in January, 1865 when more than 1,000 plains Indians attacked the fort and stage station at Julesburg during the Sioux Wars following the Sand Creek Massacre. In the Battle of Julesburg, 14 men of the 7th were killed, including 4 non-commissioned officers. Company F of the regiment accompanied Colonel James H. Kidd's column of the Powder River Expedition in 1865 to the Powder and Tongue river valley's in Dakota Territory and Montana Territory. The regiment was