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
Henry Armstrong Reed Custer. Heavily influenced by his military uncles, he followed in their footsteps and left Monroe in May 1876, with his sister Emma, for Fort Abraham Lincoln in the Dakota Territory. There, he was hired on May 10 to serve as a beef herder for the 7th Cavalry Regiment, which was under the command of George Armstrong Custer. Reed joined the 7th Cavalry Regiment shortly after the start of the Great Sioux War of 1876–77 in the Montana Territory, part of the larger American Indian Wars. While Reed was never officially enlisted as a soldier, he volunteered his services as such