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
George Armstrong Custer Colorado to July 28. 1867. He took part in Major General Winfield Scott Hancock's expedition against the Cheyenne. On June 26, Lt. Lyman Kidder's party, made up of ten troopers and one scout, were massacred while en route to Fort Wallace. Lt. Kidder was to deliver dispatches to Custer from General Sherman, but his party was attacked by Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne (see "Kidder massacre"). Days later, Custer and a search party found the bodies of Kidder's patrol. Following the Hancock campaign, Custer was arrested and suspended at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas to August 12, 1868 for being AWOL, after having