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
The Great Sioux Massacre shoots so he will not have to starve on an Indian Reservation. Received by his commanding officer Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer, Benton is gently told his first encounter with the enemy has been disastrous but Custer confirms that he did the right thing by following Dakota's advice not to pursue the hostile party. Custer invites Benton to a dress dance held at the fort that evening and dismisses the distraught Mr. Turner by telling him that he will visit the hostile Indians who abducted his wife in the morning. Benton's fiancee Caroline Reno is at the fort, but their