Battle of Slim Buttes on the Little Big Horn." "By June 23, 1876, Sitting Bull's Camp, following the Rosebud Battle, more than doubled in size to over 1000 lodges and 7000 inhabitants. There were an estimated 1500 to 2000 warriors from Northern Cheyenne and five major Sioux tribes. The Indians had no intention of fleeing. They were determined to stand and fight." On June 25 and 26, 1876, George Armstrong Custer and the 7th Cavalry (with 468 fatalities and 55 wounded) were defeated at the Battle of the Little Big Horn by Sioux and Cheyenne warriors. News of the defeat of George Armstrong Custer
George Armstrong Custer agencies (reservations) or be considered "hostile". At that time the 7th Cavalry's regimental commander, Colonel Samuel D. Sturgis, was on detached duty as the Superintendent of Mounted Recruiting Service and in command of the Cavalry Depot in St. Louis, Missouri, which left Lieutenant Colonel Custer in command of the regiment. Custer and the 7th Cavalry departed from Fort Abraham Lincoln on May 17, 1876, part of a larger army force planning to round up remaining free Indians. Meanwhile, in the spring and summer of 1876, the Hunkpapa Lakota holy man Sitting Bull had called together the largest ever gathering of