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 Cavalry Regiment September 1866 at Fort Riley, Kansas, as part of an expansion of the regular army following the demobilization of the wartime volunteer and draft forces. From 1866 through 1871, the regiment was posted to Fort Riley and fought in the American Indian Wars. In the Battle of the Washita in 1868, the regiment sustained 22 losses, while inflicting more that 150 deaths on a Cheyenne encampment, mostly women and children . This attack was led by George Armstrong Custer, who later led the 7th Cavalry to the most calamitous defeat of U.S. forces in the Indian Wars. Typical of post-Civil