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Background

• Chiefs Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull refused to accept the peace of 1868
• Gold was discovered in the Black Hills in 1874
• The Sioux refused to sell their land in the Black Hills
• The government ordered the Sioux onto small reservations. When the Sioux refused, they were declared hostile

1876 campaign, battle preparation

• General Philip Sheridan was sent to defeat the Sioux
• In June 1876 US armies, led by the generals Alfred Terry and John Gibbon, met at the Yellowstone river
• Gibbon was set to march up the Little Bighorn River, and Lt Colonel George Custer was ordered to march round the Wolf Mountains, as part of a two-pronged attack on the Sioux camp

To the Little Bighorn

• The Sioux had been joined by the Cheyenne and Arapaho, making an army of more than 3,000 warriors, armed with Winchester repeating rifles
• Custer marched his men through (not round) the Wolf Mountains, to arrive at the Sioux camp first
• Custer divided his 600 men into three groups

Custer's last stand

• Custer sent Captain Frederick Benteen scouting, and sent Major Marcus Reno to attack the Sioux village from the south
• Custer headed north of the village with 215 men
• The Sioux cut off both Reno and Custer. Benteen rescued Reno, but Custer and all of his troops lost their lives
• The Sioux withdrew when Terry and Gibbon arrived