River Country would be of short duration, confident that the diminishing herds of buffalo would eventually force the non-treaty Sioux to reservations.4

But troubles accelerated faster than the bison herds declined. In the early 1870s, surveyors for the Northern Pacific Railway penetrated the Yellowstone River valley. Firefights between the Sioux and the military escorting the surveyors erupted. Under the Treaty of 1868 the government claimed a right to survey the Yellowstone River valley, a prelude to locating a suitable route for a transcontinental railroad. The tough-minded Sioux did not agree. The tribesmen believed the soldiers and surveyors were trespassing on Indian lands.
Two events in 1874 acted as lightning rods for trouble. In the spring of 1874 a party of 150 hard-bitten Bozeman frontiersmen, miners, ex-soldiers, and ne’er-do-wells organized the Yellowstone and Wagon Road Prospecting Company, seemingly for the purpose of prospecting for gold. The Bozemanites’ real motives, however, were to stir up an Indian war and manipulate the government into forcibly removing the Indians from the unceded lands, thus opening the Yellowstone River tributaries for settlement.

Warriors attacked the Wagon Road party along Rosebud Creek and near the Little Bighorn River. Heavily armed, well supplied, and hauling two artillery pieces, the adventurers were able to defend themselves, returning to Bozeman with the loss of only one man.5 The event failed to stir the government’s involvement in opening the Yellowstone valley to settlement or removing the Indians from the region.

The second incident proved more serious. The Division of the Missouri, commanded by Lt. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, was a vast empire stretching from the Canadian boundary to the mouth of the Rio Grande, embracing all of the Great Plains and parts of the Rocky Mountains. Sheridan advocated the erection of a military base within the Great Sioux Reservation for the purpose of monitoring the Indians. In 1874, he received permission to send an expedition into the Black Hills. Miners also accompanied the column to evaluate long-standing rumors of gold in the Black Hills.6

Heading up the Black Hills Expedition was Sheridan’s Civil War protege, Lt. Col. George A. Custer. The 34-year-old Ohio native and West Point graduate, class of 1861, had skyrocketed to fame during the Civil War. Promoted brigadier general at age 23, he commanded the Michigan Cavalry Brigade at the Battle of Gettysburg. It was Custer’s Wolverines who greatly aided in halting Wade Hampton’s chargers behind Union lines on July 3. Ten months later Custer’s Wolverines delivered the death blow to Confederate cavalry commander Jeb Stuart at Yellow Tavern.

In the 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign, Custer’s Michiganders performed valuable service at Winchester and Tom’s Brook

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