he Department of the Platte, at Omaha, and General Alfred H. Terry,
commanding the Department of Dakota, at St. Paul, started out to round
up the Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull bands, in the Powder River and Big
Horn Valley country of northern Wyoming and southeastern Montana.
General John Gibbon was to close in, with another column, from Fort
Ellis, Montana, on the west.[1]

Among the troops ordered to unite with General Crook's main column on
the march, were the fighting Fifth Cavalry, with headquarters at Fort
Hays, Hays City, Kansas, on the Kansas Pacific Railway half way between
Fort Leavenworth and Denver. Their commander was Lieutenant-Colonel
(brevet Major-General) Eugene A. Carr.

The Fifth were glad to go. They already had made a great record on the
plains, protecting the Union Pacific and the Kansas Pacific railroads;
were just back from scouting against the Apaches in Arizona; and now
they eagerly unpacked their campaign kits for another round. "Buffalo
Bill" Cody, their old chief-of-scouts, was sent for, in the East where
he had been acting on the stage with Texas Jack. He came in a hurry,
and was given three cheers.

The Fifth Cavalry were to rendezvous at Cheyenne. The four companies
at Fort Hays went by railroad, first to Denver and then north to
Cheyenne. On the seventh of June there they were. They marched north
to old Fort Laramie. Here the regiment was ordered to guard the great
Sioux and Cheyenne trail that crossed country from the South Dakota
reservations to the hostile Powder River and Big Horn villages.

There were several skirmishes, but the traveling Indians got away. On
July 1 the new colonel joined the regiment. He was Brevet
Major-General Wesley Merritt, from General Sheridan's staff at Chicago
division headquarters. As he was a full colonel, he outranked
Lieutenant-Colonel Carr, and became commander.

On July 6 terrible word was received from Fort Laramie. Buffalo Bill
first announced it, as he came out of General Merritt's tent.

"Custer and five companies of the Seventh have been wiped out of
existence, on the Little Big Horn, by the Sioux. It's no rumor;
General Merritt's got the official dispatch."

"What! When?"

"June 25. It's awful, boys."

Sunday, of last week! Twelve days ago, and they only just now heard!
And while they had been longing for Indians, and envying other columns
that might be having fights,--even a little jealous of the dashing
Custer's rival