Despite the many obstacles, by the fall of 1872, Crook and General O.O. Howard had brought peace to Arizona Territory. Howard worked out a treaty with Cochise, which the chief kept until his death two years later. President Ulysses S. Grant promoted Crook to brigadier general. Crook was in Arizona two more years, fighting for the humane, wise treatment of Indians, building roads, repairing and upgrading forts, and relocating forts to more healthful surroundings.

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In 1875 the War Department had a new challenge for the brigadier general. Arizona was under control, but serious Indian trouble was about to erupt on the northern Plains. The Sioux and the Cheyenne were especially restive and dangerous. Crook’s new orders sent him to take command of the Department of the Platte, headquartered in Omaha. His district included Nebraska and the territories of Wyoming, Utah and part of Idaho.

There were good reasons why the Indians were ready to take to the warpath. The government was not honoring the provisions of the 1867 treaty, which granted them a huge tract of land that included the beautiful Black Hills and extended all the way west to the Bighorn Mountains. There were supposed to be schools, but after eight years, none had been constructed.

More and more whites were arriving and staying. Gold had been discovered in the sacred Black Hills, so even more whites were certain to come, and there was going to be fighting. There had been too many broken treaties, and Little Big Man, for one, argued that the only way to save their hunting grounds was to make war.

Crook tried in 1876 to prevent the trouble that was brewing. He ordered all whites out of the Black Hills. That helped for a while, but the Indians still prepared for the war they were sure was coming. Although they were buying guns and ammunition, the situation remained fairly stable until whites began sneaking into the Black Hills again. The last straw came when the government demanded that the Indians present themselves to be enrolled on reservations. Some came in, some ignored the demand and some sent word they would not do it. Sitting Bull wanted to know: ‘Are you the great God who made me?’ He said if the whites wanted to talk, they would have to come to Sitting Bull.

There were probably 50,000 Indians on the wide-open northern seas of grass. The warriors were great horse soldiers, and the Indians apparently had strong alliances; they seemed to believe they could defeat the white troopers whenever they chose. The situation was far different from Crook’s earlier problems in Arizona.

He decided on another winter campaign. He would have to find a large village and destroy it, in order to prove that the Army was formidable. He hired all the Indian scouts he could find and made his usual thorough preparations. On March 1, 1876, the troops left Fort Fetterman to travel 150 miles to the Powder River and the Bighorn Mountains. Crook had 10 full companies of cavalry and four companies of infantry. The men wore fur coats, fur-lined hats and fur overboots. They were a trained and well-disciplined force.

On March 5, Crook gave orders for a two-week intensive search for hostiles. There would be no wagon trains, just mules, and the men would be on half-rations. A blizzard swept in, and the thermometer plummeted to 40 degrees below zero. When the men ate, they drew their forks through hot ashes so the metal would not strip their tongues.

On March 12, the column of Colonel (brevet Maj. Gen.) Joseph Reynolds came upon a large occupied village. Reynolds moved his troops into position for a surprise attack at dawn, but a young boy watering his horse saw the soldiers and gave the alarm. The Indians had time to run to a bluff, which gave them an excellent position for shooting. They aimed at the horses and mules. More troops came up and began firing into the tepees, which contained caches of gunpowder in kegs, metallic cartridges, bullet molds and lead. The tepees did not burn–they exploded, and lodge poles flew through the air like sticks.

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