This new coalition of nontreaty warriors proved that it had the will to resist white encroachments during the 1872 and 1873 Yellowstone campaigns. During the 1873 campaign, Gall made himself conspicuous on August 11 in what became known as the Battle of the Yellowstone, his first encounter with Custer. In an intense Lakota and Cheyenne charge up a steep bluff along the Yellowstone, occupied by such members of the 7th Cavalry as Custer’s brother Tom, Gall was spotted by New York Tribune correspondent Samuel J. Barrows. The Hunkpapa war chief stood out because of his muscular frame and the familiar red blanket that often marked his presence in any Hunkpapa war party. Gall’s pony was shot from under him during the fray, but the agile warrior, according to Barrows, ‘leaped on a fresh horse and got away.’

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Coincidently, the equally dashing Custer had his 11th horse shot from under him during that same battle. Incidents such as this one explain why many soldiers called Gall the ‘Fighting Cock of the Sioux.’

The determination shown by Gall and other warriors at the Yellowstone created serious problems for the Grant administration. The discovery of gold in the Black Hills in 1874 by an expedition led by Custer, for instance, prompted a gold rush that was in clear violation of the Fort Laramie Treaty. During the winter of 1875-76, the growing number of defiant Indians who gathered in the treaty-sanctioned ‘unceded Indian territory’ of the Powder River caused great alarm in Washington. Conferences in the Executive Mansion (now called the White House) led to an ultimatum that all these nontreaty bands must return to their agencies on the Great Sioux Reservation by January 31, 1876, or face the consequences. But whether through defiance or because of severe winter weather, most did not return.

To enforce the federal government’s ultimatum, General Sheridan planned a three-pronged attack against these obstinate nontreaty bands, who were now joined by many heretofore cooperative Lakotas from the Great Sioux Reservation. Brigadier General George Crook would approach the Powder River country from the south, Colonel John Gibbon from the west and Brig. Gen. Alfred H. Terry from the east. Serving under Terry was the experienced Indian fighter Colonel Custer and his 7th Cavalry. Crook was turned back by Lakota and Cheyenne warriors at the Battle of the Rosebud on June 17, 1876; Gall was probably there, but there is no evidence that he took an active part as Crazy Horse did. Eight days later, Custer and his 7th Cavalry, moving ahead of both Terry and Gibbon, attacked a huge encampment of Lakota Indians and their Cheyenne allies along the Little Bighorn River.

Gall’s role at the Battle of the Little Bighorn would become a controversial one. The encampment of Gall and Sitting Bull’s Hunkpapas was one of the first to be struck by the three companies under Major Marcus Reno and their Arikara and Crow scouts led by Bloody Knife. In the first stages of the battle, Gall was more of a victim than an active participant; two of his wives and three of his children were killed by the Army’s Indian scouts during Reno’s surprise attack. Although Gall was involved in the early phases of Reno’s ultimate rout, which forced the embattled major to retreat across the Little Bighorn River, the Hunkpapa war chief was denied the opportunity to meet Bloody Knife in combat; Gall’s mortal enemy was killed by a Lakota bullet that splattered his blood and brains all over the unfortunate Reno.

In fact, Gall spent most of the early phases of the battle scouting Custer’s five companies on the other side of the Greasy Grass, as the Lakotas called the Little Bighorn. His diligent search for the whereabouts of his family also continued. When he finally found the bodies of his dead family members south of the Hunkpapa camp, he was devastated. ‘It made my heart bad,’ he later remarked. ‘After that I killed all my enemies with the hatchet.’

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