Note 72 — Part II The War With the Sioux

In Terry’s report to the Secretary of War, under date of November 21, 1876, he gives his own understanding of his orders, which is fully warranted, in the following paragraph:

“At a conference which took place on the 21st between Colonel Gibbon, Lieutenant-Colonel Custer, and myself, I communicated to them the plan of operations which I had decided to adopt. It was that Colonel Gibbon’s column should cross the Yellowstone near the mouth of the Little Big Horn, and thence up that stream, with the expectation that it would arrive at that point by the 26th; that Lieutenant-Colonel Custer with the whole of the Seventh Cavalry should proceed up the Rosebud until he should ascertain the direction in which the trail discovered by Major Reno led; that if it led to the Little Big Horn it should not be followed, but that Lieutenant-Colonel Custer should keep still further to the south before turning toward that river, in order to intercept the Indians should they attempt to pass around to his left, and in order, by a longer march, to give time for Colonel Gibbon’s column to come up.”