During the winter of 1875–6 the authorities at Washington, after every peaceable means had been tried in vain, found it necessary to sanction the use of force to compel certain refractory bands of Indians to cease their wanderings and outrage, to place themselves under the control of the Indian officials, and to settle on the reservations set aside for their use. These recalcitrant savages were Sioux, than whom there were none more warlike and cruel, and in their raids they wandered over an area of something like 100,000 square miles in the then territories of Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming. There were a number of these bands of “Hostiles,” each having a chief of its own; but as dissatisfaction spread among them, all gradually centred around two great chiefs, “Sitting Bull” and “Crazy Horse.” “Sitting Bull,” at the time hostilities commenced, was with his band in the vicinity of the Little Missouri River in Dakota, and “Crazy Horse” and band were camped on the banks of the Powder River in Wyoming. The region was a wilderness: rugged, mountainous, and deeply scarred by rapid streams and small rivers, and, as has been told, totally unknown to the United States soldiers. As guides to this unfamiliar region and to scout by the way, the command took with it Ree Indians under “Bloody Knife” Chief, and Crows, led by Chief “Half-Yellow Face.” These Indians did the scouting well, but the Rees took the earliest opportunity afforded them to slip away when fighting began. [Illustration: “AND THE SIOUX SAW IN AMAZEMENT THE LONG TRAIN OF WHITE-TOPPED WAGGONS.”] The first move made against these Sioux was on March 1st, 1876. General Sheridan, a distinguished leader in the American Civil War, was given the direction of the campaign, with headquarters at Chicago. General Terry held the active command of the troops in the disaffected country. Subordinate to Terry were Generals Custer and Crook, at the head of mounted columns. Terry ordered these leaders to move out against the “Hostiles,” specifying the route each was to take. Crook marched on March 1st, and on March 17th encountered “Crazy Horse” and his braves, and the command was so severely handled in the engagement that Crook fell back to his base. Custer had been unable to make a simultaneous advance with Crook, owing to the weather being so bad that it was found impossible to venture into the region of heavy snows and swollen rivers. [Illustration: “THE WARRIORS DANCED THE WAR-DANCE.”]