During the next twelve years steamboats were constantly in the service of the government in transporting troops and supplies along the river. It is impossible to estimate the great value in the military operations of the valley of this important line of communication. Forts and cantonments were strung all along the river from Fort Randall to Fort Benton, and all of them, as well as the troops in the field, depended for their support upon the river boats. The conquest of the Missouri Valley would have been a very different matter had the government been deprived of this important aid in its operations. [Sidenote: STEAMBOATS IN CAMPAIGN OF 1876.] In the Sioux campaign of 1876 steamboats bore a prominent part, one of the very highest importance, and one which had its full share of the thrilling incidents of that tragic conflict. A considerable fleet of boats was sent up the river from Fort Abraham Lincoln to co-operate with the troops under Terry, who marched across the country to the Yellowstone. They not only carried supplies, but assisted in patrolling the river to prevent the Indians from crossing, and moved the troops from point to point as their services were needed. One boat in particular, the _Far West_, Captain Grant Marsh, master, performed a service which will go down in the history of the campaign as one of its most thrilling episodes. [Sidenote: THE “FAR WEST.”] The _Far West_ was for a few days used by General Terry as his headquarters boat while his command was moving up the Yellowstone to the mouth of the Big Horn. The boat, after ferrying General Gibbon’s command to the north bank of the Yellowstone, was directed to proceed up the Big Horn, and, if possible, to reach the mouth of the Little Big Horn. General Gibbon, being ill at the time, remained on the boat with a company of infantry a part of the way, when he joined Terry’s column and resumed command of his own troops. The _Far West_ ascended the Big Horn fifteen miles above the mouth of the Little Big Horn and then dropped down to that tributary. It remained there until the 30th, by which time all the wounded from Reno’s fight had been placed on board, and it then moved down to the Yellowstone, where it arrived on the same day. Three days later it started down the river for Fort Abraham Lincoln with all the wounded, and a volume of dispatches, official and private, relating to the terrible tragedy of which the world had but just been informed. The very nature of its mission made the voyage of the _Far West_ one of romantic interest. Its cargo of wounded men, its greater burden of news to anxious friends and an impatient public, all mark it as one of the historic incidents of our Indian wars. The _Far West_ arrived at Fort Lincoln July 5, about midnight.[70] [Sidenote: AN HISTORIC VOYAGE.]