Battle of the Little Bighorn - Journey to the Battle

On May 17, 1776, The U.S. Army along with Native American Scouts, and a handful of civilians rode out of  Fort Abraham Lincoln, North Dakota.  Their plan was to follow the route surveyed by the Northern Pacific Railroad westward to the Yellowstone Basin. Their objective was to round up the Indians that were standing in the way of the settling of the Great Plains.  When the officers and soldiers marched out that morning,  no one could have dreamed of the disastrous outcome of the expedition.  Almost anyone familiar with American history knows how this venture ended.  The Battle of the Little Bighorn or Custer’s Last Stand is probably the best known battle of the Indian Wars.  Among the civilians, a reporter named Mark Kellogg, who represented the Bismarck Tribune, kept a journal of the expedition and sent dispatches back to the newspaper.  Kellogg perished pursuing the story of a lifetime.  The Associated Press recognized Mark Kellogg as the first AP Correspondent to die while covering a story.  Also among the civilians were Boston Custer, brother of Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer, and their nephew, Autie Reed.  The Custer family was well represented on the expedition.  George’s Brother Tom Custer and his brother-in-law James Calhoun also rode out that morning, and they all died together at the Little Bighorn 39 days later.