The 7th Cavalry Regiment is a United States Army cavalry regiment formed in 1866. Its official nickname is "Garryowen", after the Irish air "Garryowen" that was adopted as its march tune. The regiment participated in some of the largest battles of the American Indian Wars, including its famous defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, where its commander Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer was killed. The regiment also committed the Wounded Knee Massacre, where more than 250 men, women and children of the Lakota were killed.
The Yellowstone River is a tributary of the Missouri River, approximately 671 miles (1,080 km) long, in the Western United States. Considered the principal tributary of upper Missouri, via its own tributaries it drains an area with headwaters across the mountains and high plains of southern Montana and northern Wyoming, and stretching east from the Rocky Mountains in the vicinity of Yellowstone National Park. It flows northeast to its confluence with the Missouri River on the North Dakota side of the border, about 25 miles (40 km) west of Williston.
The Powder River Expedition of 1865 also known as the Powder River War or Powder River Invasion, was a large and far-flung military operation of the United States Army against the Lakota Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Indians in Montana Territory and Dakota Territory. Although soldiers destroyed one Arapaho village and established Fort Connor to protect gold miners on the Bozeman Trail, the expedition is considered a failure because it failed to defeat or intimidate the Indians.
Henry Moore Harrington was a military officer in the 7th United States Cavalry Regiment who went missing in action during the Battle of Little Big Horn in Montana Territory.
The Battle of Powder River, also known as the Reynolds Battle, occurred on March 17, 1876, in Montana Territory, United States, as part of the Big Horn Expedition. The attack on a Northern Cheyenne and Oglala Lakota Indian encampment by Colonel Joseph J. Reynolds initiated the Great Sioux War of 1876. Although destroying a large amount of Indian property, the attack was poorly carried out and solidified Northern Cheyenne and Lakota Sioux resistance to the U.S. attempt to force them to sell the Black Hills and live on a reservation.
Fort Keogh is a former United States Army post located at the western edge of modern Miles City, in the U.S. state of Montana. It is situated on the south bank of the Yellowstone River, at the mouth of the Tongue River.
Fort Reno also known as Fort Connor or Old Fort Reno, was a wooden fort established on August 15, 1865 by the United States Army in Dakota Territory in present-day Johnson County, Wyoming. The fort was built to protect travelers on the Bozeman Trail from Native American tribes.
The Black Hills Expedition was a United States Army expedition in 1874 led by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer that set out on July 2, 1874, from Fort Abraham Lincoln, Dakota Territory, which is south of modern day Mandan, North Dakota, with orders to travel to the previously uncharted Black Hills of South Dakota. Its mission was to look for suitable locations for a fort, find a route to the southwest, and to investigate the possibility of gold mining. Custer and his unit, the 7th Cavalry, arrived in the Black Hills on July 22, 1874, with orders to return by August 30. The expedition set up a camp at the site of the future town of Custer; while Custer and the military units searched for a suitable location for a fort, civilians searched for gold, and it is disputed whether or not any substantial amount was found. Nonetheless, this prompted a mass gold rush which in turn antagonised the Sioux Indians who had been promised protection of their sacred land through Treaties made by the US government, and who were later to kill Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in the Great Sioux War of 1876–1877 between themselves and the United States.
The area that eventually became the U.S. state of Montana played little direct role in the American Civil War. The closest the Confederate States Army ever came to the area was New Mexico and eastern Kansas, each over a thousand miles away. There was not even an organized territory using "Montana" until the Montana Territory was created on May 26, 1864, three years after the Battle of Fort Sumter. In 1861, the area was divided between the Dakota Territory and the Washington Territory, and in 1863, it was part of the Idaho Territory.
The Battle of Honsinger Bluff was a conflict between the United States Army and the Sioux people on August 4, 1873 along the Yellowstone River near present-day Miles City, Montana. This was a U.S. territory that was acquired from the Crow Nation in the year 1868. The main combatants were units of the U.S. 7th Cavalry under Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer, and Native Americans from the village of the Hunkpapa medicine man, Sitting Bull, many of whom would clash with Custer again approximately three years later at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in the Crow Indian Reservation.
Fort Custer was established during the Indian wars in the Department of Dakota by the U.S. Army to subjugate the Sioux, Cheyenne and Crow Indians near present-day Hardin, Montana. The post was named for General George Armstrong Custer who died at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
Thomas Mower McDougall was an officer in the United States Army. The salient point in his military career occurred when he took part in the Battle of the Little Bighorn, surviving because he and his unit was not with George Armstrong Custer and the main body of the 7th Cavalry Regiment. Early on the day of battle, McDougall's Company B was assigned to escort the regiment's pack train, but the mules were not used to carrying packs and lagged far behind the other three detachments under Custer, Reno, and Benteen as they went into combat. After viewing the Indian village, and being surprised by its size, Custer sent two urgent orders to bring the mules with the ammunition packs to his detachment of five companies, but by the time these messengers reached Captain McDougall the distance between the pack train and Custer made this order difficult if not impossible to comply with, though a debate on this topic remains to this day.
Crow Scouts worked with the United States Army in several conflicts, the first in 1876 during the Great Sioux War. Because the Crow Nation was at that time at peace with the United States, the army was able to enlist Crow warriors to help them in their encroachment against the Native Americans with whom they were at war. In 1873, the Crow called for U.S. military actions against the Lakota people they reported were trespassing into the newly designated Crow reservation territories.
This is a timeline of pre-statehood Montana history comprising substantial events in the history of the area that would become the State of Montana prior to November 8, 1889. This area existed as Montana Territory from May 28, 1864, until November 8, 1889, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Montana.
Far West was a shallow draft sternwheel steamboat plying the upper Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers in the Dakota and Montana Territories, in the years from 1870 to 1883. By being involved in historic events in the Indian Wars of the western frontier, the Far West became an iconic symbol of the shallow draft steamboat plying the upper Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers in the era before railroads dominated transport in these areas.
The Big Horn Expedition, or Bighorn Expedition, was a military operation of the United States Army against the Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne Indians in Wyoming Territory and Montana Territory. Although soldiers destroyed one Northern Cheyenne and Oglala Lakota village at the Battle of Powder River, the expedition solidified Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne resistance against the United States attempt to force them to sell the Black Hills and live on a reservation, beginning the Great Sioux War of 1876.
Myles Moylan was a United States Army officer with an extensive military career, which included the battle of Gettysburg, and the battle of the Little Bighorn. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his gallantry in leadership at the Battle of Bear Paw. He also participated in the Washita Massacre and Wounded Knee Massacre.
The Battle of Pease Bottom, also called the Battle of the Bighorn River was a conflict between the United States Army and the Sioux on August 11, 1873, along the Yellowstone River opposite the mouth of the Bighorn River near present-day Custer, Montana. The main combatants were units of the 7th U.S. Cavalry under Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, and Native Americans from the village of the Hunkpapa medicine man, Sitting Bull, many of whom would clash with Custer again approximately three years later at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in the Crow Indian Reservation.
John A. Haydon was an American surveyor and civil engineer. As a self-taught civil engineer, Haydon made significant contributions to American railroading. Haydon's railroad career spanned the Baltimore and Ohio railroad expansion to the Ohio River in 1853 and several other railroads to the last transcontinental railroad, the Northern Pacific railway. Haydon led the 1872 Yellowstone River expedition, where he faced a Sioux Indian skirmish led by Sitting Bull, Red Cloud and Crazy Horse at the Battle of Pryor's Creek, Montana. He also served as a captain in the Confederate Army Corps of Engineers under Generals Tilghman and Beauregard; captured at the battle of Fort Henry, early in the Civil War in 1862, he was paroled at Aiken, South Carolina, in November 1862 to serve the rest of the war, including the Richmond–Petersburg Campaign. In the latter part of his life, he worked locating branch railroads such as the Pennsylvania railroad in Maryland and for the Western Maryland railroad.
Arikara scouts were enlisted men from the Arikara Nation serving in the U.S. Army at different frontier posts in present-day North Dakota from 1868 to 1881. The enlistment period was six months with re-enlistment possible. Each scout received a uniform, firearm and drew rations. Scout duties ranged from carrying mail between commands to tracking down traditional enemies perceived as hostile by the Army in far ranging military campaigns. Detailed to secure the horses in located enemy camps, the scouts were often the first to engage in battle. The Arikara took part when the Army protected survey crews in the Yellowstone area in the early 1870s. They participated in the Great Sioux War of 1876 and developed into Colonel George Armstrong Custer's "… most loyal and permanent scouts …".
United States 
David S. Stanley