Colonel George Custer's defeat by Sioux warriors at the battle of Little
Bighorn in June 1876 inspired outrage throughout both the U.S. Army and
the American public at large.  Military leaders expanded cavalry companies
from sixty four men to a hundred, and new recruits hurried to sign up,
calling themselves "Custer's Avengers."  General George Crook drove his
men almost to exhaustion on the "Starvation March" in the late summer and
fall of 1876, in pursuit of a Sioux war party that had fought at Little 
Bighorn.  General Nelson Miles led his men through Sioux lands all winter
and well into 1877, attacking Indian villages.  Also in 1877, the army
built Fort Custer just a few miles from the site of the battle, in the
heart of Sioux country in Montana.  This picture shows the unprecedented
size of the outpost and the massive scale of the new cavalry units.