Battle of Pease Bottom

In August of eighteen seventy-three, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and companies of the Seventh Cavalry were escorting a Northern Pacific Railway survey crew along the Yellowstone River when warriors from the village of Sitting Bull crossed the water and opened fire on their camp at dawn. The two sides skirmished near the mouth of the Bighorn River at a flat known as Pease Bottom. Sitting Bull's force included Hunkpapa under Gall, Oglalas under Crazy Horse, and Miniconjou fighters, many of the same men who would face Custer again three years later at the Little Bighorn.

Custer reported four men killed and one officer badly wounded. Neither side gained ground, but the encounter sent a clear message: the Sioux would contest every mile of rail pushed through Yellowstone country.