word of sitting bull's refusal to accept any kind of deal with the american government reached other tribes that were living outside the great zoo reservation the first half of NUMBER_TOKEN or many of them make their way to sitting bull's camp which soon turned into a village with around NUMBER_TOKEN NUMBER_TOKEN people on the bank of the little bighorn river these were mainly lakota and dakota sioux but also some northern cheyenne and arapaho the exact number of warriors remains disputed to this day but it's generally estimated to be around NUMBER_TOKEN NUMBER_TOKEN and besides sitting bull other prominent leaders included garl and the famed warrior crazy horse the opening skirmish of the conflict which was also known as the black hills war occurred in may NUMBER_TOKEN when six cavalry troops led by colonel joseph j reynolds attacked a native american village in montana's powder river valley reynolds split his army into four groups but due to a miscalculation from the colonel only one reached the village in time although they managed to destroy the village they also sustained casualties and ultimately were forced to retreat for his actions reynolds was later charged with dereliction of duty and court-martialed another notable fight was the battle of rosebud on june NUMBER_TOKEN named after montana's rosebud creek this was a bigger affair that included around a thousand soldiers on each side but like the first one sitting bull was not involved rather this one saw general george crook go against crazy horse and his oglala lakota warriors crook also had assistance from the crow and the shoshone who had allied themselves with the u.s government in this war but he still narrowly avoided a bloody crushing defeat that would have seen most of his troops wiped out technically he won the battle because he had control of the battlefield when it was said and done but this is usually regarded as a strategic victory for the sioux and the cheyenne they inflicted a lot of damage and they retreated from the battlefield of their own accord emboldened by their success against the american army but most importantly they completely immobilized crooks unit left with little supplies and plenty of wounded crook soldiers would play no part in the bigger battle that was about to take place just a days later came the famed battle of little bighorn known as the battle of the greasy grass to the dakota originally the army planned a three-pronged approach involving three military columns coming from different directions that would have culminated in one big attack against sitting bull's village one of those three columns was the one led by general crook and that one had been eliminated by crazy horse another one was led by colonel john gibbon who had been delayed and was not in the area at the time of the battle that left the third column by general alfred terry on june NUMBER_TOKENnd terry sent a scouting party ahead which consisted of the same seventh cavalry regiment that first discovered gold in the black hills once again commanded by lieutenant colonel george armstrong custer on the morning of june NUMBER_TOKENth custer found sitting bull's camp and in a very fool-hearty move decided not to wait for reinforcements he had between NUMBER_TOKEN and NUMBER_TOKEN
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