In 1876, a large group of Arikara men accompanied Custer and the 7th Cavalry on the Little Big Horn Expedition. Arikara scouts were in the lead when US Army forces attacked the widespread encampment of thousands of Sioux and Cheyenne warriors and families. Several scouts drove off Lakota horses, as they had been ordered, and others fought alongside the troopers. Three Arikara men were killed: Little Brave, Bobtail Bull, and Bloody Knife. During the subsequent confusion, when the scouts were cut off from the troopers, they returned to the base camp as they had been directed. After the battle, in which Custer and some 260 other US troops were killed, the search for scapegoats resulted in some critics mistakenly accusing the scouts of having abandoned the soldiers.