Having now ascertained the position of the enemy, or reasoned out the probable position, General Terry sent a despatch to General Sheridan, as follows:  “No Indians have been met with as yet, but traces of a large and recent camp have been discovered twenty or thirty miles up the Rosebud.  Gibbon’s column will move this morning on the north side of the Yellowstone, for the mouth of the Big Horn, where it will be ferried across by the supply steamer, and whence it will proceed to the mouth of the Little Big Horn, and so on.  Custer will go to the Rosebud to-morrow with his whole regiment, and thence to the headwaters of the Little Big Horn, thence down that stream.”

Following this report came an order, signed by E. W. Smith, Captain of the Eighteenth Infantry, Acting Assistant Adjutant-General, directing General Custer to follow the Indian trail discovered, pushing the Indians from one side, while General Gibbon pursued them from an opposite direction.  As no instructions were given as to the rate at which each division should travel, Custer, noted for his quick, energetic movements, made ninety miles the first three days, and, discovering the Indians in large numbers, divided his command into three divisions, one of which he placed under Major Reno, another under Major Benteen, and led the other himself.

As Custer made a detour to enter the village, Reno struck a large body of Indians, who, after retreating nearly three miles, turned on the troops and ran them pell-mell across Grassy Creek into the woods.  Reno overestimated the strength of his enemies and thought he was being surrounded.  Benteen came up to the support of Reno, but he too took fright and got out of his position without striking the enemy.

While Reno and Benteen were trying to keep open a way for their retreat, Custer charged on the village, first sending a courier, Trumpeter Martin, to Reno and Benteen with the following despatch:  “Big village; be quick; send on the packs.”  This order was too plain to be misunderstood.  It clearly meant that he had discovered the village, which he intended attacking at once; to hurry forward to his support and bring up the packs, ambulances, etc.  But, instead of obeying orders, Reno and Benteen stood aloof, fearful lest they should endanger their position, while the brave Custer and his squad of noble horses rushed down like a terrible avalanche upon the Indian village.  In a moment, fateful incident, the Indians came swarming about that heroic band until the very earth seemed to open and let loose the elements of volcanic fury, or like a riot of the fiends of Erebus, blazing with the hot sulphur of their impious dominion.  Down from the hillside, up through the valleys, that dreadful torrent of Indian cruelty and massacre poured around the little squad to swallow it up with one grand swoop of fire.  But Custer was there at the head, like Spartacus fighting the legions about him, tall, graceful, brave as a lion at bay, and with thunderbolts in his hands.  His brave followers formed a hollow square, and met the rush and roar and fury of the demons.  Bravely they breasted that battle shock, bravely stood up and faced the leaden hail, nor quailed when looking into the blazing muzzles of five thousand deadly rifles.