Ready to March

Ready to March. . A few days after the Custer disaster on June 25, 1876, General Alfred Terry moved the decimated Seventh Cavalry to Fort Pease on the Yellowstone waiting nearly a month for additional troops and supplies. , By late July, the steamboats contracted by the military to resupply and reinforce Terry's command were having a difficult time getting upriver to the Bighorn due to mid-summer low water so Terry moved his command down to Rosebud Creek where he prepared to take to the field in pursuit of the hostiles. , Twelve companies of infantry arrived on the supply steamers in early August to reinforce General Terry's command that now numbered about 1800 troopers when the march up Rosebud Creek began on August 9, 1876. , Even with the significant numbers of troopers present and the strategic importance of the site, the twelve-day long bivouac at the confluence of the Rosebud never picked up an official name from the military although it could be called Rosebud Camp III since the Montana Column had already occupied the same area on two separate occasions earlier in the campaign. , Interestingly, one of the infantry companies attached to the command built some breastworks during their time in bivouac here in August 1876. One of the troopers called it Fort "Bean" in jest to go along with the actual Fort Pease and Rice. , Prior to this time, there had been discussions about locating a military post at the mouth of Rosebud Creek but this was dropped when, like the Bighorn confluence upriver, low water in mid-summer prevented the supply steamers from getting up the river. Eventually the site for a permanent post was chosen at the mouth of the Tongue River with construction on Fort Keogh beginning in February of 1877.