10. The Cheyenne tribe attempted to join the Sioux under Crazy Horse to attempt another rebellion against the US.
In November of 1876, the Northern Cheyenne were defeated and their village of more than 200 lodges was destroyed at Crazy Woman Creek in the Bighorn Mountains. After the battle, US troops discovered pillage from the Little Big Horn in the encampment. The Cheyenne were forced to sue for peace, and reluctantly accepted terms which relegated them to reservations in the Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma) where they found little to support their former way of life, the buffalo having been hunted to near extinction. Large numbers of the Cheyenne again fled the reservations, traveling north to join with the Sioux under Crazy Horse.
Crazy Horse had little in the way of food and clothing with which to support these Cheyenne followers of the chief Dull Knife, and with few options, the natives attacked the army troops under General Miles in the Tongue River Valley in several small raids. On January 8, 1877, Miles retaliated in a raid in which there were few casualties on either side, but which forced the Sioux and Cheyenne to withdraw from their encampments in deep snow and frigid temperatures. Realizing that not even the harsh conditions of deep winter in the mountains could protect them from the army, many hostiles began to return to the reservations, discouraged by their inability to survive in the open.