The reservation in Indian Territory was not the Northern Cheyenne homeland.

The climate was wrong — hot, humid, disease-ridden.

Malaria, dysentery, and other illnesses swept through the community.

Food promised by the government did not arrive in sufficient quantities.

People were dying.

By the late summer of 1878, the Northern Cheyenne leadership had made a decision.

They would leave.

They would walk north, more than a thousand miles, through hostile territory, pursued by the Army, back to their homeland.

Under the leadership of Dull Knife and Little Wolf, approximately three hundred Northern Cheyenne — men, women, children, elders — left the reservation in September 1878 and began the long walk north.

The Army gave chase immediately.