Army did not rest.

The response to the defeat of Custer’s command was exactly the escalation that Sitting Bull and other leaders had anticipated: more troops, more columns, a sustained effort to force every remaining non-reservation Lakota and Cheyenne onto reservations regardless of the weather, the terrain, or the human cost.

General Nelson Miles conducted operations in Montana through the fall and winter of 1876-77, attacking camps, capturing horses, destroying food stores, and applying the relentless pressure that was the Army’s primary tool in the winter campaigns.

The cold weather that made operations difficult for the soldiers was equally difficult for the bands they were pursuing — especially when those bands had lost horses and tipis and food to Army raids.