In July 1874 Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and more than 1000 soldiers camped near here during a military expedition to explore the Black Hills. Officially the expedition sought a suitable site for an army post, while unofficially miners who accompanied the soldiers looked for proof of rumored gold. The expedition violated the Treaty of 1868, which confirmed the Black Hills as Indian Domain and barred white settlers and travelers from the country, yet few people objected to the army's trespass. On July 2, 1874, Custer and his men left Fort Abraham Lincoln in Dakota Territory with nearly the entire Seventh Cavalry, two companies of infantry, more than 100 wagons, three Gatling guns, one cannon, and sixty-one Santee Sioux and Arikara scouts. The Sioux tracked the command's progress, but the force's military strength invited no attack, and the expedition eventually took on the air of a picnic. Custer's official report stressed the Black Hills' beauty, agricultural potential, and likely mineral riches rather than possible post sites. Unofficial reports intensified rumors of gold, miners pressed the government to end Indian title to the Black Hills, and the government pressured the Sioux onto reservations and into further land cessions. By 1876 the Great Sioux War broke out, and Custer, whose expedition opened the road into the Black Hills and helped spark the war, became one of its most famous casualties.