Captain Grant Marsh (1834-1916), one of the most skilled riverboat pilots on the Upper Missouri during the steamboat era, played a prominent role in both the events leading up to the Battle of the Little Bighorn and its aftermath. The steamboat Far West, piloted by Marsh, was one of several steamers chartered by the U.S. Government in support of its 1876 military campaign against the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne. As the Dakota Column marched west to the Yellowstone River, the Far West moved upriver in support of the command that now included the Montana Column. On June 21, 1876, General Terry, Gibbon, and Custer held their final strategy meeting aboard the Far West just below the mouth of Rosebud Creek. Custer was to lead the Seventh Cavalry up Rosebud Creek while the Montana Column marched west along the Yellowstone and then south to the Bighorn and Little Bighorn Rivers. On the afternoon of June 24, the Far West ferried Terry and Gibbon's columns across the Yellowstone River just below the confluence of the Bighorn River. Marsh then continued up the Bighorn and eventually moored a few miles above the confluence of the Little Bighorn River, a remarkable feat of river navigation. He did not learn the fate of the Seventh Cavalry until the early morning of June 29, when a courier from General Terry arrived and directed him to prepare the Far West to receive scores of wounded from Reno and Benteen's columns. Throughout the day, about forty wounded were transported from the battlefield to the steamers on makeshift litters by troopers from the Montana Column. A few days later, Marsh set off from Fort Pease on a 54-hour, 710-mile, day-and-night dash to present Bismarck, North Dakota, where the fate of the decimated Seventh Cavalry was telegraphed to a nation still celebrating its centennial. America was stunned by the news, and the story remained on newspaper front pages for weeks.