The Northern Pacific Railroad surveyed along the north side of the Yellowstone River during the summers of 1871 and 1873, when the still-powerful Lakota controlled the unceded land south of the river, and the survey crews required military protection each summer. Colonel David S. Stanley's 1873 command was large, with 18 companies of infantry, 275 wagons, 3 artillery pieces, and 10 companies of Lt. Colonel Custer's Seventh Cavalry, leaving a significant trail as the column passed up the valley, and portions of today's roads on the north side follow Stanley's route. A couple of weeks into the march, Stanley began to have difficulties with the headstrong Custer, as he had anticipated, and an angry confrontation eventually led to disciplinary action that ordered Custer to the rear of the command. Stanley's authority was weakened by bouts of binge drinking, which Custer, a teetotaler, had a history of using against rivals, and some officers, believing Stanley's drunkenness contributed to the problems, disposed of the liquor supply. Stanley backed off his punishment about a day later, and there were no further incidents. There were also two skirmishes with the Lakota during the summer of 1873, and although both fights were minor, Lakota tactics led Custer and most officers to believe the enemy would scatter at any show of military strength, an assumption with fatal consequences three years later. Railroad construction stopped for almost a decade when the stock market crashed and led to the Panic of 1873, and when the economy recovered and the Indian threat ended a decade later, the Northern Pacific built its line south of the Yellowstone River.