A few days after the Custer disaster on June 25, 1876, General Alfred Terry moved the decimated Seventh Cavalry to Fort Pease on the Yellowstone and waited nearly a month for additional troops and supplies. By late July, steamboats contracted by the military to resupply and reinforce Terry's command were having difficulty getting upriver to the Bighorn because of mid-summer low water, so he moved his command down to Rosebud Creek and prepared to take to the field in pursuit of the hostiles. Twelve companies of infantry arrived on the supply steamers in early August to reinforce Terry's command, which then numbered about 1800 troopers when the march up Rosebud Creek began on August 9, 1876. Despite the significant number of troopers present and the strategic importance of the site, the twelve-day bivouac at the confluence of the Rosebud never received an official military name, although it could be called Rosebud Camp III because the Montana Column had already occupied the same area twice earlier in the campaign. During the August 1876 bivouac, one attached infantry company built breastworks there, and one trooper jokingly called the place Fort "Bean" to accompany the actual Fort Pease and Rice. Earlier discussions about locating a military post at the mouth of Rosebud Creek were dropped when, as at the Bighorn confluence upriver, mid-summer low water prevented supply steamers from reaching the site. A permanent post was eventually chosen instead at the mouth of the Tongue River, where construction of Fort Keogh began in February 1877.