Before Custer: Surveying the Yellowstone, 1872

Hoping to complete its transcontinental route, the Northern Pacific Railroad set out in 1872 to survey the Yellowstone Valley. An emissary from the Lakota chief Sitting Bull had warned the two surveying expeditions (eastern and western) not to enter the valley. But no one—certainly no Northern Pacific investor—was worried about taking the Indian threat seriously.

As it turned out, the Indians were deadly serious—and successful. The firsthand accounts compiled here by M. John Lubetki…