History of the United States

by John Clark Ridpath

13. In the autumn of 1873 occurred one of the most disastrous financial panics ever known in the United States. The alarm was given by the failure of Jay Cooke & Company of Philadelphia. Other failures followed in rapid succession. Depositors hurried to the banks and withdrew their money. Business was paralyzed, and many months elapsed before confidence was sufficiently restored to enable merchants and bankers to engage in the usual transactions of trade.

The Centennial Exposition.

14. With the coming of 1876 the people made ready to celebrate the Centennial of American Independence. The city of Philadelphia was the central point of interest. There, on the 10th of May, the great International Exposition was opened with imposing ceremonies. In Fairmount Park, on the Schuylkill, were erected beautiful buildings to receive the products of art and industry from all nations. By the beginning of summer these stately edifices were filled to overflowing with the richest products, gathered from every clime and country. On the 4th of July the centennial of the great Declaration was commemorated in Philadelphia with an impressive oration by William M. Evarts, of New York, and a National Ode by the poet, Bayard Taylor. The average daily attendance of visitors at the Exposition was over sixty-one thousand. The grounds were open for one hundred and fifty-eight days; and the receipts for admission amounted to more than three million seven hundred thousand dollars. On the 10th of November, the Exposition, the most successful of its kind ever held, was formally closed by the President of the United States.

The Sioux War.

15. The last year of President Grant's administration was noted for the war with the Sioux. These fierce savages had, in 1867, made a treaty with the United States, agreeing to relinquish all of the territory south of the Niobrara, west of the one hundred and fourth meridian, and north of the forty-sixth parallel. By this treaty the Sioux were confined to a large reservation in southwestern Dakota, and upon this they agreed to retire by the first of January, 1876. But many of the tribes continued to roam at large through Wyoming and Montana, burning houses, stealing horses, and murdering whoever opposed them.

Custer's Last Fight.

16. The Government now undertook to drive the Sioux upon their reservation. A large force of regulars, under Generals Terry and Crook, was sent into the mountainous country of the Upper Yellowstone, and the savages, to the number of several thousand, were crowded back against the Big Horn Mountains and River. Generals Custer and Reno, who were sent forward with the Seventh Cavalry to discover the whereabouts of the Indians, found them on the left bank of the Little Horn.

Custer's Defeat on the Little Horn.

17. On the 25th of June, General Custer, without waiting for reinforcements, charged headlong with his division into the Indian town, and was immediately surrounded. The struggle equaled in desperation and disaster any other Indian battle ever fought in America. General Custer and every man of his command fell in the fight. The whole loss of the Seventh Cavalry was two hundred and sixty-one killed, and fifty-two wounded. General Reno held his position, on the bluffs of the Little Horn, until General Gibbon arrived with reinforcements and saved the remnant from destruction.