Crow Scouts worked with the United States Army in several conflicts, the first in 1876 during the Great Sioux War.

[5] The "Act to increase and fix the Military Peace Establishment of the United States", enacted on August 1, 1866,[4]: 44  allowed the army to enlist Indigenous scouts.

[11]: 163  Each scout received a red armband to wear on the left arm above the elbow, to set him apart from other Indigenous people.

[11]: 184  A few days later Half Yellow Face and Jack Rabbit Bull came back with three Sioux horses, "... proud of their exploit ...".

[14]: 48 In 1909, decades after the battle, White Man Runs Him told Joseph K. Dixon how he and Hairy Moccasin had averted Custer's death earlier in the fight by keeping up a brisk fire at the counter-charging Cheyennes.

[15]: 140 When a group of Crow scouts killed a five-man Lakota peace delegation under flag of truce in late December, 1876, the winter impeded fighting in the Yellowstone area flared up again.

Three Crow were in action against both Lakotas in camp with Crazy Horse and Northern Cheyennes in the last battle of the Great Sioux War in the Wolf Mountains on January 8, 1877.