Custer’s return to active duty brought him into the heart of the government’s brutal campaign to pacify the Great Plains. In November 1868, he orchestrated a dawn surprise attack on Black Kettle’s Cheyenne village at the Washita River. While he framed the event as a grand tactical victory, the reality was a massacre of a village that was largely composed of non-combatants. The event solidified his reputation among the plains tribes as a ruthless adversary, while providing him the headline-grabbing win he desperately craved to rehabilitate his public standing.