The battle of the Naktong River is just one example of how the battle cry and the spirit of The Fighting Seventh have paid off. For nearly a century the cry has never failed to rally the fighting men of the regiment.

Take the case of Major Marcus A. Reno, who survived the Battle of The Little Big Horn in 1876. From the enlisted men he pistol-whipped to the subordinate officer whose wife he tried to rape, a lot of men had plenty of reason heartily to dislike Marcus Reno. Many of his fellow officers refused to speak to him. But when a board of inquiry was called to look into the charges of cowardice made against him, the men who had seen Reno leave the battlefield and the officer who had heard Reno suggest that the wounded be left to be tortured by the Sioux, refused to say a harsh word against him. He was a member of The Fighting Seventh.

Although it was at the Battle of The Little Horn, about which more words have been written than any other battle in American history, that the 7th Cavalry first made its mark in history, the regiment was ten years old by then. Brevet Major General George Armstrong Custer was the regiment's first permanent commander and, like such generals as George S. Patton and Terry de la Mesa Allen in their rise to military prominence, Custer was a believer in blood and guts warfare.

During the Civil War, Custer, who achieved a brilliant record, was made brigadier general at the age of 23.