It was John Lomax who did the 'balladhunter' series of radio programs that was issued on LP by the Archive Of Folksong at the Libr. of Congress. (Now the Archive of Folk Culture.)

The song was from the goldrush of 1872 in the Black Hills. This was sacred land to the Sioux. General George Armstrong Custer was in charge of an expedition into the Black Hills and when he came out he reported finding quite a bit of GOLD there. Well, that's all it took. The resulting gold rush stampeded over Sioux rights and paved the way for the railroad to put their line through the Black Hills. Later, Custer was found to be in cahoots with the railroad company. He reported much more gold than was actually there. As we all know, the whole thing backfired on Custer and the Sioux had their revenge on him at the Little Big Horn.

The first person I ever heard sing this within the folksong revival in he U.S.A. was FRANK HAMILTON. It was a concert our folk music club sponsored in 1961-- at The University of Illinois--Chicago (on Navy Pier in those days. We used to say that we were the only university that could be torpedoed.) I learned it from Frank then and sang it for the next 40 years (almost).

Art Thieme