Mark Kellogg was a regular man. He was a young widower with daughters who he left with relatives while he went to seek his fame and fortune on the plains of the old west. He gained employment with several newspaper firms and began to get a name for himself.

Mark Kellogg volunteered to accompany General George Armstrong Custer and his 7th Cavalry on a campaign against the Indians. He expected that it would be a simple task of an Indian massacre and he would be the first and only reporter to cover the event. However, the Indians had a different idea and when they arrived with forces that overwelmingly outnumbered Custer's troops, the massacre took a much different route.

Custer and his entire company was wiped out and Kellogg fell with the other men. Mark would die that day, June 25, 1876. He was 43-years old. He would be buried is a mass grave at the battle site. A series of articles were published in papers all over the country that he wrote about Custer and the 7th Cavalry in the days leading to the battle. He never gained his fortune but did gain his fame. He was the first American news reporter killed in the line of duty.