The Three Armies
In Custer of the West (1967) at the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876, though I don't know if the date is given in the film, Custer has a fictional talk with a leader of the Hostiles before the fighting begins.
Custer says:
There are three armies
on the way.
They'll wipe you out.
They'll be here tomorrow.
Actually there were three columns involved in this campaign. General Crook, commanding the Department of the Platte, lead a column north from Wyoming. In the Department of Dakota, Colonel Gibbon led the Montana column east from western Montana, and General Terry, commander of the Department of Dakota, led the Dakota column west from Dakota.
There was no appointed date or place for the three columns to meet, since nobody knew for certain where the hostiles would be found. So Custer could not possibly have known when or if General Crook's column, the most powerful one, would arrive at that place on the Little Bighorn.
After the Dakota and Montana columns met, it was planned to split them up again. The infantry from the Dakota column would guard supply bases, and Custer would take the cavalry from it, the 7th cavalry, to approach the Little Bighorn from the South, While General Terry and Gibbon would take the Montana column (and the Gatling guns) of the Dakota column, to approach the Little Bighorn from the north.
Custer could not know when Terry would arrive. Terry planned to arrive on the 26th, but was delayed until the 27th. And Custer could only guess when or if Crook would arrive there.
Since Custer of the West (1967) happens in the Wild West instead of real history, maybe other movies and tv shows could explain Custer's statement.
Tonka (1958) says that there were only three columns in the campaign, and Terry's column is the one that reaches the battlefield 2 days later.
In Dirty Dingus Magee (1970) Belle, the madam at Yerkey's Hole, N.M. is told by General George (first or last name?) that he hopes his troops will be get to the Little Bighorn before Custer. Not wanting to lose her customers, she starts a fake Indian uprising to keep the troops in the area.
in Sitting Bull (1954) General Wilford Howell is sort of a replacement for General Terry. After Custer's Last Stand, the Sioux find a way to sneak away to avoid being crushed by Howell's mighty army. In real history if Terry's weak force had encountered the hostiles, we might be watching inaccurate movies about Terry's Last Stand.
in the "Massacre" episode of The Time Tunnel General (October 28, 1966) Crook does have a scheduled arrival at the Little Bighorn, and sends a platoon with a message he won't be able to make the rendezvous. One soldier survives to deliver the message and Custer thinks he can get all the glory. The fate of that fictional platoon explains why there was not any communication between Terry's and Crook's forces in real history.
And in Custer's Last Fight (1912, 1925) General Crook does arrive on the 27 and meet the survivors of the 7th cavalry.
So depending on which other movies Custer of the West (1967) is imagined to happen in the same fictional universe as, Custer's "three armies" could be a combination of any three of the ones of General Terry, General Crook, General Howell, or General George.
Or maybe someone might claim that in that fictional universe Gibbon and Terry had separate armies converging on the Little Bighorn. I know I wondered for a while whether Gibbon or Terry relieved the survivors of the 7th cavalry until I learned that Terry accompanied Gibbon's command.
And if three, four, or five columns were scheduled to arrive at the Little Bighorn on June 26 in a fictional universe, it would be one where there were a lot of failures to complete the mission!
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