Thomas Custer in the Yellowstone Expedition of 1873, where he fought in the Battle of Honsinger Bluff, and the Black Hills Expedition of 1874. Custer was appointed captain in 1875 and given command of Company C of the 7th Cavalry. In 1874, at the trading post at Standing Rock Agency, Custer participated in the arrest of chief Rain-in-the-Face (Lakota), suspected in the 1873 murder of Dr. John Honsinger. During the 1876 Little Bighorn campaign of the Black Hills War, he served as aide-de-camp to his older brother Lt. Col. George A. Custer and died with his brother on June 25, 1876. Lt.
Growltiger's Last Stand is "somewhat missing" after an incident involving a Siamese cat. "Growltiger's Last Stand" describes how he meets his fate when he least expects it. Besides the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical setting in "Cats" the English composer Humphrey Searle composed a musical setting of "Growltiger's Last Stand" as the second of his "Two Practical Cats" for speaker, flute, cello and guitar. In the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical "Cats" the poem is used nearly verbatim as the lyrics of the song, except that one stanza has been cut. The song appears as a reminiscence by "Gus the Theatre Cat", who "once played