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.
Last stand due to the pull on popular imagination. Historian Nathaniel Philbrick argues: During World War I, the expression to fight "with one's back to the wall" became a widely-known way to refer to making a last stand. The London "Times" reported on April 13, 1918 that General Douglas Haig ordered British troops that "Every position must be held to the last man...With our backs to the wall...each one of us must fight on to the end". Last stand A last stand is a military situation in which a body of troops holds a defensive position in the face of overwhelming odds.