Boston Custer messenger that Lt. Col. Custer had requested ammunition for an impending fight, they quickly left the pack train. The pair passed by Frederick Benteen's detachment and joined Custer's main column as it moved into position to attack a sprawling Indian village along the Little Big Horn River. Had they stayed with the pack train where they were assigned, Boston Custer and Autie Reed might have survived the battle. Like his brothers and nephew, Boston was killed at the area known as "Last Stand Hill". A marble marker commemorates the approximate place where his body was found and identified. Though originally
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.