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.
Battle of the Little Bighorn the wounds were inconsistent with his known right-handedness. (Other native accounts note several soldiers committing suicide near the end of the battle.) Custer's body was found near the top of Custer Hill, which also came to be known as "Last Stand Hill". There the United States erected a tall memorial obelisk inscribed with the names of the 7th Cavalry's casualties. Several days after the battle, Curley, Custer's Crow scout who had left Custer near Medicine Tail Coulee (a drainage which led to the river), recounted the battle, reporting that Custer had attacked the village after attempting to cross the river.