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 to retreat. The historian Bryan Perrett suggests that although the majority of last stands throughout history have seen the defending force overwhelmed, on rare occasions the outnumbered defenders succeed in their desperate endeavours and live to fight another day, and he lists the Battle of Agincourt and the Battle of Rorke's Drift as such engagements. Troops may fight a last stand if they believe that they will be executed if they surrender. In Custer's last stand, at the end of the battle, the extent of the soldiers' resistance to the Native Indian warriors indicated they had few doubts about their