Great Sioux War of 1876 Col. George Armstrong Custer and the Seventh Cavalry were ordered out from the main Dakota Column to scout the Rosebud and Big Horn river valleys. On June 25, 1876, they encountered a large village on the west bank of the Little Bighorn. The US troops were seriously beaten in the Battle of the Little Bighorn and nearly 270 men were killed, including Custer. Custer split his forces just prior to the battle and his immediate command of five cavalry companies was annihilated without any survivors. Two days later, a combined force consisting of Colonel Gibbon's column, along with Terry's headquarters
Boston Custer ("Tom"), became military officers in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Boston had been unable to officially join the Army due to poor health. A civilian contractor, Custer served as forage master for his brother George's U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment in the 1874 Black Hills expedition. He was employed as a guide, forager, packer and scout for the regiment for the 1876 expedition against the Lakota Indians. On June 25, 1876, along with his 18-year-old nephew Henry Armstrong "Autie" Reed, Custer was with the pack train at the rear of Lt. Col. George Custer's troops. Hearing from a