Thomas Custer Henry Harrington actually led Company C during the battle. George and Thomas' younger brother, Boston Custer, also died in the fighting, as did other Custer relatives and friends. It was widely rumored that Rain-in-the-Face, who had escaped from captivity and participated at the Little Bighorn, cut out Tom Custer's heart after the battle. The chief denied it later during an interview. Custer's body was so badly mutilated the remains were identified only by a recognizable tattoo of his initials on his arm. Tom Custer was first buried on the battlefield. He was exhumed with other soldiers the next year and
Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, the Lakota and the Cheyenne held a Sun Dance that was also attended by a number of "Agency Indians" who had slipped away from their reservations. During a Sun Dance around June 5, 1876, on Rosebud Creek in Montana, Sitting Bull, the spiritual leader of the Hunkpapa Lakota, reportedly had a vision of "soldiers falling into his camp like grasshoppers from the sky." At the same time US military officials were conducting a summer campaign to force the Lakota and the Cheyenne back to their reservations, using infantry and cavalry in a so-called "three-pronged approach". Col. John Gibbon's