Thomas Custer Thomas Custer Thomas Ward Custer (March 15, 1845 – June 25, 1876) was a United States Army officer and two-time recipient of the Medal of Honor for bravery during the American Civil War. A younger brother of George Armstrong Custer, he served as his aide at the Battle of Little Bighorn against the Lakota and Cheyenne in the Montana Territory. Together with the younger Boston Custer, the three brothers were killed in that overwhelming defeat of United States forces. He was born in New Rumley, Ohio, the third son of Emanuel and Marie Custer. The paternal line was of ethnic
Battle of the Little Bighorn in a series of conflicts known as the Sioux Wars, which took place from 1854-90. While some of the indigenous people eventually agreed to relocate to ever-shrinking reservations, a number of them resisted, at times fiercely. On May 7, 1868, the valley of the Little Bighorn became a tract in the eastern part of the new Crow Indian Reservation in the center of the old Crow country. There were numerous skirmishes between the Sioux and Crow tribes so when the Sioux were in the valley in 1876 without the consent of the Crow tribe, the Crow supported the US Army