The Battle of Shiloh by Thure de Thulstrup
But I'm drawn more today to a tale of a second born brother trying to live up to the exploits of his heroic older sibling ... a different Civil War tale involving Thomas Ward Custer, the 20-year-old younger brother of Brevet Major General George Armstrong Custer.
Tom Custer
George Armstrong Custer
Six years after the birth of George Armstrong Custer, on December 5, 1839, farmer and blacksmith Emanuel Henry Custer, and his wife, Marie Ward Kirkpatrick, of New Rumley, Ohio, are blessed with the arrival of a healthy second son (two boys had earlier died as babies, James Custer in 1837, and Samuel Custer in 1839), Thomas Ward Custer, on March 15, 1845. Growing up, Tom will idolize his older brother George, planning to follow him to West Point for a military education. The start of the Civil War however change's Tom's plans, and in September of 1861, at the age of sixteen, he enlists as a private in the 21st Ohio Volunteer Infantry. With the 21st, Tom will see action at Stones River (1863 in Tennessee ... 48,000 soldiers involved, 24,000 casualties), Missionary Ridge (1863 in Tennessee ,,, 121,000 soldiers involved, 13,000 casualties), and General William Tecumseh Sherman's Atlanta Campaign (177,000 soldiers involved, 66,000 casualties). In October of 1864, Tom musters out of the 21st as a corporal, but not to go home ... instead he is commissioned a second lieutenant in Company B of the 6th Michigan Cavalry and becomes the aide-de-camp to his commanding older brother for the duration of the war ... a period that will take the Custer brothers from the siege of Petersburg to General Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House in April of 1865.
Battle of Stone's River
Tom
The brother that Tom signs up to ride with is already a huge Northern hero by 1865. Beginning as a second lieutenant in 1861, George Armstrong Custer forges a record during the conflict of being in the right place, at the right time, over and over again ... all the way from the First Battle of Bull Run in 1861, to Lee's surrender in 1865. At Bull Run, Custer carries messages between army commander Winfield Scott and and battlefield commander Major General Irvin McDowell, is an aide to General George B. McClellan, commander of the Army of the Potomac, during that officer's Peninsula Campaign to drive Robert E. Lee out of Richmond (in a famous incident, Custer will overhear his commander wondering how deep the Chickahominy River is flowing, so he rides his horse out into its center and says, "That is how deep it is, Mr. General."), and fights at the Battle of South Mountain, the Battle of Antietam (still the bloodiest single day in American history), and the Battle of Chancellorsville. At Gettysburg, while Pickett's charge is taking place, Custer and the men of the 1st Michigan Cavalry will blunt Major General J.E.B. Stuart's attempt to take the Army of the Potomac from its rear, saving Major General George Meade's victory. From there Custer goes on to breaking the Confederate line with a charge at the Battle of Culpeper Court House, takes time off to marry Elizabeth Clift Bacon of Monroe, Michigan, fights in Major General Philip Sheridan's Valley Campaign's of 1864 to control the Shenandoah Valley, fights at the Battle of the Wilderness, participates in the Battle of Yellow Tavern in which Confederate cavalry commander J.E.B. Stuart is killed, captures the supply train of Confederate Major General Wade Hampton at the Battle of Trevilian Station, is at the front of the fighting during the Third Battle of Winchester, and leads the force that takes the Confederate's rear at Sheridan's Battle of Cedar Creek victory in 1864.
"Come on, you Wolverines!" - Gettysburg - 1863
Like wolves going after a wounded animal, the brothers are in the front of the Union pursuit when Lee's line finally breaks at Petersburg and the Army of Northern Virginia begins its retreat from the Richmond area in 1865. Using his older brother's forward example for his own style of fighting, Tom wins the Congressional Medal of Honor for his own valor on 4/3/1865 at the Battle of Namozine Church. Among the Union forces attacking Confederate positions near the Namozine Creek in Virginia (in Amelia County), Tom jumps his horse over a makeshift barricade and captures three Confederate officers, eleven enlisted men, and the battle flag of the 2nd North Carolina Cavalry!
Namozine Church
A taste of what is to come, on 4/6/1865, Tom becomes the first soldier to be awarded a second Congressional Medal of Honor. Riding beside Colonel Charles E. Capehart during the Battle of Sayler's Creek, at the command of charge, he spurs forward through bullets whizzing all about and jumps his horse into another Confederate defensive position ... finding himself surrounded there by enemy soldiers, Tom fires dual pistols with both hands at targets all around him, scattering his immediate opponents, and then seeing the southerners trying to establish a new battle line around a color bearer waving his flag to rally the troops, charges again. Shot in the face, Custer is a bloody mess (he is shot in the lower jaw just beneath his right ear) ... but not such a mess that he can't stay in the saddle, shoot the color bearer through the heart, and grab the dead man's flag ... then not done, despite being warned he might be shot in error for waving a Confederate flag around attacking Northern troops, Tom spurs off across the battlefield to find his brother. When he does, Tom presents his brother his latest trophy as he states, "Armstrong, the damned rebels shot me, but I've got my flag." He then turns his horse back towards the southern lines and is about to ride off in search of another when his older brother orders him to report to the unit's surgeon. In their DNA it would seem, both men in battle are fearless.
Tom Custer
Medal Of Honor
Or maybe just nuts! As everyone knows, the Custer Brothers' story ends together (along with half-brother Boston's ... the family will also lose James Calhoun, a brother-in-law to the boys, and nephew, Henry Reed) on a hot summer day in June of 1876 on a hillside overlooking the Greasy Grass River ... a place whose very name now conjures visions of desperate soldiers surrounded by thousands of blood thirsty Sioux and Cheyenne warriors ... Montana's Little Bighorn River. At what will come to be called Custer's Last Stand, Tom is a Captain in command of C Company of the 7th Cavalry. Butchered along with the rest of his unit, Tom's corpse is so mutilated after the battle by its "winners," that it is only possible to make an identification of the body by the "TWC" initial tattoo on his right arm (rumors persist to this day that his Indian enemy, Rain-in-the-Face, who Tom arrested in 1874, is the Indian that kills Tom during the battle ... before eating his heart). Tom is 31-years-old on 6/25/1876.
Officers Of The 7th Cavalry - George 3rd In Front, Tom Below Highest Figure On Porch
Battle Of The Little Bighorn
Finally parted by death, George's remains reside at West Point in New York, while Tom, after first being buried on the battlefield, is exhumed in July of 1877 and then re-interred in the Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery.
Last Stand Hill
West Point
Fort Leavenworth
George, Thomas, and Elizabeth
Thanks great story lot of facts I didn't know Custer had a brother who died with him at the Big Horn and he won 2 medals of honor no mean feat.
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