Lt. Col George Armstrong Custer

Most official accounts and historians list Custer and his entire regiment as killed in action

Sioux Campaign of 1876

TAMAQUA,PA - The national monument at the Little Bighorn battlefield lists William Heath as one of 263 American cavalry soldiers who died under the command of Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer on June 25, 1876. But official records in Pennsylvania show that Heath's body is buried thousands of miles away from the Montana battlefield, having been laid to rest in a cemetery plot in Schuylkill County on May 2, 1891. This leads some historians to wonder -- did one of Custer's troops live through the Battle of Little Bighorn?

Leaders of The 7th Cavalry

Leaders of The Indians

The battle, also known as "Custer's Last Stand" gained notoriety by being the largest and last engagement by Plains Indians against the U.S. 7th Cavalry. 

It was also one of the bloodiest massacres of American soldiers, with most official accounts and historians listing Custer and his entire regiment as killed in action. However, according to some historians, Heath was wounded in the battle and later nursed back to health in Dakota Territory. The immigrant from Staffordshire, England then returned to Pennsylvania, where he worked as a coal miner before the war, and lived nearly another 15 years before dying of a brain tumor. "He's listed on the muster rolls from the National Archives and on the monument. The question is, how could he have gotten separated (from the troops)?,"asked historian and Custer scholar J. Stuart Richards, of Orwigsburg. "Well I have some theories that are my own." Richards hypothesizes that Heath left the battle line to take the horses to the rear, away from the fighting. "That was one of the roles of the farrier. When the cavalry dismounted, he'd take three horses and lead them to the back. Heath also could have been caring for an injured horse lagging behind," Richards added. After being nursed back to health in the Dakota Territory by nursemaid Lavina Ennis and her family, Richards says Heath returned to Schuylkill County, where his name appears on Girardsville tax records from 1877 to 1882. Heath is then believed to have moved to nearby Tamaqua later that year, and was listed in the 1890 U.S. Census as a resident of Tamaqua, where he quietly lived out the rest of his life. He died there in 1891 a year later and is buried in Odd Fellows Cemetery. Historians say he never claimed a military pension, but his body lies two rows behind the cemetery's 1870 Soldier's Circle Monument. Descendents of the disputed Heath say they already knew the whole story. One owns a rifle Heath brought home. some still live in Tamaqua. Others are sprinkled across the country. Debbie Heath Brumbaugh of Blair County, who is Heath's great-granddaughter, says many family members are familiar with the details. "They heard it from their grandmother. Including the fact that he had lost part of an ear to frostbite when he was wintering in the Dakotas with Custer. Story says he was always embarrassed about this and would wear a scarf of sorts," Brumbaugh revealed.