Thomas Mower McDougall (21 May 1845 – 3 July 1909) was an officer in the United States Army. The salient point in his military career occurred when he took part in the Battle of the Little Bighorn, surviving because he and his unit was not with George Armstrong Custer and the main body of the 7th Cavalry Regiment. Early on the day of battle, McDougall's Company B was assigned to escort the regiment's pack train, but the mules were not used to carrying packs and lagged far behind the other three detachments under Custer, Reno, and Benteen as they went into combat. After viewing the Indian village, and being surprised by its size, Custer sent two urgent orders to bring the mules with the ammunition packs to his detachment of five companies, but by the time these messengers reached Captain McDougall the distance between the pack train and Custer made this order difficult if not impossible to comply with, though a debate on this topic remains to this day. Early life and family The son of Brevet Brigadier General Charles McDougall (Army Medical Corps) and Marie Hanson McDougall, he was born at Fort Crawford, near Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. He attended St. Mary's Academy near Baltimore, MD. He appeared on the 1860 Federal census of Cornwall, Orange County, New York, in the household of his parents Dr Charles McDougall and Maria Griffith Hanson. McDougall married Alice Sheldon, who survived him and died in 1920. He was related by marriage to Lawrence Babbitt who also came from a prestigious military family. Army career prior to Little Bighorn McDougall came from an army family, and his career appears to reflect his family's army contacts. He started his army service during the Civil War. Before receiving a commission, he was with General Grant at the siege of Vicksburg in 1863 and he served without pay as a volunteer aide-de-camp to General J.P. Hawkins from October 1863 to February 1864, when only 17. From Kansas, at the age of 18 in 1864, he was appointed 2nd Lt, 10th US Louisiana Volunteers of African Descent, later redesignated as 48th US Colored Infantry. He was severely wounded in the battle of Lakeville, Louisiana. He was honorably mustered out of volunteer service on June 1, 1865, at Benton Barracks, Missouri, and the next day he was commissioned a captain, Company G, 5th US Volunteer Infantry. While serving