James Porter ( 7th Cavalry ) James Ezekiel Porter ( February 2 , 1847 – June 25 , 1876 ) was one of General Custer ' s eleven officers killed at the Battle of Little Bighorn , also known as Custer ' s Last Stand , and Porter was among the first verified casualties of the historic battle alerting the world to the demise of Custer ' s group . According to several historians , Porter led troops in a defensive action at the Little Bighorn . Porter also served in the American South during the Reconstruction Era , where , according to a comrade , he respectably served " Ku Klux " duty while the 7th Cavalry was charged with eradicating the Ku Klux Klan and illegal distilling . Early life and education . James E . Porter was born in Strong , Maine , in 1846 to Jeremy W . Porter , a wood manufacturer and state senator and trustee of the state reform school . James Porter attended Bates College ( called the Maine State Seminary until 1863 ) from 1862 – 1863 and then Norwich University from 1863 - 1864 . Porter was then was appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point by U . S . Representative Sidney Perham , and Porter graduated in 1869 , ranked 16th in a class of 39 . Porter and the other officers of the 7th Cavalry " in the nineteenth century . . . often came from cultured backgrounds . " Most officers in the Seventh Cavalry were educated at " civilian colleges " or the " prestigious Military Academy at West Point " and were part of a " stratified class system existing between commissioned and enlisted status . " Military career . He received a commission as a second lieutenant in the U . S . 7th Cavalry Regiment upon graduation and was first sent to Fort Leavenworth in Kansas , then Fort Wallace and Fort Harker , also in Kansas . He participated in " The Plains " Indian warfare from 1869 to 1876 and also served " Ku Klux " duty in the South , according to a comrade , during the post - Civil War Reconstruction Era when Porter served in various cities between 1871 and 1873 , including Chester , South Carolina , Rutherfordton , North Carolina , Lincolnton , North Carolina and then Shelbyville , Lebanon and Louisville , Kentucky while the 7th was charged with suppressing the Ku Klux Klan . For his efforts in serving " Ku Klux " duty , Porter was recognized by a comrade for his " energy and discretion [ which ] formed a combination sufficiently rare and valuable to give him a name among his fellows . " In 1872 , Porter became a 1st lieutenant and was assigned to Troop I . He was eventually sent back to Fort Abraham Lincoln and Fort Totten in Dakota . He served in the Northern Boundary Survey in 1873 and 1874 being based in Minnesota . Prior to the Battle at Little Bighorn in June 1876 , Porter " had requested a transfer to the general staff for a more settled life " because " his wife had just given birth to their second child in March " and " the couple had moved fourteen times . " When Captain Myles Keogh returned to Ireland in 1874 , Porter took command of Company I . Death and Unidentified Body . On June 25 , 1876 , James Porter was likely killed by the Sioux in the Battle of the Little Bighorn under the command of George Custer . Regarding the Sioux engagement , historian , Dr . Charles Kuhlman , describes " the intervention of Lieutenant Porter in bringing up Troop " I " and posting it so that the first platoon stood massed above the entrance to the ravine . This placed it squarely in the rear of the warriors Calhoun and Crittenden were fighting , compelling them to seek cover and putting them out of the fight . " Historian Thomas Hatch ' s research also surmises that because Keogh was found with Custer , " Lt . Porter actually commanded I Company on the battlefield . Every man from this company , known as the " Wild I " for its rowdy reputation , was killed . " Porter ' s Company I was stationed on the east side of Custer ridge in the battle , where they were either in reserve , providing aid or cover , or " attempting a breakout during the last segment of the battle . " Reports from Indian Agent Valentine McGillycuddy , who spoke to Crazy Horse , and Captain Charles King , who interviewed several Indian survivors , both describe a single unidentified officer ( not explicitly identified ) from this east area who rode quickly through the Indian encirclement and nearly escaped , but looked back and saw a warrior pursuing him and committed suicide . On June 27 , 1876 troops searching for Custer found some of the first evidence of Custer ' s demise in an abandoned Indian village when they " found the buckskin jacket of Lt . James Porter ( Co . I ) with a bloody hole on the side which covers the heart . " Some parties speculated that Porter ' s head was also purportedly found in the village , but other sources claim this may have been another officer ' s ( Sturgis ) head , and that Porter ' s head was never recovered , but perhaps his torso was recovered . Among modern researchers and archaeologists , the consensus is that Porter ' s body was one of three officers ' bodies ( James Porter , James G . Sturgis , and Henry M . Harrington ) never identified , even though his death was verified by his bloody jacket , which was identified . The three missing officers were the only West Point graduates on the field besides Custer and Lt . Hodgson . After receiving pressure from the officers ' families , General Philip Sheridan gave special orders to his brother Lt . Colonel Michael Sheridan to locate and properly bury the twelve officers ' bodies to the extent they could be located . According to Nunnally ' s history , " [ i ] n 1910 Superintendent Wright set a stone marker for Lt . Porter whose body was never found . Wright had no evidence on the location of Porter ’ s death and simply chose a random spot for its location . " Legacy and Family . Porter left a wife , Eliza Frances Westcott , originally from Lewiston , Maine , whom he had married in Portland , Maine , and he also left two children . Prior to the battle Capt . Myles W . Keogh , Co . I , sensing the danger of the expedition , " left a satchel of personal papers with Mrs . Eliza Porter , the wife of Company I ' s Lieutenant James Porter , and instructed her to burn them should he be killed . " In 1882 the U . S . Congress in a special bill awarded Eliza Porter a larger pension than normal due to her husband ' s death at the Little Bighorn . Eliza Porter was living in San Jose , California at the time of her death in 1915 . Besides the marker at the Little Bighorn Battlefield , a family cenotaph memorial for Porter exists at the cemetery in his hometown of Strong , Maine which indicates his death at Custer ' s Last Stand , perhaps Maine ' s only monument to the battle . A large ceremony was held for Porter upon his death at the Congregational church in Strong , Maine . A U . S . Army Battery at Fort Hunt in Virginia was named in Porter ' s honor in 1903 , and the James E . Porter Post of the Grand Army of the Republic in Weld , Maine in Porter ' s home county was named in his honor as well . One of Porter ' s personal Smith and Wesson revolvers that he carried while on duty is in the collections at Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument . James E . Porter was featured as a character in Donald F . Myers ' novel entitled " Custer ' s Gatling Guns : What If He Had Taken His Machine Guns to the Little Bighorn ? " and also in Frederick J . Chiaventone ' s " A Road We Do Not Know : A Novel of Custer at Little Bighorn " and Romain Wilhelmsen ' s " The Curse of Destiny : The Betrayal of General George Armstrong . . . "