In order to escape mounting gambling debts, John Stuart Stuart-Forbes left his
Edinburgh home in 1871 and enlisted the following year with the U.S. 7th Cavalry.
Under the assumed name of John S Hiley he went on to die in 1876 at the
Battle of the Little Big Horn along with George Armstrong Custer and his entire command.
His life, and death, is commemorated by this plaque in his family's local church
at Edinburgh's West End.