Posted on 06/25/2022 1:07:51 PM PDT by Roman_War_Criminal
Have read that Custer declined to take Gatling guns..too cumbersome.
Sitting Bull better “general”
West Point was/is chicken shit factory.
1866 and 1873 Winchesters were available but genius army brass were leery of ammunition consumption.
“I fought with Custer” is a good memoir by 1st Sgt. Charles Windolph, who won the Congressional Medal of Honor for Heroism at the battle. He was assigned to Major Reno’s unit of the 7th Calvary. He indicates in his memoir that Custer made a lot of mistakes and was overconfident. It is a very interesting read.
Lot’s of things to reply to here. The Plains Indians at this point in time were maybe the best light cavalry in the world. They had better guns than the one’s Custer had. Certainly some had just bow and arrows and lances but some had lever action repeating rifles. Custer had single shot rifles with ammo problems, those rifles were good but no match for that day.
The Plains Indians adopted the “horse culture” very quickly after horses were introduced into the New World.
They were better light cavalry than Custer had.
“07:30am - Custer receives Varnum’s note indicating the village has been spotted
7:29am - Sitting Bull receives two Sioux’s note indicating Custer has been spotted.
Thank you, I will try for an early spring visit.
Yes saw a forensic show about how the Indians would put any round in their guns as the bullets would topple thru the air causing massive wounds on targets.
Taking gatling guns over hills and mountains would be a fools errand. He was correct in this regard.
Not splitting his forces and perhaps waiting for reinforcements which was the original plan would’ve worked out better for him and his troops.
I’ve never read it, really should put that on my list to do so.
Windolph was one of the last surviving members of the 7th to die. I think he passed away in the 1950s IIRC.
“The Plains Indians at this point in time were maybe the best light cavalry in the world.”
You know, I’ve never thought about it that way but thinking it through that is probably a 100% accurate. They were lightning quick and armed to the teeth always having plenty of ammo (rifles).
The scuffle on Weir Point after Custer and his forces were annihilated, Lt. Godfrey states that a few Indians on horseback charged over and past some of the dismounted cavalrymen that Weir had deployed at full speed and shocked everybody at how fast they were.
Your observation and point is incredible - thank you for that.
If only these guys could have gone back with their tank...
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ROTnCjw1ci8/UpvZxPrqAMI/AAAAAAAAEFM/cQOb500U7i4/s1600/Tank+Trio.png
The 7th is Made Up of Phantoms
https://twilightzone.fandom.com/wiki/The_7th_is_Made_Up_of_Phantoms
“June twenty-fifth 1964 - or, if you prefer, June twenty-fifth 1876. The cast of characters in order of their appearance: a patrol of General Custer’s cavalry and a patrol of National Guardsmen on a maneuver. Past and present are about to collide head-on, as they are wont to do in a very special bivouac area known as... the Twilight Zone.”
“Taking gatling guns over hills and mountains would be a fools errand.”
That’s why God gave us horses and mules.
Several historians over the decades have worked on creating timelines in order to study the battle and to understand “what happened when.” The information used came from 7th Cavalry survivor reports from Reno and Benteen’s battalions and from interviews with multiple Indian participants.
I recommend the following books:
Legacy - New Perspectives on the Battle of the Little
Bighorn, edited by Charles E. Ranklin
Custer’s Last Campaign - Mitch Boyer and the Little Bighorn
Reconstructed by John S. Gray
Lakota Noon - The Indian Narrative of Custer’s Defeat, by
Gregory F. Michino
The Last Stand - Custer, Sitting Bull and the Battle of the
Little Bighorn, by Nathaniel Philbrick
Archaeology, History, and Custer’s Last Battle, by Richard
Allan Fox, Jr.
The very large size of the village exceeded the average size of villages the cavalry were use to finding by 3 to 4 times. The warriors usually fought what we would call a delaying action while the women, children, old men quickly packed up and fled. The families began that packing up while the warriors rode out to engage the cavalry to “buy” them time, however the number of warriors was so much larger that they forced the cavalry into a defensive battle. The cavalry battle line, for Custer’s 5 companies, extended over a couple of miles and the Indians encircled those thin lines of defenders. See the book “Archaeology, History, and Custer’s Last Battle,” by Richard Allan Fox, Jr. for detailed maps of the battle lines for both sides. See also my post #54 for other titles worth reading.
It was mission impossible for him.
The Battle of the Rosebud a week prior shows how determined the Indians were against the US Army.
Crook retreated and he had about 500 troops more than Custer.
Yes, The Sioux victory over General Crook’s column at the Battle of the Rosebud week, the previous is completely forgotten.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Rosebud
As long as a person is in the neighborhood, I would recommend traveling into Wyoming and visiting the battlefields around Fort Phil Kearney. Not far and worth the visit to see some famous sites from Red Cloud's War (The Wagon Box Fight and The Fetterman Massacre). The Fetterman Massacre was the other, lesser-known battle between the Dakota and U.S. troops which also had no survivors among the U.S. troops (81 fatalities). These troops were to protect Fort Phil Kearney and were lured into an ambush by a small group of Dakota led by Crazy Horse whose reputation as a warrior was now becoming known to the whites
Yes that area is close by too - a big part of Red Cloud’s War against the Army.
Fetterman fell into a trap and was lured into an ambush and surrounded.
“I’ve always been of the opinion that the theory about soft copper cartridge cases jamming and fatally slowing the soldiers’ rate of fire touches on a deciding factor...” [TheDandyMan, post 24]
Brass metallurgy had not advanced to the point where deep-draw forming essential to the manufacture of solid-head cartridge cases was possible. Only happened in the late 1870s, pioneered by the British. As you hinted, cartridge cases formed of copper were much more likely to stick in chambers on firing, rendering big-bore centerfire rounds problematic.
Several researchers have cited the high temperatures prevailing during the battle, surmising that the weather increased the likelihood of cartridges sticking in chambers.
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