Posted on 05/07/2012 1:52:47 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Death never dies here.
It just keeps getting more interesting, more beguiling. More, well, alive. Alive in every cringe-worthy detail, in every clue about its causes, in every shard of evidence waiting to be spliced to another shard . . . and another shard until a picture starts to form, an image assembled from nuggets of information collected decades or centuries ago.
Death, at least for the doctors and history buffs who gather each year at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, is the coolest of puzzles, leading them to the coolest of theories. Could Abraham Lincoln have been saved? (Yes.) Was George Custer as much a victim of a personality disorder as the Indians he was fighting? (You betcha.) What turned Florence Nightingale into a recluse? (She might have been bipolar.)
They’ve been at it for 18 years, poring over autopsy records, consulting historical texts and lobbing questions at nationally recognized experts who fly in for an annual conference hosted by the school’s Medical Alumni Association that has turned into a melange of old gore, old guts and old glories. Death might scare you, but to Philip Mackowiak, the professor who dreamed up the conference, mulling human expiration — no matter how ancient — can be “a tremendous amount of fun.” These folks were House way before House was House, but unlike the riddle-solving television doctor, their preoccupation is with the dead rather than the living.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
.
Trotsky knew the truth. “Who killed Lenin?” he said, smirking, “Just axe me.”
Interesting. Thanks for posting! (Love your username, too).
I think Custer Killed himself rather than be captured by the Indians.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/6406447/Vladimir-Lenin-died-from-syphilis-new-research-claims.html
In the first report I saw of this explanation, many years ago, it was stated Lenin was moved to a private facility and all the dogs in the neighborhood had to be shot because their howling in concert with his constant mad howling would create too much of a din.
The only group of nurses who would care for him in this final period of his evil life were some Orthodox nuns who did so out of Christian compassion. For their kindness the nuns were all killed after Lenin died to insure their silence.
That report, as I recall, appeared in a Swiss publication some years ago and despite a search, cursory at best, I could not find it.
He might have. He had a bullet wound to one of his temples. The Indian women did some nasty things to his body.
“I think Custer Killed himself rather than be captured by the Indians.”
Best evidence from Indian testimony is he was hit early in the battle, most likely at the river crossing. This probably led to the failure of the initial attack and eventual breakdown in unit cohesion.
Best evidence from Indian testimony is he was hit early in the battle, most likely at the river crossing. This probably led to the failure of the initial attack and eventual breakdown in unit cohesion.
The Indians out gunned the soldiers.They had better weapons. Unit cohesion wouldn’t have mattered.
Was George Custer as much a victim of a personality disorder as the Indians he was fighting? (You betcha.)
George Custer was a number of things. A glory hunter certainly but one of the outstanding commanders of mounted troops in US military history he was without doubt. As one with a pretty extensive Confederate ancestry and a very long Southern family history I am not given to loosely praising federal leaders in the War Between the States (or CSA leaders either for that matter. There were more than a few clinckers in the GO ranks of the CSA, Braxton Bragg foremost in that depressing cadre.) That said, George Custer was the true thing as a cavalry leader. When units he led attacked they hit with crushing force. If they were repulsed they made a fighting withdrawal and reformed to hit again. If they achieved success they never let go. Custer's cavalry actions are the embodiment of what the phrase ‘offensive exploitation’ means. As a battlefield leader I consider Custer and Wade Hampton (yes I know that is blasphemy to many Southrons) to be the two outstanding commanders in the Eastern Theater. Sheridan operated at a different level something like an army level operational commander.
On the plains Custer certainly had significant behavioral lapses. One, to his eternal discredit led to the destruction of Lt. Kidder's patrol. But again he and Carr were the two commanders who did find and defeat parties of hostiles. In this context I would rate Carr somewhat above Custer but finding and defeating a large hostile force in the dead of winter and escaping to tell the tale is no small achievement. Custer at the Big Horn was using his tried and true offensive template. Unfortunately he discarded the estimates of enemy force size from his scouts because the number were so large as to be exceeded only by the number of Indians that gathered for the signing of the Treaty of Ft. Laramie in some 25 years before.
To claim an officer has a ‘personality disorder’ because he is an aggressive battle captain is classic media BS. Custer may not have been a nice man according to today's PC mantras but one doesn't become a Major General at age 26 by being a fool or a head case.
Asking as the descendant of one of Custer’s scouts at the Washita River, was that a battle or a massacre in your opinion?
Possibly, with today's medicine and significant potential for major brain damage.
At the time, no way.
A large bullet entered the rear of his skull, traveled diagonally across his brain and came to rest behind his right eye.
Way too much damage to repair then, and quite possibly too much to repair today.
Don’t forget that the quality of his soldiers was also not high. They had nothing like the discipline, etc. of the Federals he commanded before.
Excellent analysis of Custer.
As his more recent biographer, Jeff Wert, put it, “He was a damn fine horse-soldier.”
Thanks for your comments on Custer. Modern historians have been misrepresenting him for years.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.