Posted on 06/25/2019 7:36:18 AM PDT by Red Badger
Or at Roarke’s Drift.
Of course, then you had Rorke's Drift to show what volley fire and good leadership could do for you ...
Colour Sergeant Bourne: It's a miracle.
Lieutenant John Chard: If it's a miracle, Colour Sergeant, it's a short chamber Boxer Henry point 45 caliber miracle.
Colour Sergeant Bourne: And a bayonet, sir, with some guts behind.
> Maybe if he had a tank... <
Which reminds of a history blog I was at recently. They were discussing the Battle of Waterloo. Some guy posted a question. And he got a quick answer.
Q. Would Napoleon had won the battle if he had just a few tanks? Maybe three Abrams?
A. No. Wellington would have taken them out with his A10s.
A minute behind you ...
What if Patton had had A-10’s and M1 Abrams tanks?
What a movie!
True, and nobody ever takes into account that he wore his men out ragged. They had marched over 100 miles in less than 4 days. That night march the previous night quite possibly spelled their doom. His men were so tired that a good portion of them napped for 10 minutes while he wrote his last message to Benteen.
The last 3 hours prior to battle were non-stop marching over hilly terrain 15-16 miles of it in 90 degree plus heat.
A few minutes of harsh fighting with exhausted, parched-thirsty troopers who are getting shot to pieces and it’s no wonder his guys got slaughtered.
I can’t believe “Mr. Custer” hasn’t been posted yet. This is from 1960 so some may not have heard it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_Bt18kMmWs
You make some excellent points. It was an impossible situation.
And a number of the troopers committed suicide.
Michael Donahue has a very interesting perspective on the battle. I’ve read about 20 books on the battle and really never had heard of the theory that he came up with on Custer’s moves.
https://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Battle-Lines-Testimony-Custers/dp/0912783451
Seems like according to Donahue, he was hell bent on capturing women and children at the far end of the village and holding them hostage forcing a full surrender. There is evidence that a few skirmishes happened on the southern end of where the National Cemetery is currently located and as they were approaching the gathering of the old men, women, children, that Keogh’s line broke and they had to retreat in panic back to Battle Ridge to cover their rear.
Like you said, Custer didn’t anticipate the uber aggressive assaults from the Northern Plains tribes and thought they would just run. Even in his battles with them in 1873 & 1874 they didn’t run. He should have known better.
He also had no intel on the Battle of the Rosebud where Crook literally had almost twice the men that Custer did on June 25th and he still had to fall back. The Indians tried to pull the surround and wipe out maneuver in that Battle with LT. COL. W. Royal’s small cavalry contingent - and they almost did.
I love reading about the Great Sioux War of 1876. Always learn something new about it, no matter how much I read.
Yes, the Army tested the range of these rifles and the .45-70 easily beat out the .44. That was one of the deciding factors when they chose the new rifle - 1873 I believe is when they made that decision.
I would have thought they should have at least had Spencer’s. Those 7 rounders could have made a slight difference in Reno’s skirmish.
Fetterman was probably on his mind. He even mentioned him in a letter a few months before ironically.
Read up on what he did at Trevilian Station. He almost got wiped out to a man in that battle in 1864.
Same battle plan he put in at LBH. Split the forces up and attack, hoping the shock & awe win the day. Numbers & reconnaissance be damned. He didn’t have reinforcements to save him that last time.
I didn’t know the Zulus had repeating rifles. And Custer didn’t have any walls.
If Custer thought that he had the time, he would have delayed his approach march, maneuvered to get his columns to positions of mutual support, tucked in his trains, and take time to find out where the other columns were.
He did none of these things.
I have seen the same thing in combat and in training. Most commanders tend to think that any delay will shift the initiative to the enemy. Sometimes, that is correct, but sometimes hasty attacks become uncoordinated, piecemeal efforts that fail.
All good points.
Right after he split off and from seeing Reno’s men engaged he marched his men behind the bluffs so they couldn’t see the village from where they were galloping.
He knew that Reno retreated. Boston Custer had told him because Boston came galloping up after Martini left. By that time Custer’s fate had been sealed no matter what he did.
He just kept pushing on hoping that he could ‘hold out’ for the reinforcements that never came.
I’m very skeptical of Godfrey’s timeline in his account.
He was counting on Reno holding out his small skirmish line and not retreating. He also didn’t anticipate the hilly terrain that cost him precious minutes in his approach.
I’ve always thought he should have brought Brisban’s 2nd with him when he broke away from Terry. Egos and everything that goes with them meant that he wasn’t going to share the glory though.
Not copper jacketed. The cartridges were made of copper and it was a known problem and the official method of fixing it was to pierce the cartridge body with your issued Army knife and pull it backwards possibly levering against the top of breech. Many broken knife points of Army knives were found on the battlefield hence the decision to change the cartridge to brass.
I have read the supposed debunking of that reasoning and it was unconvincing. My own 45-70 is competitive when the barrel runs at about 140 degrees.
Yep!
They gave up and saved the last bullet for themselves.
Will do!
Not surprised, fits his MO.
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