Custer could have survived The Battle of Little Big Horn, if he had....
1. properly conducted reconnaissance
2. rested his men and horses
3. NOT broken up his fighting force into smaller units
4. NOT underestimated his opponents
These are fatal mistakes for any combat commander
The Command and General Staff College have been conducting staff rides of the Custer Battlefield for years. I participated in the first one, consisting of senior officers and the late Congressman Ike Skelton who had pushed the Army to study the Indian Wars. Instead of starting at the Visitors Center, we followed Custer’s approach march, stopping along the way to study the terrain and consider the information that Custer had available to him at that time. Along the way, we discussed the historical record along with the evidence left on the battlefield and the post mortem dissections written by the surviviors and by the historians.
Before setting out that morning, most of us agreed with your assessment. Interestingly, when the staff ride had been completed, most had revised our conclusions. Custer made mistakes, no doubt, but his decisions were not tactically unsound, especially given the Army’s experience with the Northern Plains Indians. His biggest concern was that the Indians in the camp would escape as they had always done and his mission was to prevent this long enough to allow the other columns to come up. He did not know that the Indians had decided to stand and fight which meant that his plan and his actions became problematic.
That evening, over a few beers in Story, WY, we agreed that Custer, Reno, and Benteen were not the buffoons painted by history. Combat veterans, as all of us were, remember that the enemy gets a vote and they get a chance to make their own decisions. On this day, the Indians made good decisions.
Pretentious garbage.