There is no question that the Indians outgunned the 7th. The 7th’s ‘73 carbine was a good weapon, but was no match for a repeater within 200 yards, especially given the soft copper shell casings that had a tendency to jam in the receiver when the weapon got too hot. Also, the Indians were able to shoot a storm of arrows from concealed positions, and those sharp missiles falling from the sky caused no end of problems for the troops. The Battle of the Little Bighorn was Murphy’s law in action.
That’s true, but there’s additional issue here - the way that Custer pushed his way into a fight that was overwhelmingly against him. It is one thing to discover too late that your enemy is vastly outnumbering you. It is quite another to have the signs in front of you, ignore them, and blunder on ahead, begging to be slaughtered.
We now live in easy proximity to the lands where the 7th killed Indians - and where the Indians returned the favor. All of the famous Powder River country battlefields are between 30 minutes and 4 hour drives away from our front door. We’ve seen several of them now, and the ones where the US Army lost big share common attributes.
First, let’s get something out of the way: Custer was something of a thug - his career as an fighter of Indians started with his slaughter of Black Kettle’s people in 1868, riding into a village that was showing no aggression, at dawn, in heavy snow, and killing women and children as well as warriors. This starts “the Custer legend” (both in his own mind and in the mind of the public). Custer’s mistake years later was in believing his own press - when the reality was, he won best when he was killing Indians by ambush, in their own beds.
But let’s put that aside for a moment and deal with the Little Big Horn: Anyone looking at the lay of the land in which Custer chose to make this battle would say “Uh... this isn’t where I want to start a fight with a numerically superior force.” The land is such that you could hide an entire division of men and material just over the next hill — and you might have no idea of this until you poke your schnozz over the hill and say “Uh oh.”
But let’s say that Custer thought he had no choice. Custer screwed up in that he:
1. Didn’t brief his NCO’s or junior officers on what the overall plan was. As near as I can tell, the “overall battle plan” was to ride into the village and start shooting the Indian warriors, then shoot the women and children. There was bad blood between Custer, Reno and Benteen - and Custer handled this by not briefing them properly on his plans. It appears that Custer thought he was going to hog the expected glory from the results. Custer did indeed receive the majority of the results.
2. He allowed the supply wagons with thousands of rounds of ammo to trail far behind him, or conversely, he got strung out away from his resupply.
3. Some of this men didn’t control their horses and went well forward of the skirmish lines - and were slaughtered for their effort. Others of his men would not hold a line. The accounts of his men in combat were that of a force that lacked discipline and cohesion, probably due to point #1 above: they were not told an overall plan or strategy.
4. He refused an offer of additional men from Terry only days before. Custer, ever the braggart, refused these additional men, saying he could whip the entire Sioux nation with the men he had.
All in all, one need do nothing but examine the evidence, see the actual terrain, walk up and down the area of operations - instead of the reading the contemporary romantic mythology that sprang up soon following Custer’s death - and one comes to the conclusion: “He was a moron of the highest order.”
But the biggest mistake Custer made, IMO, was the one where his own scouts were telling him that a) the number of trails and sign they were seeing indicated a huge gathering of Indians - trails converging. Yet Custer kept on wanting to mentally change estimates he was being given to “no more than 1,500 Indians” - even when his scouts were telling him “at *least* 1,500,” or “2,000 or more,” and he kept thinking that the trails were diverging.
Custer’s own orders after the battle had begun show that he was not expecting the size of the Indian encampment to be so large. Ignore the advice of people who can read the signs, the people you brought along to give you intelligence.... and you get the results that invariably come with this.
BTW — Custer wasn’t the only dumbass in the US Army to do something this stupid. If you ever get a chance, go to the site of the Fetterman Fight, which is just north of Buffalo, WY and south of Sheridan, WY. It is easy to get to off Interstate-90. The Wagon Box Fight was fought just north of this area too.
Long story short: Fetterman and Custer were cut from the same cloth - immense egos, underestimated their opposition, thought they had enough men to wipe out the entire Indian nation, Civil War veteran with a brevet rank, etc. Fetterman had an almost-excuse in that they had little experience in fighting the Plains Indians at that time. Custer had no such excuse, and should have learned something from Fetterman’s example.
Fetterman was given direct orders to go out and support a wood-cutting party that was being harassed by Red Cloud’s warriors. Fetterman was told by Carrington, CO of the fort, explicitly, to not pursue the Indians, no matter what. Just support the wood cutting party. That’s it. Don’t give chase, don’t get out of sight, don’t freelance.
Well, of course, Fetterman didn’t listen. Carrington was seen as too slow, too cautious, too fearful of the Indians, and junior officers like Fetterman were chafing at the bit, claiming that if they were turned loose, the “Indian problem” would be solved.
Carrington, however, was a good observer of Indian tactics and drew the correct lessons from what he was seeing.
Crazy Horse (unknown until this fight) came in close to Ft. Phil Kearny, drew fire and caused Fetterman to come a-following. Again, when one looks at the terrain and conditions at the time of the fight, we see that these Civil-War veteran officers were a) brash, b) racist (in that they could not *conceive* of the Indians being able to plan a battlefield), c) stunningly stupid about terrain factors. Crazy Horse, Red Cloud and others had chosen their terrain well, planned the fight to maximize even the weather as an element, and had studied their opponent’s mental failings.
Here in Wyoming along the Big Horn Mountains, when there is enough moisture, the grass grows really well. I mean REALLY well. This, BTW, is why the Indians fought so hard for this ground. It is a veritable game factory - deer as thick as flies, pronghorn everywhere you look. Wild turkeys, sage grouse, geese, ducks, you name it. This is a result of lush grasslands, rolling terrain to shield game from weather in the winter, plenty of good water.
In the days of the great bison herds, the rolling foothills were probably black in areas. Little wonder that the Indians were going to fight to the death for this ground.
This is one of the good moisture years, and the native mountain brome grass is chest-high on me - and I’m over 6’ tall. Unless you hay this grass or have cattle/bison to graze it down - it stays very high into the winter. Such was the case before the winter of 1866. Unless you have a good, high-angle perspective on a field, you cannot see someone laying in the grass waiting for you. The grass is thick enough in spots that I cannot see a black angus cow laying in the grass less than 100 yards away from my second story deck. You get my point - a field of rippling grass, waving in the wind, is not something you go charging into if you value your life, whether there are Indian warriors or a Angus bull waiting out there for you.
Fetterman follows Crazy Horse and the other decoys over the hill, out of sight of the fort. In the tall grass, there’s over 1,000 (some accounts have it at 2,000) Indian warriors, laying down, waiting for the decoying force to draw Fetterman and his men down the reverse slope. Fetterman gets far enough into the trap, the Indians sprang up and started attacking.
All of Fetterman’s men and their dog were killed.
Same pattern as at Little Big Horn 10 years later: brash, intemperate officer who was promoted to a brevet rank in the Civil War, underestimating his opponent(s), ignoring the tactical use of terrain by his enemy, thinking that he could wipe them all out if he had but a scant number of “brave men.”
Fetterman and Custer are bookends of the Plains War, dumb and even dumber, respectively.