Posted on 06/25/2021 1:45:06 PM PDT by Roman_War_Criminal
Today marks the 145th anniversary of Custer's infamous "Last Stand". He always had his detractors and worshippers. Especially among his contemporaries. Major James Brisbin (2nd US Cav) is quoted as saying he was an "insufferable ass".
While we all know the woke folks will refer to him as either a "colonizer", "genocidal maniac", or worse - a "racist", his portrayal and legend is a story that will probably not die in this century or even the next.
I wanted this thread to be about him, and his massively compounded errors that led to his death and the annihilation of his battalion on June 25th, 1876.
Sure books have been written by the "experts" who swear that his movements were intentional on the ridge overlooking the LBR and beyond to the north and west.
I know a lot of FReepers are history geeks like me. So I'm going to throw out some bullets and let this thread fly. And for those who might have questions about locations or abbreviations I apologize in advance - I've just read too many books on the subject and it'll take too much space to explain. We can discuss it in the thread.
*White Cow Bull's testimony that he shot an officer in buckskin riding a sorrel horse with 4 white stockings barking orders at the Medicine Tail Coulee and dropping him. From there the Grey Horse Company backtracked up the ridge and it was a defensive slaughter from there
*Archaeological evidence of heavy skirmishing on the ridge where the current cemetery is located. Was this a retreat or where they still trying to find an alternate crossing?
*Did Company C really try to hold a line facing NW where the current museum is and eventually got routed and lost all of their horses? No markers are found there.
*Captain Myles Keough was probably the biggest legend IMHO on the Army's side. Testimony states he was shot through his knee and fell off his horse and the soldiers of Company I surrounded him immediately getting surrounded and wiped out with a handful of survivors running for dear life towards the NW where Co's C & F were. Keough was the only one not mutilated.
*Theodore Goldin's testimony. Always a controversial piece. Reliable? Or tall tale?
*Curley's Testimony. Reliable or tall tale?
*Benteen. Had he followed orders I believe he would have been ambushed upon approaching the ravine and ridge area where Co's I and L fell. Should he have followed orders? Or did he do the right thing? Also, would Reno have survived without him? My guess is probably not.
*Reno's Valley Fight. It's been stated by at least two witnesses on the Army's side and several Natives that had he kept his battalion in the timber they could have held out indefinitely. The fires the Indians were attempting to start to burn the brush couldn't start due to recent rains. Should he have stayed in the timber? Should he have dismounted and fired volleys? The retreat was a complete disaster and massive unnecessary loss of men.
*Finally Custer. *Should he have followed his initial plan and rested his exhausted troops and attack at dawn on the 26th?
*Should he have split his forces into three? Maybe two?
*Reconnaissance - there was none and the results showed.
*He clearly didn't trust his scouts or officers.
*He took with him his loyal officers and left those who hated him for the most part to maneuver the primary striking force of his attack. Perhaps Keogh or TW Custer leading the charge would have produced a bit more time for him to strike his hammer blow?
*His armaments were single shot springfield rifles. Would Spencers have produced a better defense?
Native Americans *Let's discuss how many warriors there really may have been?
*Why didn't they run here and at the Rosebud? The coordination was extraordinary and unique for them in these two battles.
*Why did they break their camp apart after this battle and not face Terry/Gibbon? They probably could have wiped them out as well if they struck them with the ferocity that they did Crook and Custer.
Some Relative Unknowns or little mentioned in the battle who I really like:
Isaiah Dorman Mitch Bouyer Charles Windolph Rain in the Face (claims he killed TW Custer) Two Moon (Later became a Christian) Lt. Harrington (Body never found)
MYSTERIES:
Did Frank Finkel actually survive and live to tell about it? Is there any truth to the story of the 7th Cavalry dead horse found near the Tongue a few months later?
Did the 2nd Cavalry really see "smoke" at about 2pm on the 25th from 40 miles away from the battlefield as has been mentioned in a few books? Hard to believe that.
Please feel free to add to this list and lets discuss it in more detail. I've probably read about 30 books about the battle and I always learn something new. There's also a good bit of BS out there as well.
Appreciate you fellow LBH history nerds!
“I heard that Miles Keough was an Irish immigrant who had previously been a Papal Swiss Guard. He was wearing a ring that had been given to him by the Pope. The story is maybe the Indians did not mutilate his body because they thought that the papal ring had magical power.”
It was not a ring, it was a medal that he wore around his neck.
I suspect one of the big differences was the quality of men in the CW versus LBH. He generally had good, trained and motivated men in the CW. The men on the frontier during the Indian Wars were the dregs of society. Typically poorly trained and poorly equipped. Good men in their own way, but not an elite force.
“Anyhow, Custer rode into a hornet’s nest; 10,000 Sioux warriors in a camp stretching 20 miles.”
No. The village was about three miles long, spread along the river. There were nowhere near 10,000 Sioux warriors (hell, there were nowhere near 10,000 TOTAL warriors, Sioux and Cheyenne and Arapaho). The best and most accurate measurement of total warriors was around 3,000, which was too many for Custer in any event.
What I took from the video was that there is a general belief that Stuart left Lee without sufficient cavalry right before Gettysburg; but, as you point out, he didn't. Lee should have had plenty of cavalry to cover his needs, but, because of a combination of factors - primarily the sub-commanders inability to work together - Lee was effectively blind.
French was certainly with Reno, you are correct there.
Movements between Keogh’s and Calhoun’s troops are debatable as we only really know where they fell.
I think the 3rd map is the best. I should have looked closer at #2 before posting it. It also shows the split better and Custer’s supposed movement towards where the National Cemetery is located to find another ford.
History nerd ping and bookmark
“...where a poster (I forget who - sorry!) states he was a different man after the CW and hated by his troops.”
Probably because he quit drinking.
It’s a good read, enjoy!
Totally agree with you there.
Desertion rates were high, moral low.
And hardly any resources to train with. The 1870’s experienced a horrible economy.
Irish, German, Italian immigrants who’ve hardly ever ridden a horse, much less fought in battles. Malnourished.
It was like a Russian officer training his Cossacks, Tartars, Georgian, and Indigenous Siberians to fight Nazis during WWII. That is a hard deck to play with.
“Does anyone know about how long the actual battle took? I read years ago that Custer was one of the first killed early in the battle after he set up a defensive posture.”
The actual Custer fight lasted about an hour. The story about Custer being one of the first killed comes from an Indian account about a soldier “who seemed to be in command” killed at the river’s edge at Medicine Tail Coulee. That soldier was likely Lt. “Jack” Sturgis of Troop E, which was part of the “left” wing that descended Medicine Tail Coulee with Yates and Troop F. Sturgis’ bloody underclothes were found in the deserted village, and there are reports that a burial party found his severed head in the village a few days after the fight. In any event, Sturgis’ body was never identified, nor was Lt. James Porter’s (Troop I) body, though his buckskin jacket was found with two bullet holes and lots of blood stains.
LOL! Maybe?
The pride of a soldier who was a glory boy reduced to the rank of Captain before given the Lt. Colonelcy of the 7th weighs much.
Add to that no promotion for 10 years and if you go back to that link, he had a fall in 1864 where his acquaintances state he was not the same afterwards (concussion? PTSD?) might explain his bizarre behavior during the Indian Wars.
Ironically, Wesley Merritt (USMA 1860) had a career that literally mirrored his, and was promoted to Colonel right after LBH. He whooped the Cheyenne at Warbonnet Creek less than a month after LBH and eventually became a Major General again before the Spanish American War.
I doubt Custer would have suffered the same patience for promotion.
My favorite on-screen depiction of Gen. Custer was in the movie Little Big Man.
The Native American tribes did not negotiate when it came to land acquisition. The most powerful tribe took what they wanted. Not a politically correct statement in these woke days.
Forty-five years ago, I took an anthropology class on the North American Indian tribes because it sounded like an interesting elective. It was. I remember the instructor's dissertation was based on the premise that the military power of the tribes could be determined by analyzing the bison ranges. The most powerful tribes sat on the best bison range and kept everyone else out. In the U.S., starting in the north and continuing south, the prime bison range was occupied by the Blackfeet (although most of their territory was in Canada but still prime bison territory), the Dakota, the Pawnee, the Cheyenne and Arapaho, the Kiowa, and the Comanche. The other tribes were basically pushed to the marginal bison range.
“You’ll get an idea of his tactics and why he thought the way he did...”
He employed the same tactics at LBH that he used in November, 1868 against Black Kettle’s Cheyenne village on the Washita. And that nearly got his entire command wiped out, because (as has been noted), he failed to reconnoiter the area before he attacked. Unbeknownst to Custer was that the Black Kettle village was a smaller, satellite village of a much larger concentration further on down the river; and it was warriors from that larger village that came up and wiped out Major Joel Elliott’s small band that had gone after some fleeing Cheyenne.
“The pride of a soldier who was a glory boy reduced to the rank of Captain before given the Lt. Colonelcy of the 7th weighs much.”
But that was common. Remember, Custer’s CW promotions were brevets (very common during the CW), and after the war most of those breveted resumed their pre-brevet ranks.
And George Pickett was 59th of 59.
A very tortured and confused account of the battle of East Cavalry field.
The man gets just about every unit number mixed up!
And he denigrates Custer through my CV of his presentation, before lauding him in the end.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AfwBOOFFlXQ
Ronald Reagan
“Lee’s plan was a dual attack - Pickets charge to the front, Stuart’s cavalry to the rear.”
Not according to Lee. He never mentions using Stuart’s cavalry on the 3rd day at Gettysburg in his final report on the campaign to Davis.
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