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!
A good set of questions. Tipping my old cavalry Stetson to you.
Regarding the recon and trusting his scouts and officers: 1) Reno’s earlier detached ride was a recon as was Benteen’s to the north of the column. I think we forget how much slower sending out a scouting column and its return was then versus now to get its report back to the Custer (aka command group).
2) Trusting versus believing the scouts and being able to comprehend the actual size of the combined Indian tribes. I think Custer didn’t grasp the size of the force against him. Remember, this gathering was unprecedent in size for the Western frontier where the Army usually fought Indian groups of a couple of hundred warriors, NOT 2,000 or more in a single battle.
3) Custer apparently trusted Mitch Boyer, since he took him as his lead scout, but “couldn’t get his head around” the actual size of the enemy force.
From a distance the terrain looks deceptively open. In fact, you cannot see Custer's position from Reno's.
I think Reno did the prudent thing retreating to the high ground to form his defensive perimeter. I think he probably would have been picked apart in the woods. He should not have been thrown under the bus to make Custer a hero.
Custer violated several of the Army Principles of War with his unnecessarily complicated plan to divide his forces. What comes immediately to mind is Mass, Unity of Command, Security (no intel)and Simplicity. Was hubris at work? A feeling no Indian force could defeat an Army battalion?
“By this account he was in a hurry for glory and the White House, and they (the men) paid the price for his hubris, ambition, and gross incompetence. “
That’s the whole story right there.
A thoroughly incompetent, ambitious man in a military (or other) leadership position. We’ve seen it dozens of times in our history.
It’s one of the pitfalls of a democratic republic.
And testimony to the long term, endemic weakness of a professional military. Regrettably, necessary in an empire or emerging empire.
You point out something I never really thought of about him.
He was certainly hated by his peers during the war - the rivalry with Merritt and Wilson is noted often. Even Kilpatrick was jealous of him.
He did have a reputation for beating soldiers who were disobedient - with whips.
The more I read about his post war years the more I believe he was probably an egomaniac who needed attention like a drug. Supposedly he was one of the most photographed people in the 19th century.
That kind of attention whoring will create a lot of haters. Add to that his disgust with his rank and not being promoted for 10 years. His poor financial situation and poor investments. He needed another “victory” to propel him into the papers again.
Bringing Mark Kellogg along for the ride was against orders, but he needed the press.
We took a trip several years ago out west. The stop I was looking most forward to was the battlefield. It really changed my understanding of the battle. You could understand what went wrong and why. One camera drone would have made a huge difference.
The troops were largely green. We drove across South Dakota and it was very sparse. (I remember reading a local paper and the staff was very concerned about wise land use. LOL.) There was no shortage of land. Traveling by horse over those distances had to be exhausting. The Indians had very recently changed their tactics which Custer was not aware of because there was no intelligence.
The battle would not have been needed had there not been widespread corruption in DC. People DC hired repeatedly lied to and cheated the Indians. DC didn’t manage their programs, just their take (Nothing is new under the sun).
I really felt bad for the common soldiers buried there. It is really quite a desolate place and has to be very cold in the winter.
Somewhat recent books by Donovan, Robbins, and Fox are really good. I was lucky to have read them before I went. It made it much clearer and they were not cluttered up with the DC park service politically correct tripe which I am sure has gotten worse.
“The battlefield was swept by a grass fire and a member of the fire crew told me that the cases and other items were all exposed after the heavy grass was burnt away to bare ground.”
National Geographic had a great article on that near the time of the fire. Back before they went full-on commie scum.
Thank you. I’ll add Pompey’s Pillar to my LBH notes.
In the hours leading up to surrender at Appomattox, a blustery young blonde Union Brigadier rode hard up to Longstreet and barked orders to him about where and when to surrender to Grant.
It severely chaffed Longstreet to be treated so.
That cocky kid was George Custer.
1) Yes very true! The terrain while beautiful, is awful for maneuver around the battlefield and it would easily wear out a horse in about a half dozen miles. Compound that with the heat they had that day.
I truly recommend reading Theodore Goldin’s account of the Benteen scout. He was one of the last to see Custer and was given an early message to deliver to Benteen. He passed Boston Custer on the way towards Benteen. Boston was on his way to death and was the last man to join Custer’s group. Based on timing, I’m guessing by the time he arrived with Custer it was already pretty much too late to form any kind of defense.
Back to Goldin, he complained massively about Benteen’s pace during the recon. And even after he got the “Last Message” from Martini he was slow.
2) Indian agents lied about the missing numbers of Indians. The Army was expecting maybe 800 or so warriors. Custer probably wouldn’t blink at engaging that many even with his 210 man battalion. I truly think he was believing he could whoop them no matter what. He almost got wiped at at Washita doing the same exact thing he did at LBH.
3) Yes he did trust Mitch, but wouldn’t listen. Even Bloody Knife warned him multiple times to no avail.
Had he kept his force together he may have fought to a draw perhaps, but those kind of stakes weren’t his type of game. He loved risk.
Interestingly regarding numbers. The Battle of Warbonnet Creek about a month later in Nebraska was evenly matched as far as strength size. Wesley Merritt & the 5th routed the Cheyenne with no casualties. That type of result was what the Army was usually accustomed to.
“Somewhat recent books by Donovan, Robbins, and Fox are really good.”
Titles?
“It made it much clearer and they were not cluttered up with the DC park service politically correct tripe which I am sure has gotten worse.”
I finally got there the summer before the scamdemic was launched. I must confess that seeing the site didn’t clear things up for me as much as I thought it would.
All the park rangers were Indians when I was there. I had a nice conversation with a lady ranger (which is easier to do at my age, because the ladies know I’m not hitting on them). Some of the things she said about the battle were different from what I had read before. I think she was more reliable, though, because she pointed to places where previously unknown artifacts were discovered after the fire.
I didn’t know about several sites where a small number of troopers were killed. I don’t think anybody knew about some of them before the fire.
I visited the battlefield in 1993. I remember seeing a list of survivors (they must have been with Reno). One of them lived until 1951 or thereabouts—a lot of them were young in 1876.
Here’s one by James Donovan.
A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Bighorn - the Last Great Battle of the American West
It’s recent and I got the kindle version.
He’s very balanced in his approach, which I like. Some of the Custer writers of the 50’s and 60’s were incredibly biased in their writings.
A book which I consider gold is one written in the early 1900’s by Cyrus Brady called Indian Fights and Fighters. There’s a chapter in there with Godfrey’s account of the battle and Theodore Goldin (one of the last to see Custer).
Or you could just get Godfrey’s book:
The Godfrey Diary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn
Well worth the visit. I went there on the 101st anniversary of the battle in 1977 and no one else was there, just my wife and I. The museum was closed too. We walked down a ravine to the river and saw numerous headstones where soldiers had fallen all the way from the river to the hill where the main part of the battle took place. It was a profoundly moving experience to see it in person.
***Where Cody killed Yellow Hand supposedly.***
I believe, in his biography, he watched Cody kill Yellow Hand through a telescope.
Thanks a lot.
Do you find it easy to use Kindle? Now that I’m retired, my hands hurt too much to hold a book for extended periods.
If you have a pad it’s better - don’t use a phone! Your wrists will wear out very fast if you do.
There are pad holders that you can rest it on using your lap.
Or you can just download an app on your computer and read kindle from there.
Here’s a BYU study on the effects of PTSD on soldiers prior to the battle and after the battle. It’s light to medium reading (29 pages).
Apparently the belief is that Custer may have had brain damage from a fall in 1864 that severely impacted his temperment and demeanor. PTSD is suspected and it goes hand-in-hand with a post upthread here where a poster (I forget who - sorry!) states he was a different man after the CW and hated by his troops.
It’s a good read.
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=sahs_review
If you’re traveling the LBH and the pillar, I’d advise a day or two in Cody WY. The Cody museum is hard to see in one day and do it justice. The education you can get from the different areas is staggering. Curly one of the Calvary’s Crow scouts cabin is in the old town museum or was according to my reading, he didn’t go to the Little Big Horn with Custer because he was ill. Custer wouldn’t have listened to him anyway.
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.
Thirty-six years ago I thought I’d do a quick side-stop at Little Bighorn on my way back from Yellowstone N.P.
My afternoon stopover lasted until dark and I got hooked on Native American history ever since.
I got a boatload of Western History, Native American history books on my shelf. I’m currently reading about La Salle’s ill-fated attempt to establish a foothold on the lower Mississippi but somehow he ended up on the Texas coast.
Hopefully one of these days I can make it back up to Little Bighorn where my odyssey started.
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