Posted on 06/25/2004 7:09:26 AM PDT by ijcr
Like the battle at the Alamo, the one fought at the Little Bighorn has entered the realm where history and legend merge. The basic facts are these: on June 25, 1876, seventh U.S. Cavalry troops commanded by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer came upon history's largest known encampment of Indians beside the Little Bighorn River.
In the battle that followed, Custer and all the men with him—more than 260—were wiped out by the Sioux warriors of Chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse as well as Cheyenne warriors.
Ironically, the Native Americans' victory hastened their own downfall, as Custer's loss motivated the U.S. government to move even more aggressively against the Indians.
In a sense, Custer never died. Scores of books and movies have been dedicated to his "Last Stand," and even today the battlefield site is the subject of controversy.
Through the 1980s, the National Monument was called the Custer Battlefield, and events were interpreted in favor of Custer and his men.
In 1991 the Park Service changed the name to Little Bighorn Battlefield to introduce a more balanced interpretation of events. A memorial planned to commemorate the Indians who died in the battle promises a neutral interpretation, although its critics charge that it tips the scale too far the other way.
Gravestones mark the last stand of Custer and his men.
Won the battle. Lost the war. I say it's Custer's battlefield.
Following that logic, then there are a lot of War for Southern Independance Battlefields / Memorials that should be renamed for the Yankee invader..........
Well, seems to me in my limited reading and exposure on that subject, they basically go by two names in a lot of cases (e.g., Manassas/Bull Run.) Hell, even the war itself goes by various names. Second American Revolution, Civil War, War between the States, War of Northern Agression, War about States' Rights and Not Slavery Which Would Have Died On Its Own (that last one is thought to be a bit wordy.)
But I'll say this. Whatever one thinks of that war, it was Americans fighting Americans. And so special considerations apply.
They have a choice, talk about/put up a monument to the Indian side of the battle, or tear down the monuments to the 7th Cavalry. I would think putting up a monument to the Indian side would go over better than tearing down the monument(s) to the 7th.
Like somebody said in another thread a while back, it should be treated no differently than a Civil War battlefield - either talk about both sides or talk about neither. The heck with the liberal revisionists who want to pretend that one side was evil and the other good (Evil = Confederates in the Civil War, 7th Cavalry in LBH, etc.).
So were the "Indians"..........They are in the Constitution....
The only U.S. Army unit to have lost its colors in battle twice.
I had to admit that I was not the least bit suprised as I had just tripped over it.
Ask them to add another line: 'So did ijcr'.
Sorry, couldn't resist
You may wish to listen to Mrs. Flora Robertson talking about Oklahoma. Warning :-Contains negative stereotypes of Native Americans at the American memory project.
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/toddbib:@field(DOCID%2B@lit(4119b1))
Well, guess what? The Indian Wars were also fought between Americans... so, special considerations apply.
If the soldiers were cut off from one another (or groups I should say) then I doubt how he died or when he died made a big difference.
When you look at the planning that Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse did, and just how good those under them were, it's hard to imagine that anything Custer did or had done to him during the battle itself made much difference.
I have a good friend who became a military historian after he retired, and teaches a few classes, and he likes to look at long time spans. He told me once that he thought the Sioux were some of the finest light cavalry this land has ever produced, and man for man, as good as the finest from other parts of the world (Mongols, etc.) and different eras .
I think Custer should have listened to his scouts and had a little bit more respect for the Sioux.
No, I didn't interpret it as insanity caused by the losses alone, just the physical and emotional damage caused by being responsible for a catastropic battlefield loss (which could arguably be a cause for psychic trauma for someone with an ego as large as his), exposure to the elements (being left stripped on the battlefield with corpses all around), and, last and probably least, the guilty knowledge that his scouts had told him not to attack and the fact that he'd so badly bungled the whole situation, resulting in the death of his five companies, his brother, his brother-in-law, and his nephew.
The best "forensic" study of the battlefield was 
. This was the basis for the History Channel special.
Gotcha. Good point.
I forgot my hammer and chisel that day. ROFL!
Twice?
The question of the loss of colors by the 7th Cavalry at Little Big Horn has generated considerable debate. Although this office has no conclusive evidence one way or the other, it has been suggested that Custer's personal flag along with several troop guidons were taken, but that the regimental flag was not captured. A regimental flag subsequently turned up at the Custer Battlefield National Monument in Crow Agency, Montana, but it has never been verified that this was the flag at Little Big Horn. There is also a rumor that the 7th Cavalry lost its colors in Korea. (This had something to do with the 27th cavalry, and the 7th was associated with them somehow).
I don't know if they ever actually lost their regimental colors, though. Seems it could go either way.
Tha above was from an official army site, for what that's worth...
You seem to know a lot about this. What exactly happened? Did Custer just ride into their camp shooting?
Pretty mcuh, yeah. He split his men - some went to capture the women and children who were leaving, others attacked at other points... then, apparently, they noticed that there were a lot more indians than expected (however, one wwould think that seeing an indian encampment that was several miles long would be a clue) they fell back to the high ground... and got outflanked...
Little Bighorn and the retreat from North Korean forces during the opening days of the Korean War.
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