Moreover, Custer - at least from a military viewpoint - blew this one for sure. It didn't help the cause that there was a great deal of mistrust and dissention in the chain of command, bad intelligence, overconfidence, and lousy scouting either. But since he was the overall commander, the fault and the loss lies with him and him alone.Custer made his mistakes. So did any number of others, including numerous members of his command. But it's arguable that what's sometimes called the "Centennial Campaign of 1876" was doomed to fail from the beginning. And by that I mean right back to the Administration's decision in December, 1875 that all off-reservation Indians had until January 31st to return to their reservations.
When playing the blame game, we should be sure we're all inclusive...
I was referring to this particular battle, not the entire campaign....tho to be sure, the entire campaign did have it's problems and issues....not the least of which was the reason it was undertaken in the first place.
But that's history for ya!!