Posted on 06/25/2022 7:34:35 AM PDT by Macho MAGA Man
On June 25, 1876, a village of some five thousand Lakotas and Cheyennes camped on the Greasy Grass River (today’s Little Big Horn) was famously attacked by George Armstrong Custer and his vaunted Seventh Cavalry. The Indians were followers of the powerful Húnkpapa holy man Sitting Bull, and, like their leader, most of them wanted nothing to do with white men. They simply wanted to be left alone, to live separate from the Euro-Americans who’d been steadily encroaching and trespassing upon Lakota lands for decades.
With shouts of “Hóka hé!” (Come on!) and “The Earth is all that lasts!” the Oglala war chief Crazy Horse and other Indian leaders rapidly gathered their warriors and galloped off to defend their families. And because Custer had unwisely divided his regiment into three battalions, more than a thousand Lakota and Cheyenne fighting men were able to strike these separated detachments individually. On a grassy ridge overlooking the Greasy Grass, the warriors completely overwhelmed Custer and some two hundred troopers of the Seventh. The Indians’ stunning victory was soon dubbed “Custer’s Last Stand.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
“Indian scouts...” The Army’s Indian scouts were enemies of the Sioux/Lakota and its allied tribes thus I disagree. However, Custer couldn’t believe that the village was that large. And Custer used encircling/envelopment tactics that had worked for him before, not only against other Indian tribes but during the Civil War.
“Custer wore Arrow shirts”.
...for a time...
You over estimate Lt. Col. Custer’s contribution at Gettysburg, he was brave and tactically successful at beating Stuart’s attack, but it was not operationally significant. Lee had already lost the battle at that point.
Custer was a cavalryman, he knew the importance of reconnaissance and gaining accurate information on the enemy, yet failed to do so at Little Big Horn, despite ample opportunity. He then compounded this error first by splitting his force, then going in blind against a much larger and more powerful force. He overestimated his situation and underestimated his enemy. In short, he was stupid when it mattered and lost his command.
Any trashing he receives is well earned.
“The indians were better armed and vastly outnumbered Custer’s force.”
And better trained for the lay of the land. When you see this battle reenacted they are almost always fighting on open soil. At the time of the battle there was high grass, in many places more than two feet, that covered the entire battle field up to last stand hill and the Sioux, Arapaho and Cheyenne Indians sneaked up on the cavalry and killed a lot of them from the high grass also using better weapons than the cavalry had with over 200 repeaters, mainly Henry’s, along with breach loaders while the 7th packed single-shot Springfield Model 1873 carbine and the 1873 Colt single-action revolve. And considering they were within a couple of miles from the main encampment of their enemy the whole time and Custer only had 210 men, they were vastly outnumbered and out planned. Plus Custer refused the carrying of Gattling guns so he made a mistake there, also. Custer was a fool and wished to kill Indians for his name. He’s more famous now this way.
wy69
His opponents were not at all shy about raping and murdering women and children. Custer’s plan (and later that of General Miles) was to “maneuver and fight like the indians” or words to that effect — though he and Miles tried to keep the indian noncombatant casualties to a minimum, and most likely would not have tolerated rape committed by anyone under their command.
I’m going to take a controversial stand here and say Custer was right about not bringing the Gatling guns. There is no practical way for them to contribute to kind of fighting he anticipated (Battle of Rosebud is a good example).
“When you are wounded and left on the Afghanistan plain, and the women come out to cut up your remains, just roll on your rifle and blow out your brains and go to your God like a soldier.”
“As an Army vet I always ask, how the American GIs wounded and POWs were treated by the enemy at Little Big Horn.”
To my knowledge, there was only one POW, briefly. The first shots fired were by “whites” in an attempt to steal horses. When this thing got underway, and after the battles were won, it was observed that the Indians continued to ride around the bodies shooting them and dismembering them.
A good account of the battle is here:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-the-battle-of-little-bighorn-was-won-63880188/
One prisoner was taken. He was captured by Rain-in-the-Face, who said he had stripes on his arm. He was bound hand and foot with a “shag-a-nappe” (stripped buffalo hide), and left in a lodge. A wild dance followed in the night after the battle, and a few men, drunk with the excitement of the results of the conflict, sought out the lodge in which the captive was held and killed him with a knife....
wy69
I liked twilight zone episode The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms (TV Episode 1963).
You’re probably right by the time they got set up they’d be over run. They functioned more as direct fire artillery pieces they as we think of machine guns.
Ok I got a question!
Was there ever use of Gatling guns against Indians?
In the Civil War (any rapid fire machine gun-like weapon!)?
I can’t think of any! What was the first use in hostile action? I think i read somewhere they were used by US Marines in a little disagreement with a Hermit Kingdom (Korea) port\fort in 1867. I wouldn’t swear to it.
So again when, where and against who were they first used?
other than Custer’s ears were pierced by an awl after his death and one finger was cut off which is a Cheyenne custom.
It was the discovery of gold in the Black Hills that doomed the northern plains Indians, not their killing of the hero of Gettysburg.
Long before that, Andy Jackson already had figured out that nothing of short of killing Whites could stop them invading Indian land after the gold strike in Dahlonega. He thought relocating the Cherokee to a land Whites had no interest in was their best prospect for survival.
The Golden Rule:
Him that has the Gold makes the Rules.
History would remember Custer for the arrogant ne’er do well he was if not for the efforts of his widow, Libbie, who it was said could charm the spots off a leopard, and who made it her life’s work to rehabilitate Autie’s image among the press and the politically-connected.
“The Cherokee had a written language and published a tribal news paper.”
Thanks. I see it was developed by a Cherokee around 1820.
It typically caused the warriors to stop fighting. His plan was to sweep in and capture the families, ending the fight right then. It had worked before.
What do you mean? Women and children were taken into custody but not as POWs I don’t think.
How did the enemy handle American civilian men and women and children?
Several times. They were used against Cheyenne in Texas in 1874, and against Cheyenne again in Oklahoma in 1875, just to name two. But it tended to be uncommon because the plains Indians in general and southern plains Indians in particular tended not to become decisively engaged unless they enjoyed a tactical advantage. The presence of a Gatling gun tended to alter the balance of power.
Custer was the man who turned the tide before Gettysburg. He was a brillant tactician, but he made an unwise decision to leave the two Gatlin Guns at the fort. Had he taken the weapons, it would have slowed the cavalry down. Additionally, Custer’s soldiers for the most part had standard Army issue single shot rifles. A few had their own lever action repeaters, but the Indian’s had more repeaters than Custer had rifles.
My grandmother was born on the Oklahoma Indian Reservation in 1906 in a covered wagon; Rev Van Dursen was the fifth Methodist Minister in the family after some were senators and congressmen in the first 30 years of the Continential Government after 1780. Her father was married to Custer’s sister. To atone for the “sins of Custer”, the Van Dursen family fortune (direct desendent of James Van Dursen, the founder of New Amsterdam and later day New York. James VD had ceded all Dutch possesions in the New World to the British, but was retained as New Yorks administrative advisor or governor. He founded for the Dutch East India/e Company New Amsterdam in 1632 and ceded it in 1663 or so).
My family spent more than a million dollars on blankets, food, medicine for the Indians as he ministered to them. My family was broke by the time they moved back to Indiana/Ohio area. There is a road going down the middle of the Res that bears the family name.
I hate when the uniformed activists blame the white man, or the government. While the US was beset by corrupt Indian Agents, my family paid everything they owned because of the battle at the Little Big Horn. Atonement for Custer’s Sins against the Indians. I know for a fact, and now you do too, that there were some good people in this Nation.
Won the battle, lost the war.
I have visited the actual battlefield several times in the past year. It is surprising to me that the battle only took a few hours. Custer kicked a hornets nest and paid for it
“Almost all massacres or ambushes in history, the other side comes back for revenge.”
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So few Americans know of the loss of the 3 Roman Legions you wrote about.
My beloved is a student of history and I learned of this event, what lead to it, what happened after it, and the insanity it caused on behalf of the Roman leader.
A great bit of history.
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