OH you pointed headed so n so, the indians way of life was going to end anyway, not to mention the indian raids on people living by themselves or in small towns.. cant witewash history
Hey, I was just pointing out how aerodynamic your head is.
There is no doubt that Native Americans committed atrocities. What I am saying is that both sides were commuting horrendous acts and that for us to wail about the 7th Cavalry getting paid back in the same coin they used is hypocritical. If the 7th Cavalry had won that battle they would have proceeded to kill as many of those tribes as they could regardless of many of them being women, children, and old people. Custer was fond of riding into Indian camps in surprise attacks and securing noncombatant hostages and forcing the warriors to surrender - a true bastard. In retreat he would place hostage Indian women and children among his troops and the warriors would disperse afraid that shots directed against the column might hit their prisoners. When the 7th Cavalry attacked an Indian village they would kill everyone indiscriminately until they subdued the village.
Custer provided the military logic for tactical use of human shields in his book My Life on the Plains, published two years before the Battle of the Little Big Horn:
Indians contemplating a battle, either offensive or defensive, are always anxious to have their women and children removed from all danger…For this reason I decided to locate our [military] camp as close as convenient to [Chief Black Kettle's Cheyenne] village, knowing that the close proximity of their women and children, and their necessary exposure in case of conflict, would operate as a powerful argument in favor of peace, when the question of peace or war came to be discussed
General Custer was a hard man in hard times and he should be judged not on our modern perspective but on the times he lived in. That being said, we can't wail and gnash our teeth over the the fate of the 7th Cavalry at the hands of the Indians because that is how they fought themselves.