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Post by bigpond on Feb 20, 2005 17:55:07 GMT -6
Red Star first thought thought Custer's plan was good,The Crow scouts insisted that the Sioux scouts had already seen the army,and would attack first.And that they thought it best to attack at once,that day,capture the Sioux horses which would stop them from moving.Custer replied "yes it shall be done as you say"but he still didn't believe the command had been spotted,and wasn't convinced either that the village was were they said it was,He according to "Gray" pg 239 listened and accepted the the unanimous conviction of the scouts.It was unwelcome news,which he first resisted but then reluctantly accepted,for it meant he would have to attack that afternoon under circumstances less favourable than expected. To me Custer hasn't made up his mind at this point,but what followed did,he is met by Tom Custer & Calhoun who have brought news that Indians were spotted rifling through a pack which had been dropped,and that they fled in the direction of the village.Custer at this point was very angry that the troops had been moved forward against his orders and sent them back.Ironically the "Little Wolf"party of seven lodges never reached the village till after Custer's annilation.Boyer told Herendeen that he had just spotted some Indians lurking around the camp[one had come within 150 yards of Herendeen]then Custer rode in saying he had been unable to see the Sioux village.After hearing what had been said thats when HE decided move and attack the village. Then the scouts contradict themselves by repeating to Custer about the size of the village,and that the warriors would put up a desperate fight. To me he has overreacted,then to split your force not knowing what your going to meet,on what kind of terrain,how are you going to support each other with minimum ammunition,pack train 3 hours behind. That isn't the mark of a good general,soldier maybe ! Custer & Reno attacked the camp with only 350 men ! Benteen & McDougall were roughly 8 miles behind with 260 men
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Post by steve wilk on Feb 20, 2005 22:52:56 GMT -6
The Sioux village was not expecting any attack; the same surprise could have been accomplished with 35 men, let alone 350. The pack train was moving way too slow for Custer to wait. He waits, the village flees (remember he is under the impression the regiment has been discovered) or worse, he gets attacked like Crook was.
As for attacking an unknown number on unknown terrain; I just mentioned in my last post that Indian fighting was "crap shoot" if you will. Too many Custer critics point out tactical errors based on 20th or 21st century warefare. Many times a commander just had to fly by the seat of his pants, so to speak. Custer's "plan" was developed moment by moment based on the events unfolding. Throw away the book when it came to Indian fighting. You fought them when and where you found them. Terrain and numbers be damned. Typically Indians made noise and raised a cloud of dust, fired a few shots and dispersed. There was no reason to believe this would not happen again. Had Custer known about Crook's battle of 17 June and that the Sioux were not running; I believe his whole "strategy", what there was of it, differs. Girard did not wave his hat and scream "here come your Indians, in force and ready for a fight". No, he said they were "running like devils".
Interesting commentary from Michno's _Encyclopedia of Indian Wars_, p356:
"In 216 instances, the military and Indians come upon each other in meeting enagagements. In virtually every unexpected encounter, the military's response was to attack, in spite of having little or no time to plan. There were also 206 instances in which the military followed the Indians to their camps or villages and attacked, regardless of numbers. That was the whole point of the pursuit; find the Indians and attack. No commander.....would expend the time and energy to track Indians only to call it off .....even with unfavorable odds.
Of the attacks that followed a pursuit....we find only 60 of them were planned out; 119 were spontaneous. With this in mind, it is easy to see why Custer made his attack.....He found the village; it was his duty to attack. Those who say Custer attacked to hastily, without thorough reconnaissance, can see from this data that his actions were well within the norm. Those who condemn him do not understand the basic tactics of the western Indian wars."
So numbers were not that big a deal. Three hundred against a few thousand were not overwhelming odds. Certainly not with another three hundred on the way; in addition to another four hundred coming with Terry. And again, toss out the book. Too many Custer critics try to apply conventional WWII type tactical standards to Indian combat. Doesn't apply.
An interesting scenario comes to mind regarding Benteen. His orders instructed him to "pitch into anything" he found. Suppose he DID encounter a sattelite village? He either drives them toward the main village or gets into a pitched battle; In the latter case he could not have come to Reno's assistance. His battle would have drawn warriors away from Custer and Reno. Possibly we then have three sieges going on. Perhaps there would have been a Benteen's Last Stand?
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Post by bigpond on Feb 21, 2005 17:47:11 GMT -6
Steve, you have cost me 45$ Michno's Encyclopedia of Indian Wars and Custer Myths more for the creaking book cases will get back to you soon Have you read GAC by Fred Dustin,a good read
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Post by crzhrse on Feb 24, 2005 13:45:05 GMT -6
Mr. Wilk states that it was rare that Indians were the aggressor when it came to fighting soldiers. I beg to differ. Beecher's Island, The Wagon Box Fight, The Hayfield Fight, Rosebud, Adobe Walls, Julesburg, Wolf Mtn, plus many others put that argument to rest.
The military's unfounded phobia of Indians running was fatal at the LBH.
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Post by Steve Wilk on Feb 25, 2005 9:36:41 GMT -6
I never made such a statement. But the examples you give are few in a fifty year struggle that included nearly a thousand battles and skirmishes. The typical response when ATTACKED was to scatter and regroup; stage a counterattack if possible; if a village was attacked, fight a delaying action until their families could get away. In the examples you cite, the Indians had decided numbers advantages and still could not prevail. Adobe Walls II in 1874 was not even a military fight; the Indians attacked a couple dozen civilians and still, while posessing an over ten to one advantage, could not defeat them. At Julesburg in 1865; a Capt. with a dozen soldiers and a howitzer was able to charge through a thousand warriors and make it to Ft Rankin. At Beecher's Island, Hayfield and Wagon Box, a handful of soldiers/scouts were able to hold off several times their numbers. So even when Indians did attack with vastly superior numbers, victory was not assured. More important were discipline, tactics and tenacity, which often the Indians, even great warriors like Crazy Horse, did not grasp. Any coach will tell you a team beats a group of individuals the majority of the time. Soldiers fought as a team, Indians as individuals.
This scenario was played out on the frontier time and again. When a certain pattern is established, one takes it as the usual one. Little Big Horn was hardly the norm. I never stated Indians were rarely the aggressors against soldiers. I implied that their traditional response when ATTACKED by said soldiers was to scatter:
"....In their traditional response when confronted with soldiers, the Indians made a lot of noise, raised a lot of dust, but in the end fled or fired a few annoying but generally harmless, long range shots." (Maj. Robert E. Morris, "Custer Made a Good Decision: A Leavenworth Appreciation" Journal of the West Vol. 16 #4 Oct. 1977 p. 97; quoted in Liddic's _Vanishing Victory_ p. 34)
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Post by crzhrs on Feb 25, 2005 14:53:29 GMT -6
And I never said that the Indians always won when they were the aggressor. You are correct about Adobe Walls . . . it was civilizians, albeit Buffalo Hunters, which was who the Comanche/Kiowa wanted to take out. What saved the hunters was they were in a fortified position, likewise the military at the Wagon Box and Hayfield Fights were only saved because of being fortified.
I agree that when the military attacked an Indian village, the warrior's priority were their families, and to get them away as quickly as possible.
Still, Indians were fully capable of being the aggressor and man-for-man were superior in combat. Their disadvantages were lack of organization, resources, and replacing a killed/wounded man.
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Post by bigpond on Feb 28, 2005 17:59:43 GMT -6
And dont forget armourment
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Post by weir on Mar 2, 2005 12:12:33 GMT -6
Indians losses are about 250 warriors.
An Indian of the Reserve said to agent Mac Laughin : "the Hunkpapas have 160 dead, and the others tribes more".
George Herendeen : "The Indians losses should have been as high as Custer's".
From an interviewer of Gall : "He said the Indians wanted to hide their losses but it was known that the Indians losses were heavy, as high as Custer's".
Kanipe counted 75 bodies in funeral teepees in the village. Many were carried by their families when they fled.
With the Custer and mounted Northern Cheyennes Wolf Tooth meeting early in the battle, with 800 cartridges found on Luce Ridge without any losses in the Custer's ranks, do you really think the Indians losses were low ?
It's absurd. The Indians wanted to vanish about this battle. They surely wouldn't admit that the Little Bighorn was a real disaster for them too. They have never lost so much warriors in a single day since the beginning of the war in the Great Plaines with Grattan's affair.
Those heavy losses explain the fleeing warriors before Terry's coming, and the shy attacks on June 26th in the Reno-Benteen position.
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Post by weir on Mar 2, 2005 12:15:01 GMT -6
Perhaps there would have been a Benteen's Last Stand?[/quote][/i]
I surely would have appreciate it. Benteen is the most disgusting officer of the regiment, I would say of the military. And I don't even want to talk about Reno...
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Post by bigpond on Mar 6, 2005 16:19:55 GMT -6
XAV, Indians losses are about 250 warriors.
Your total Cheyenne/Dakota deaths is pretty extreme.
The RESEARCH REVIEW the Journal of the Little Big Horn Associates cites the the following
Cheyenne 18 [including 1 chief-Lame White Man] Dakota 38[including 1 chief-Black Moon] total 56 which is backed up by several respected Authors On the Custer battlefield,the vast majority of hostile deaths would have been around Custer Hill,when they were going for the Coup-de-grace. It is reasonable to expect 5 or 6 ? may have died of there wounds at a later date,as did 5 enlisted men from Reno/Benteen command.
Also if you consider at the Rosebud,Crook's command expended 25,000 rounds for the loss of some 20 warriors,and had the aid of Infantry.
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Post by custerstillstands on Mar 7, 2005 5:01:25 GMT -6
One Indian told to Indian Agent of Stand Rock that
"The Indians tried to hide their losses, but the Hunkpapa alone lost 160 warriors"
In Custer in Photographs by Mark Katz, there is the name of 61 warriors dead. I think they lost 300 warriors in the battle, and Nelson Miles and George Herendeen, with McLaughlin and other Indian Agent, agree with me.
At Fetterman Massacre, 60 warriors were killed when AMBUSHING 80 soldiers. At Beecher's Island, Indians lost 50 warriors, or more.
And at the Rosebud, Indians actually LOST the battle because Crook had all the field in his hands and if the Indians lost 36 warriors, Crook lost 9 people, not 263.
Indians always lost more people than the white in the battle, because there was not good disciplin. How could Indians lost the battle of Beecher's Island when the soldiers were outnumbered by 1 to 15 ?
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Post by weir on Mar 7, 2005 7:17:25 GMT -6
XAV, Indians losses are about 250 warriors. Your total Cheyenne/Dakota deaths is pretty extreme. The RESEARCH REVIEW the Journal of the Little Big Horn Associates cites the the following Cheyenne 18 [including 1 chief-Lame White Man] Dakota 38[including 1 chief-Black Moon] total 56 which is backed up by several respected Authors On the Custer battlefield,the vast majority of hostile deaths would have been around Custer Hill,when they were going for the Coup-de-grace. It is reasonable to expect 5 or 6 ? may have died of there wounds at a later date,as did 5 enlisted men from Reno/Benteen command. Also if you consider at the Rosebud,Crook's command expended 25,000 rounds for the loss of some 20 warriors,and had the aid of Infantry. I quoted Mac Laughin, Herendeen, Kanipe and an interviewer of Gall. One more, Red Horse : "Soldiers killed 136 Sioux and wounded 120 more." And the complete quote of the interviewer of Gall : "Another battle [after LBH] would have cost to the Indians losses they couldn't have supported." I could summarize the dilemma with a Custer's quote during Yellowstone : "Indians always want to hide their losses." The 56 dead warriors you quoted are those you have the name. Even Kanipe on the days after LBH found 75 bodies let on the village area.
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Post by Walt Cross on Mar 20, 2005 23:58:10 GMT -6
Source: "Harvest of Barren Regrets the Army Career of Fredrick W. Benteen" by Charles K. Mills. Page 279.
"During my fight with the Indians," Reno wrote, "I had the heartiest support from officers and men; but the conspicuous services of Brevet Colonel F. W. Benteen I desire to call attention to especially, for if ever a soldier deserved recognition by his Government for distinguished services he certainly does."
Without exception, those officers who survived and commented on the battle echoed Reno's sentiments about Benteen. "if it hadn't been for Benteen," Lieutenant Gibson told his wife confidentially, "every one of us whould have been massacred...I think he is one of the coolest and bravest men I have ever known."
End of citation. That is how his contemporaries, the very men that were there, thought of him. I'm no big fan of Benteen, but he did some very good work once the kettle was in the fire.
Walt Cross
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Post by weir on Mar 26, 2005 10:31:13 GMT -6
Nelson Miles wrote about the behavior of Benteen, Reno, the Army and the Reno's Court of Inquiry after LBH when they insulted Custer and his dead command :
"It is so easy to kick a dead lion".
I'm not thinking Benteen was a bad commander, nor he was not courageous. I'm seriously convinced, and prooves are, that Benteen on June 25th has a great responsability of Custer's defeat. Reno either.
In the contrary of you, Mr. Cross, both reno and Benteen knew that point, knew that the sentence of Weir "somebody shall know of this" will chase theirs careers, that is the reason they were obliged to invent supporting signatures, false testimonies and false map to explain the battle.
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Son of a Cavalryman
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Post by Son of a Cavalryman on Mar 26, 2005 10:36:08 GMT -6
Xav; that's bunk!
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