After reading a thread on this site discussing Frederick Benteen, I created an account to rectify what was absolute fiction and speculation about the Captain.
I deal in profiling people as in FBI type profiling in psychological realms to understand who they are.
The link here is to Benteen's first account letter of the battle and if people will read it some very troubling things jump out.
www.astonisher.com/archives/museum/frederick_beneen_little_big_horn.htmlI ask readers to put themselves after a 9 11 type event where you worked with 300 people who had just been slaughtered telling what you experienced to a spouse. In Benteen's letter, his focus is without emotion. He speaks of none of these men nor their families loss. He is about as computer analytical a non human could be.
Three things jump out. 1, Benteen acts as if he were in command. 2, Benteen coolly talks about promotions in how these people's deaths will benefit them. 3, Benteen, coldly includes the "bring packs" order with instructions it will be "a matter of interest" as in value. 4, Benteen literally lies twice.
His first lie is that Custer's command cheered and alerted the Indian camp from 4 miles away. High Plains contours and air in June in tests show cars, dogs barking etc... can only be heard on premium conditions at 2 miles, and that, faintly. Benteen is well aware of sound travel as that is how an army survives.
His second lie which is astounding is he blames Custer for attacking the Indian camp stating "if Custer had waited Gibbons and Terry's commands to come up the camp would have been surrounded.
Benteen knew very well that the Indians were not going to wait 2 days for the commands to come up as they would have immediately fled as they always did.
Benteen also knew that the 7th Cavalry was the hammer in the operation meant to flush the Indians into the anvil of Terry and Gibbons who were to crush them.
There are no excuses in this as Benteen knows very well military protocols as the 7th had been operational from the Washita to the Yellowstone in the same exact operations.
In this entire letter, Benteen exhibits no more emotion than if 300 ants had been stepped upon. This in a profile is astounding as in actual recordings the entire 7th Cavalry officer corp was known to associate intimately with each other on social levels.
As stated, if one places themselves on normal work levels with people one associates with there would be extreme emotion even in military circles in modern Iraq warfare over people one knows have died, yet Benteen expresses not one sympathy for any of the dead or one thought of the wives of these officers who Benteen knew very well.
While researching other subjects, I came across the personal journal of Col. Richard Irving Dodge and a telling event comes out in Dodge's 1875 Black Hills Expedition in Capt. Benteen shows up with part of the 7th Cavalry being dispatched by Gen. Terry to the Black Hills.
One must understand in Dodge's profile, that he is the consumate gentleman. He is renowned by the people of that region as one of the greatest citizens and a great judge of character.
Dodge has his camp set up and is superior officer. Protocol indicates that Benteen should pay a courtesy call on Dodge, but Benteen ignores him.
What follows in Dodge's journal is then his hurt feelings, but it expresses Benteen as a soldier and a human.
Dodge watches Benteen and sees he places his command on a hill, exposed to scorching sun and heat. Benteen never bothers to make the camp comfortable (shade awnings). The soldiers are forced to haul water from a stream hundreds of yards away. The horses of course are also exposed to the same Dakota heat, wind and extremes.
In personal letters, both Dodge and Custer are benevolent gentlemen quite well favored by their superiors in Gen. Crook, Gen. Sherman and Gen. Sheridan. Both are noted of some fame and of the upper class in America and in both cases Frederick Benteen is shown to go out of his way to be rude and treat superior officers of note with disdain starting a "feud" that both officers simply let go.
Too many times fans of Benteen or detractors of Gen. Custer point to the the good soldier, Capt. Benteen was in battle as an excuse for his actual profile.
In family life, Benteen expresses affection for his immediate family, but for all others in life, especially those who God has shown fame upon he exhibits pettiness and what amounts to very low self esteem in antagonizing people who have done nothing to the man.
This in research profling of Benteen's character or lack there of is more than speculation about the Little Big Horn battles. It weighs heavily on the personal and gives clues to why Gen. Nelson Appleton Miles laid blame on Benteen for what happened at the battle and why the heirachy of military officers made certain that both Benteen and Reno were punished eventually.
Even Reno's court martial records record another facet of Benteen which historians in their zeal to blame Custer fail to examine.
Reno was charged with basically stalking a married woman with sexual harrassment. In profiling, Reno literally lost it at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in being coward. He simply was not up to the task.
He was given command and reacted in ways to destroy his career and vent upon his need to be accepted. This is what triggered the stalking and eratic behavior as he was traumatized and unbalanced knowing in his failure the slaughter occurred.
It was at this venture in crime that the facet of Benteen comes out. Reno approaches Benteen to enlist him to lie about the crime and get him off.
Benteen refuses to do this, but in profiling it is reasonable he is not doing this out of character but out of his old animosity "to those above him".
What is telling is Reno in this in Reno approaches Benteen certain he can get him to lie in covering up what happened. Out of all the officers of the 7th, Reno chooses Benteen.......not out of the blue, but in police detection logistics because Reno knows that Benteen before lied and covered up an event to save Reno. That event was the Little Big Horn.
I will not conjecture what Benteen and Reno lied about to cover up for each other as that is not the study here. What is the study is Benteen in on the record statements has been shown lying and being counted on by Reno later to lie again.
Frederick Benteen can still be a loving family man and a capable battle soldier, but Frederick Benteen can also be a vindictive, lying, rude and about as unfeeling as a modern terrorist speaking 9 11 dead.
It is past time that facts and not feelings weigh in the balance of the what and the who Frederick Benteen is.
For most people his letter 8 days after the battles, reveal a man who is not concerned at all about anyone including protecting his wife from the horrid details. (Historical letters of the period show other military officers would never discuss mayhem nor the condition of dead bodies "as women were considered too delicate to handle such things.) All of this is a psychological disconnect which is a psychopathy very troubling. One either feels for those you know or one is concerned about promotions. Frederick Benteen is the latter.