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Post by crzhrs on Oct 8, 2007 13:06:52 GMT -6
Harps:
Correct about no one saying it was Custer just a leader in buckskin. There were a number of buckskin clad officers. And didn't someone say Custer had taken off his jacket due to the heat? It's possible Miller jumped to conclusions and felt he may have had a "scoop"
Custer killed early in the fight would explain the rest of the command falling apart and Miller was using White man's reasoning to explain why the 7th fell so shockingly.
___________
High Noon? (Do not foresake my oh my darlin')
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Post by Melani on Oct 8, 2007 13:35:34 GMT -6
Could have been Yates?
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Post by BrokenSword on Oct 8, 2007 14:58:02 GMT -6
Melani-
If the tale is true it could have been many people, including an NCO or civilian or two who also wore buckskins. I think Miller's point was that since the charge halted, recovered the fallen soldier and then fell back, that reaction would only have happened if it was someone with the importance of Custer himself.
M
P.S. Miller's book was my first 'adult' book also. It was given to me by a neighbor friend of my parents'. I was about the same age as you and the cover on mine was as you described yours to be. I believe that Miller did the artwork for that cover. The book's impact on me was the vivid picture of the horror of losing a fight to a completely unforgiving foe.
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Post by gary on Oct 8, 2007 17:13:00 GMT -6
Gordie and Crzhrs,
DHM definitely says that it was Custer who was killed or seriously injured at the ford. This is one of the central themes of the book.
He says that White Cow Bull witnessed this, but did not know that it was Custer at the time. He also says that three of the Crow scouts witnessed the incident as well and that he got the story second hand from Pretty Shield, the widow of Goes Ahead.
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Post by elisabeth on Oct 9, 2007 3:59:37 GMT -6
We've often talked about the use of symbolic language -- for instance, that "the soldiers were all drunk" could mean simply that "they acted as if they were drunk". Just wondering whether the Custer-shot-at-Ford-B story could have started life as a metaphor for "he'd had it from the moment he reached Ford B" or similar, and evolved into this circumstantial narrative over time?
Probably a silly thought. But not impossible ...?
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Post by "Hunk" Papa on Oct 9, 2007 7:25:54 GMT -6
Elisabeth, even with the idea of symbolic language being mistranslated by the less than expert interpreters, it seems to me to be a leap too far to project that 'Mr. X shot at ford' becomes 'he/they [wouldn't have known who was shot] couldn't win as soon as they reached Ford B.' My impression has always been that the Lakota and Cheyenne responses to questions would have been rather simplistic and unlikely to involve any sophisticated thought patterns. In any case, the only written records are those provided by the interviewers who, as Fred says elsewhere, were most likely fitting what they heard to their own template of what happened. So how do we know for sure that the Indians interviewed were actually referring to Ford B when they spoke of 'someone important' being shot at a ford? They couldn't read maps and were quite likely to have been talking about one ford when the interviewer via an interpreter meant another. I am sure it has been stressed on these boards more than once, but the Indian testimony does need to be examined with one eye on the interviewer's agenda.
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Post by elisabeth on Oct 9, 2007 8:46:03 GMT -6
OK; agree; dumb idea.
Good point about which ford. My own impression (wrong?) is that they were pretty good with maps, both drawing them (e.g. Mrs. Spotted Horn Bull) and reading them (e.g. Siting Bull's correction to the -- was it New York Herald? -- map of the battlefield in Graham). They'd have been able to be precise IF maps were proffered at the time their interviews were taking place ... but did Miller show maps when asking these questions? Presumably not, or there'd be no doubt.
So frustrating: Camp with his scrappy notes, Miller (presumably) not using maps, Graham trusting implicitly the word of anyone who was an officer and a gentleman, Dustin and pals blinded by their temperance prejudices, interpreters not subject to quality control ... Tempting to think "we" would have gone about this far better. But of course we too are the products of our time, and I dare say that today's historic events are being recorded in ways that will infuriate the historians of the future every bit as much.
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Post by harpskiddie on Oct 9, 2007 10:22:19 GMT -6
The best Camp interviews are those not done by Camp, but by others using a Camp-prepared questionnaire. The basic problem with these, of course, is that Camp's quizbook presupposed certain things as facts [Ford B for example], and featured a simplistic map [sometimes, sometimes not] which seemed to mostly confuse the interviewees.
Anyone who has had the privilege of attempting to read Camp's notes would gladly smack him upside the head, were he here, and ask [probably not in these words]: "What on earth were you thinking?" Still, he is owed big time by us all.
Gordie, horse - says horse brown, but not darker brown, sa ground dirt he thirst NOT dark brown........
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Post by "Hunk" Papa on Oct 9, 2007 12:06:53 GMT -6
Ugh! this wasicu Gordie speak heap good Injun.
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Post by Melani on Oct 9, 2007 14:35:17 GMT -6
I suspect that in a couple of places, Miller was voicing his own opinion, formed as a result of what he was told, so that "a guy in buckskins got shot" was turned into "Custer got shot." Convis points this out in his mention of Miller's account of "the last man to die." First it "may well have been Keogh," then a few pages later, "it was Keogh."
Of course, I really sorta like that scenario...
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Post by mwkeogh on Oct 9, 2007 15:32:50 GMT -6
The best Camp interviews are those not done by Camp, but by others using a Camp-prepared questionnaire. The basic problem with these, of course, is that Camp's quizbook presupposed certain things as facts [Ford B for example], and featured a simplistic map [sometimes, sometimes not] which seemed to mostly confuse the interviewees. These are good points Gordie, but I would take issue with your views on Camp's maps. This is the one area I think he was more accurate on than many others who attempted to map the battlefield. Camp was a trained civil surveyor and he actually used a barometer as well as a hand level, by which he could determine local elevations. He recorded his compass readings from all major points of the battlefield and recorded distances between major points. Camp's maps were a strength in my view, not a weakness. He had a professional draftsman prepare a master from which blueprints could be made of the Little Big Horn valley which to me appears to be quite accurate even today.
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Post by harpskiddie on Oct 9, 2007 16:39:43 GMT -6
keogh:
I'm speaking to the map that sometimes accompanied his questionnaires, not his finished maps, which are usually quite accurate as to the terrain. His notations are a horse of another color, although I must say that his markers map is highly accurate as to the markers themselves.
Gordie, I see a bad moon rising. I see trouble on the way. I hear earthquakes and lightning. I see bad times today.........................................................
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Post by Montana Bab on Oct 9, 2007 22:12:53 GMT -6
There are sure some good points being made in the thread, but in discussing the accounts made by the Indians, I have always wondered how there could be any accuracy at all, if one considers the remarks made that there was so much smoke and dust that you couldn't see much of anything! That coupled with the reality that they were busy trying to kill all they could while not being killed themselves.
Too simplistic?
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Post by gocav76 on Oct 9, 2007 22:36:51 GMT -6
Montana Bab, Do you remember in 1971 on the Johnny Carson show, he had Chief Red Fox who was 5 years old during the battle,said he watched the battle.He wrote a book Memoirs of Chief Red Fox.
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Post by Montana Bab on Oct 9, 2007 22:50:06 GMT -6
gocav76, Shucks! I missed that show. Now that would be a good read. But I'll bet it was a short story! Bab
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