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Post by Melani on Jul 28, 2007 11:38:54 GMT -6
I think Keogh's assignment had more to do with the fact that Custer wasn't stupid--he took the best and steadiest officers with him, with the exception of Benteen, and we know why he wouldn't necessarily have welcomed ol' Fred.
Libbie looks like she is enjoying the attention. Keogh looks somewhere between striking a tough frontiersman pose and attempting to annoy GAC. He's also living up to the well-known Keogh penchant for placing himself in the very center of the photo. Custer looks p****d off.
I have a feeling that Monaseetah had more to do with availablitily than anything else--there was a raving double standard in those days, and it wasn't a big surprise if guys were fooling around, as long as it didn't become public knowledge. But heaven help a woman who did the same! I was really quite impressed with Custer's description to Libbie, in those auction letters, of how a guy could tell if a woman was inviting him to illicite intimacy--a lot of it sounded like things somebody might do unknowingly that could be misinterpreted by an over-eager guy. It must have been incredibly difficult for a woman who was naturally friendly and outgoing not to be thought of as behaving badly, even if she had no such intention. I'm afraid if we modern ladies were to time-travel back and behave as we do in daily life in the 21st century, we would not be well thought of!
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Post by Melani on Jul 28, 2007 11:41:47 GMT -6
Okay, now the pop-up ad says, "Dating--Keep Him or Dump Him?" ;D
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Post by Tricia on Jul 28, 2007 12:51:40 GMT -6
Okay, Melani, I'll play. Not taking into account that I am a lapsed Roman Catholic, y'all can keep the Boy General. I'll take Keogh in a heartbeat!
Yes, GAC looks a bit haughtied-off in the Heart River photo ...
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Post by Melani on Jul 28, 2007 15:03:55 GMT -6
Okay, Melani, I'll play. Not taking into account that I am a lapsed Roman Catholic, y'all can keep the Boy General. I'll take Keogh in a heartbeat! Excellent taste, my dear! But you'll have to fight Elisabeth, Abby, and me!
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Post by Tricia on Jul 28, 2007 15:47:32 GMT -6
And damn if that Yellow Hair doesn't prefer we squaw types ....
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Post by crzhrs on Jul 30, 2007 8:48:44 GMT -6
That was Custer's only good side . . . a la John Barrymore and the Great Profile!
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Post by rch on Jul 31, 2007 1:25:55 GMT -6
I strongly disagree that there was any hint of punishment in the assignment of officers to command the rear guard. Once Custer decided that the rear guard would consit of three companies, the commanders were Benteen, Yates, and Keogh. These were the three senior captains present with the regiment. I have a problem with the idea that the three senior captains of the regiment would just happen to stand in need of punishmnet on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th day of the march. Aside from the rear guard commanders' own companies, the other two may have been assigned as punishment.
Elisabeth,
Edgerly could have given his wife the same assurance at any time during the march from Lincoln, if that is what he is trying to do. His July 4th letter is actually a second letter and appears to have been written because it would be sent out via Ft Ellis. He may be referring to something he wrote in his first letter.
Edgerly might mean that some interpreted Custer's action as showing favoritism toward Keogh. I don't think there is any way to see Keogh as being out of favor with Custer.
Custer accepted Keogh's expanation of the lost pack. I think it likely that Keogh was the man who ordered the regiment forward to the near the Crow's Nest; and that Custer accepted that decision as well.
I don't think that Custer was taking any great risk when he said that the last to company commander to report would escort the pack train. I am sure that if it had been Benteen, Keogh or Yates, he would have overlooked the fact and appointed the next to last to the escort. In fact that's another interpretation that could be placed on Edgerly's statement. Perhaps Keogh did report last. McDougall in his testimony at the RCOI doesn't mention that he reported last.
rch
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Post by crzhrs on Jul 31, 2007 6:37:07 GMT -6
Wasn't Custer furious that "someone" had ordered the command forward? Didn't he say to his brother "Who ordered this?"
I don't remember who overheard this, but if true someone may have paid for making decisions without Custer's OK. In addition the movement of the command so close to the village may have tipped off the Indians (which apparently did not happen but was unknown to the command at the time)
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Post by elisabeth on Aug 1, 2007 3:09:01 GMT -6
rch,
True, all we have for McDougall reporting last (apart from the fact of him getting the pack-train duty) is one enlisted man's account -- John Bailey, Co. B saddler, in Custer and Company, p. 81. Camp records: "Bailey says that on June 25, McDougall was to have the advance, but he was asleep when Custer had officers call and Custer, hearing of this, told him he would have to take the rear guard that day. Bailey says some of the Company wept when they learned this." And yes, there could well have been some jiggery-pokery over the order of reporting; Godfrey, in his Field Diary, p. 11, complains about just that: "I went to see if everything was ready & I reported just as McIntosh reported but Cook [sic] recognized him first & so I came in No. 10. I thought I certainly would be of the advance but some Co. Comdrs reported without seeing to anything and so got the lead". But I do think a case can be made for Keogh being out of favour with Custer. There's evidence for tensions in their relationship going back as far as the CW, but never mind that for now; if we just look at the run-up to LBH, there are signs that all was not sweetness and light. Custer's last known word on Keogh before they parted in 1875 was, effectively, to accuse him of malingering. And it seems more than likely that Custer's dark mutterings on the 22nd (about someone complaining about him to HQ) may have been directed at Keogh -- as he was the only 7th Cavalry officer to have had Terry's ear in private, away from the regiment. (On his escort trip on June 8th/9th. He went on the Far West with Terry; no-one else did.) I can't prove it, of course; just suggesting that he's as likely to have been out of favour as in. The context of Edgerly's remark certainly implies that. In my opinion, at least.
Does his July 3rd letter exist anywhere? If so, it might throw some light on the matter ...
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Post by rch on Aug 3, 2007 3:32:16 GMT -6
crzhrs,
Girard testified at the RCOI that Custer was angry about the regiment being moved up. I believe Varnum said about the the same thing. Reno insisted he had nothing to do with the move. Reno's attorney, perhaps trying to imply that Tom Custer gave the order asked Girard if Tom Custer had some special assignment that morning. Girard supposed Tom Custer simply was in command of his company.
Keogh is my candidate for the person who gave the order. He commanded the rear guard. He was probably the officer of the day, and I think he would have the authority to issue that kind of order. Finally he made a report to Custer, which Custer seemed to accept without further criticism.
Elisabeth,
I don't know if the first letter exists or where it might be.
I looked over the two biographies of Keogh that I have trying to find references to Mrs. Edgerly and found nothing significant. According to Nichols the Edgerlys were married in St Paul on 27 Oct 1875, so it's certainly possible that even if Keogh didn't know the lady before that they could have formed a friendship during the Winter of 1875 - 6. Mrs. Edgerly also was in St. Paul at the time of the LBH. The wedding date is curious because it doesn't leave much time for a honeymoon before travel to Bismark became difficult. Edgerly might have taken leave over the Winter.
In "Scalp Dance" in addition to the letter there is Edgerly's telegram to Louis Blume at Auerbach F & Co. (Nichols has Mrs. Edgerly's maiden name as Blum). If Auerbach was some sort of department store maybe Keogh was looking for a discount. Yates after all had thanked Mrs. Edgerly's father for taking care of Yates' mother. I wonder if there was anything in the St. Paul newspapers.
rch
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Post by rch on Aug 3, 2007 4:09:36 GMT -6
I did a search for Auerbach & company St Paul MN. I got the location of the papers of a man named Boyle who in the 1870's and beyond worked for the wholesale dry goods firm of Auerbach, Finch, Culbertson and Company.
Also I found something indicating that Edgerly's 2nd letter was auctioned off. I didn't make a note of the date.
rch
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Post by Dark Cloud on Aug 3, 2007 6:54:15 GMT -6
TWC rode to his brother on CN to deliver the message about the breadbox and Indians, etc., a duty he took upon himself and not at anyone's order, so far as we know. He was not involved with any portion of the incident but felt he alone needed to tell Custer. He was up and active and probably did give the order to move, since Custer had told them to be ready by 0800. (I don't think Reno's attorney was trying to install that.)
Custer yelled at TWC as he approached, Girard said, but calmed after TWC explained the reason. Which, a reasonable guess would be that TWC often acted for his brother because he could anticipate - correctly - what Custer would do and want. The regiment had been, they thought, discovered. He was always the number two, whatever the official roles were.
It's been a favored theory that the 7th had an official and an actual chain of command, given the nepotistic makeup, and that when a Custer was hurt, the actual took over and, having different priorities, produced the counterproductive moves and actions that greatly aided the disaster.
Zippo proof, or possibility of same, but it is consistent with what is known and doesn't conflict with anything on the field.
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Post by elisabeth on Aug 3, 2007 9:25:50 GMT -6
rch, Re Auerbach -- brilliantly spotted! Hadn't made that connection at all; had assumed the cretonne commission was simply some kind of vote of confidence in Gracie's taste. As it could also have been, I suppose; being married in St. Paul and having a relative in the trade, what more likely than that the Edgerlys had furnished their own quarters with stuff from Auerbach's? In which case you can visualise Keogh visiting, admiring their nice things, and asking where they got them ... whereupon Gracie offers to get the same for him, possibly at a discount as you suggest, as and when he wishes. And the timing makes sense in that (it seems) the suspended pay had just come through by June, so any officer planning home improvements could at last afford them. Interesting, Girard's impression that TWC was in command of his company. Obviously he's not himself a military man, but if TWC was in any formal sense ADC to Custer, you'd think Girard would have noticed ... Agree, DC, that it would be agreeable to think it was TWC's amateurish bungling that precipitated the debacle. Hard to see, though. TWC's actual experience of commanding men in the field, or anywhere else, was strikingly minimal. If you look at the timeline for his 7th Cavalry career: www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pardos/TomCusterChron.htmlhe seems to have spent vast swathes of it either sick or on leave, and he was a very newly-minted captain at the time of LBH ... How ready grown-ups who'd commanded whole regiments in battle in the CW would have been to defer to this little pipsqueak isn't easy to judge. But then again -- maybe that could have been the root of the problem. If it came to a schism at a crucial moment, with some obeying the actual chain of command and others adhering to anything with the surname Custer, it could account for precisely the sort of mess that came about ...
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Post by Dark Cloud on Aug 3, 2007 10:20:15 GMT -6
I make no implication about TWC's amateur bungling, primarily but not exclusively because I don't think he was a bungler. He was, however, a brother, and the whole unstated point of inflated numbers of family and cronies is what? Dinner conversation?
Strikes me he was attuned to his brother and didn't misspeak but was the acknowledged consigliere of the commander. If TWC said 'mount', it wasn't because of his resume they obeyed, but everyone knew he was speaking for the boss and didn't resent it. Not even Benteen thought this inappropriate. When he spoke, the others heard Custer speaking, and it was accepted.
Again, he takes it upon himself to be the one to notify his brother about the breadbox incident, deferring to nobody else. He mounts, passes the head of the regiment which coincidently moves, and nobody but TWC is yelled at, and this curtailed with info which produced the result in Custer TWC had foreseen.
I suspect he sent Kanipe in correct anticipation of Custer's wants and needs rather than instruction, and that Custer possibly sent Martin without knowing of Kanipe's jaunt. I suspect this because Martin's note isn't as demanding and excited as Kanipe's. This, if Kanipe is truthful.
But I certainly think that a deflected movement down MTC with indistinct command change or immediate agenda would produce exactly the sort of movements that apparently were made, and made badly, in a direction neither safe for defense nor conducive to offense. It feels like a reactive move, not a designed one. And I suspect Custer's nepotism bit him that day, if protecting a wounded family member became an issue somewhere in MTC.
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Post by crzhrs on Aug 3, 2007 11:50:08 GMT -6
The chain of command is very important in the military. When a subordinate (TC) starts issuing orders without the knowledge of the commanding officer (GAC) then mistakes may be made. If Kanipe left on TC's orders without GC knowing, then GC ordering Martini back to Benteen then the confusion that resulted when Kanipe shows up and says one thing and then Martini shows up and says something else may have led to the makings of the end for Custer.
Both messengers gave the impression of Custer about to gain a victory, however, but the mix-up about who goes back for the packs and ammo and who is suppose to go to Custer is revealed.
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