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Post by Mike Powell on Feb 1, 2009 20:07:47 GMT -6
I see this one from time to time on various threads; the fenced markers are below the crest, even more so when you consider the crest before earth moving. This generally crops up as some point of evidence for a theory of something or other. Without dragging in any grand unifying theories, just to focus on the crest as it was and the markers in relation to that:
1- Where was the highest point, in reference to the monument of today? And how much elevation has been lopped off?
2- Are the markers likely where the bodies were found?
3- If the answer to 2 is Yes, or there abouts, why might that struggling group have chosen not to be on the crest? If indeed their location was by choice.
I realize it's a minor leap from marker to body found to place of death to some semblance of a purposeful arrangement to nature of that purpose, but I just thought I'd ask and besides, if we can figure out that ethanol for cars will save the planet, can't we figure out why these guys aren't at the top?
Yours,
Mike Powell
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Post by Dark Cloud on Feb 1, 2009 20:42:26 GMT -6
1. In Where Custer Fell the photographic evidence indicates hardly anything was shaved off. In some ways, it looks a bit higher than that which the wooden box originally sat upon. Where the rumor of huge removal of dirt came from may be a conflation with the Weir Point scrape, which was significant.
This relates to the highest point on LSH only; the sidewalk, parking, and road must have required some scraping, but the photos aren't shocking in the differences.
On LSH, again from WCF, testimony says the Custer group was where the monument is now, nearly the perimeter if the current grouping is viewed as a whole, or at the end of a line along the ridge. Other photos show the original burial wooden stakes going off down to Keogh outside the fence, and testimony and earliest photos are not real supportive of the current arrangement at all. They needed to bury, if that's the term, where digging was easier.
3. n/a
It still would be interesting to hear why the fenced area describes the strange alignment it currently does, and why so much empty space.
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Post by El Crab on Feb 1, 2009 21:32:20 GMT -6
1- Where was the highest point, in reference to the monument of today? And how much elevation has been lopped off? No idea. It was fairly flat on top, said some. I'd guess those that installed the monument probably graded it a little, because it'd be unlikely that the top of hill was level enough. Or maybe it was. But I don't know, and it probably will never be known, how much its changed. Most of the early pictures were from the top, looking down. 2- Are the markers likely where the bodies were found? Not as far as Custer himself, his brother Tom, Lt. Cooke, Lt. Smith, etc., are marked. And Lts. Harrington (never identified) and Porter (ditto) are very unlikely to be correct, either. About a dozen or so were found on the very top. Custer, Vickory, Voss, Tom Custer, Cooke, possibly Dr. Lord, Smith, possibly Sharrow (likely), possibly Hughes (not as likely), and a handful of enlisted men from C, I and L. I wanna say William Teeman and Boss Tweed and Francis Hughes from the Keogh battalion. Weston Harrington as well, but I'm going off the top of my head there. I might be confusing where they were identified, though I'm 99% sure that those soldiers were identified in the Custer Hill/Deep Ravine areas, and not with their companies. 3- If the answer to 2 is Yes, or there abouts, why might that struggling group have chosen not to be on the crest? If indeed their location was by choice. The answer to 2 is No, because they did indeed to cover the top of the ridge. And Wooden Leg (and another rather young warrior whose name escapes me) pointed out these soldiers at the top drilled a warrior that was popping up and down from the cover of Wooden Leg Hill (the hillock northeast of Custer Hill), shooting at the soldiers hiding along the ridgeline. DeRudio commented on 5 sorrel horses were killed on the very top, on the east side. Bruce Trinque wrote an article on the defense of Custer Hill, and I've been using it to answer some of these questions. I'll likely pore over some of my other sources, I've been meaning to document as much as I can about who was found on Custer Hill, especially at the top.
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Post by biggordie on Feb 1, 2009 22:51:46 GMT -6
crabster:
Check out Dutch Hardorfff's two Custer Battle Casualties books, which cover the subject pretty well, and gather together the accounts and other sources that he could find.
Gordie
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Post by Melani on Feb 1, 2009 23:51:51 GMT -6
John Doerner, LBH park historian, said that he thought Custer actually fell about the middle of the south edge of the grassy area around the monument, and that he was buried farther down the slope because it was easier to dig there. The consistency of the ground might also account for the strange shape of the iron fence--easier to put in posts.
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Post by desertlobster on Feb 2, 2009 11:34:36 GMT -6
As far as "Custer in 76", info on pages 58, 121, 237, 247-248.
It seems Tom Custer was killed at the very peak with G A Custer just below on a flat spot.
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Post by Melani on Feb 2, 2009 12:47:29 GMT -6
Pretty much what Doerner said, if you consider that the place where the stone shaft is used to be sort of pointy.
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Ryan
New Member
Posts: 49
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Post by Ryan on Feb 2, 2009 19:07:21 GMT -6
From what I've read, most of the markers are fairly accurate...there are 52 markers, representing 42 bodies, as originally found on the western slope of Custer Hill. These men apparently hid opportunistically and/or intentionally behind as many as 39 dead horses, also found on the western slope.
Another ten or so men were found at the Crest, including Custer, Tom Custer, and a few other members, probably from HQ. Dead horses from Company C were found at the crest, around five dead mounts, allegedly killed as if to form a circular barricade. Probably some of the right-wing survivors bunched at the top with Custer.
The reason most men didn't occupy the crest is that there wasn't enough room; unlike Calhoun Hill, the crest was fairly narrow - maybe only 30 feet in diameter. An entire company, let alone a platoon, could not have easily crammed up there. Plus, I think by the time Custer and left-wing units reached Custer Hill, occupying the Western slope afforded considerable cover from Indian fire from the eastern side of Battle Ridge. Pretty much anything that revealed itself at the crest or on the eastern side would have gotten popped pretty quickly - a small knoll known as Wooden Leg hill is just one archaeologically identified Indian position about 250 yards east of LSH - it yielded numerous spent Indian cartridges. Indian accounts describe warriors "creeping" around the soldiers in this sector...highly likely that the eastern slope of LSH may have been teaming with warriors as well. So, in sum, the western slope wasn't "chosen" for defense per se; a this stage in the battle, it was all the troopers could find, and once there, they could only hunker down...This is what propelled the E company deployment from LSH towards Deep Ravine (perhaps to enable couriers to ride South by skirting Calhoun Coulee) - the eastern side of Battle Ridge, at this stage in the battle, was impassable.
John Stands in Timber suggests that the left-wing had to fight their way up the hill; a party of about 40-50 warriors fired down on the left-wing from LSH as they moved down Cemetery Ridge towards the river. So LSH wasn't exclusively a cavalry position until the final moments, which also suggests the cavalry hadn't intended to clear it/hold it from the beginning.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Feb 2, 2009 20:13:39 GMT -6
The issue is the number of high rankers at the top, looking much like 'headquarters' was shot from their mounts as they reached the crest and were exposed to fire from 360 degrees. There was no cover and much exposure. So many officers so close there strikes me as proof it was not an organized defense; if it were, they'd have been in the center of something resembling one, but they were not.
And the photographs from 1877 and 1879 dispose of touching belief in the accuracy for the marble markers. As to the 42 bodies......
First, as I've been complaining for years, the terms LSH and the field need to be defined and explained. When people in 1879 said there were so many on the hill or knoll, how far from the top were they including as the 'hill?' When people talk today, they mostly refer just to the fenced area.
You take Boston and Reed down 200 yards where several testified they were, leaving 40 bodies within the LSH fence. You take the people testified to be at the crest - the Custer group - and outside the fence, say 10, and move them there, which leaves 30. Then, remove the named markers of those we know were not there, which is 2 (?). So. 20.
Then, conform the remaining 20 to the early photographs of the wooden markers. Eight down towards Keogh outside the fence, leaving 12. Arrange the others in the purported area as you wish, but below the crest on the west side. That's because it's 12 instead of 52. Looks entirely different and, more important, feels different, especially with the fence visualized as gone. Very thready.
Very easy to believe these guys were on the move and stopped, fought a bit, and over, just like elsewhere on the field.
While not meaningless, just because a case was manufactured before 1876 and not Army issue does not mean it wasn't fired in 1914. People hoarded ammo, and there was field salting, and firing on the field thorugh the years.
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Post by El Crab on Feb 3, 2009 1:51:47 GMT -6
42 men and 39 horses on Custer Hill, said Godfrey. Around 10 on the very top, and the rest on the western slope.
Maybe the HQ group was shot down at the top of hill before any sort of arrangements could be made. But why would they be up there in the first place?
The arrangement of the identified bodies makes some sense. I've never been in a situation like those soldiers, but from what was said, F Company and its officers, on the western slope, and the HQ and a handful of C/I/L soldiers at the very top.
"It is quite evident that they had shot their horses to make a sort of breastwork." Lt. Roe
"Some, I think many, with [Custer] must have killed their own horses to use the dead bodies for breastworks--the circle around the top of the knoll was not badly formed." Lt. McClernand
"...circle of dead horses which [Custer] had undoubtedly killed to form a breastwork." Pvt. Adams
"...dead horses for a barricade on this hill..." Lt. Thompson
"...slain horses, placed head to tail." Capt. Clifford
"...dead horses, evidently shot for breastworks." Pvt. Golden
"...horses lay as if they had been lead there and shot down for a barricade, as empty shells lay behind them." Lt. DeRudio
"...had apparently tried to lead the horses in a circle, on the point of the ridge, and had killed them there and apparently made an effort for a final stand." Lt. Wallace
"From the position of bones it was evident...that the horses had been shot for the purpose of forming breastworks. It looked as if the animals had been led into a position describing a half-circle and shot in their tracks." Gen. Sheridan
At the very top, Custer was found laying at the western part of the top of the hill. Along with Vickory and Voss, the regimental standard bearer and chief trumpeter. His adjutant was not far away. His brother Tom was up there, without a command. As was Lt. A.E. Smith. Again, Capt. Yates and Reilly were found with what was said to be their company, lower down the slope.
I still contend its a pretty tidy layout. The F Company officers were down lower on the slope with the bulk of the men on the hill, and HQ, along with a couple right wing soldiers and two officers not dead with what was thought to be their own men, were found on the very top. Along with several sorrel horses across the northeastern portion of the ridgetop, which again points to a few right wing solders being on the top. Of course, it could just be they found those horses to be handy, or they were hit and fell there coincidentally. But almost every soldier on the top of the hill was identified. And several of them would've had sorrel horses, being from C Company.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Feb 3, 2009 6:50:51 GMT -6
It was most kind of you not to mention my careless error, where my math was eight off and I said 20 when it's obviously 28, and not 12 but 20 left ( which did strike me as few last night, but you can't argue with math, even mine....). I think that's when I tried to subtract out the standard 20% too many (8) from the Reno field on LSH, but we're going with the 42, not the 52. Something.
Still.
They'd be up there in the first place because it was where they were driven, or to unite with the men running to them from Keogh, or because it was high ground the deprived them of knowledge they were already surrounded. I find it hard to believe cavalry officers would take their men willingly to coverless raised ground to fight a defense, requiring losing mounts and negating any return to the offensive.
How many of those quoted actually saw the LSH group? How many are just quoting others or referencing the story making the rounds? If it were head to tail, it's definitely an organized defense, and all viewers would know that. (Descriptions of Custer's body never reference a near horse, do they?) There are two types of quotes: some say it WAS an organized defense, some say it resembled one. If indeed they were head to tail: definitely, it was without question. But what was the reality, and why would other officers not recognize the definite?
Or did they get shot summiting the hill, and faced with reality, dropped the mounts the Indians had not about them? From certain angles it could be said to resemble a circle. That would be more likely, if not entirely heroically proactive. What would the public expect? What would we expect fellow officers to say? What do the photos show?
Look at the paintings and the stories of the Battle of the Last Cartridge from the Franco Prussian War of 1870, the most recent 'last stand' in actuality everyone had heard of, all of which reference previous actual battles and all of it descended from the Song of Roland, which ends with a surround and sacrificial death, a big motif in Christian societies. The public was trained to expect such and accord the honors as if such happened. With the Centennial and the big exposition and it being Custer, they knew their duty.
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Post by conz on Feb 3, 2009 12:14:02 GMT -6
In this situation, it would be expected that the cavalry officers would take the high ground, because:
1) you have better fields of fire around you, and that is the ONLY way to keep the more numerous Natives away from you.
2) when you shoot your horses for barricades, or if you lie down on the skirmish line, you will be much more protected if the Warriors are firing UP at you, than DOWN at you.
3) it was not to be expected that you would be out shot in a firefight, like in the Franco-Prussian war. The cavalry would have firepower superiority, so cover (protection from incoming fire) is not the overriding consideration here...have good fields of fire for your own superior shooting is the more important consideration, in order to avoid close combat.
Clair
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Post by Melani on Feb 3, 2009 13:10:59 GMT -6
The markers show where they were buried, not necessarily where they fell. While most of them were buried where they fell, a few were not, such as Custer and Tom, in the same grave. And where there are sets of two markers next to each other, it is now generally accepted that there was only one body. The guys who put the markers up were basing it on the depressions in the ground, which they interpreted as graves, but in many cases, the body was in such poor condition that the burial parties scraped dirt over it from either side, leaving two depressions. Also, if I'm not mistaken, they had markers for Reno's guys as well, but put them all up on the Custer battlefield, resulting in way too many markers.
Once again, they were pretty much all buried on the slope because it was easier to dig there.
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Post by desertlobster on Feb 3, 2009 18:56:14 GMT -6
Why weren't soldier bodies found on the back side of the hill? I assume the troops were surrounded at the time C and E companies reached the top(are we sure E even did). Why not a skirmish line in a 360 degree arc just below the top of LSH?
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Post by biggordie on Feb 3, 2009 20:50:05 GMT -6
They were - just not on the hill itself - a bit farther along, on both sides of battle ridge. There were NDNs on Backus Ridge to the northeast, and also to the north and northwest. The troops who were cut off by the charge from the north took positions on the hill as best they could, eventually were surrounded and died there.
dc is correct about the being driven scenario, he just has the flow in the wrong direction.
El crab has it right as to the numbers - ten on the top and 32 on the slope.
Gordie
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