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Post by BrokenSword on Feb 14, 2009 7:54:03 GMT -6
Gordie,
I have a little of what you're looking for.
Eugene Wessinger (Battlefield Super: 12-20-1913 to 08-22-1929) began the ‘seeding’ practice, and got the expended shells from the Ft. Custer firing range. By the time of his tenure as the 6th Super, vandalism due to tourists chipping away at the marble markers, for souvenirs, caused many markers to be replaced - some of them more than once. Wessinger, I suspect, was trying to offer the souvenir hunters easier pickings, so to speak, through his practice of scattering bogus shells around here and there, as much as trying to make the tourists' visits 'successful' adventures.
M P.S. I dont have that book you mentioned either. The above info came from Mike Nunnally.
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Post by AZ Ranger on Feb 14, 2009 9:02:15 GMT -6
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Post by Dark Cloud on Feb 14, 2009 9:39:40 GMT -6
Meaning no offense, but I do not see how you can read - even only partially, as I have - the history of the battlefield and come away with the remotest surety about artifacts found. Although I'd been bumped along by remarkably affectionate cattle while on Weir Point, I keep forgetting their presence through the years atop all else.
With the stories of official salting, cattle drives across the field (and there are those rare, rare cases in history where cowboys - who attend cattle - find need or interest in shooting things or at things and quite possibly not policing the rounds), we are presented with evidence that previous postings were incorrect. We'll assume out of ignorance and not malice.
Previously, when soldiers leaving cases on the field after ceremony or passing salutes was mentioned, we were assured that the Army cleaned them up as officially and meticulously as the corpses, and kept the cases. Yet, cases were retrieved/stolen from Ft. Custer (whether or not still functioning not the point - the cases were there) and used to salt. And this by Superintendents, and this if Wessinger is the first to do it or only the first to claim it. I know of accounts - as do some of you - that it happened in the 19th century on behalf of the train tourists.
Bear in mind it occured to Camp that the South Skirmish Line was a falsity, and that the markers had been so placed to suggest a firing line. Clearly, suppositions about attempts to mold the public image and keep interest have affected the configuration and the presentation of the battle and field. It is therefore not a long leap to think that backstories were constructed knowingly or not to support these fabrications.
And here we are.
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Post by biggordie on Feb 14, 2009 10:03:24 GMT -6
Thanks guys. I figured that they came from Fort Custer, but wasn't certain. It makes a difference where they came from, and when they were collected. I had forgotten when the "salting" started. I guess I'll at least have to reference Greene's book to see if it can be determined where most of it took place. Same with those "ceremonies or passing salutes" - where and when they happened.
I don't think I'll worry too much over passing cowboys or latter day hunters, but I would like some details on those picnickers from Garryowen station, if anyone has any specifics for me.
BTW - Camp was wedded to his Ford B theory, despite all evidence to the contrary, and to the Deep Ravine theory, ditto. And Nathan Short too. Just because Camp was Camp is no reason to credit everything he concluded or noted. His "interviews" were basically conducted thirty or more years after the fights. He did notice that there were many too many markers, but never really did anything about his observation, except to write to the super and tell him, and to suggest to Godfrey that they could go out there and straighten out the whole mess in a week or so [maybe he said a month, don't quote me], but that he wasn't too interested in actually doing it.
Thanks,
Gordie
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Post by AZ Ranger on Feb 14, 2009 11:02:09 GMT -6
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Post by biggordie on Feb 14, 2009 11:46:32 GMT -6
Thanks, Steve. Most of that info is in Hammer's Springfield Carbine pamphlet, but it is nice to see the color pictures.
Gordie
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Post by BrokenSword on Feb 14, 2009 11:49:02 GMT -6
For the benefit of 'newbies' who might not clearly understand the impact that visitors had on 'the scene of the crime' in the decades before serious efforts by archaeological teams began gathering 'evidences' from the battlefield - I'll offer a few photos. "A picture speaks a thousand words," here's just six. 1886 1890s/Early1900s 1926 1926 1926 (apparently including an air-strike) 1926
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Post by busted spur on Feb 14, 2009 12:47:03 GMT -6
Brokensword
Great pictures that graphically demonstrate the problem with relics on the field. I had only seen the one from 1926. Thank you for posting these.
Busted
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Post by Dark Cloud on Feb 14, 2009 15:00:40 GMT -6
Isn't it time the term "evidence" regarding cartridge cases allegedly found on the field should be downgraded to 'possible' evidence or 'arguable' evidence? In short, dilute the former importance of the Scott and Fox books based upon these items, and the far more ridiculous theoretical specificity based upon those books, but not claimed in the books.
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Post by wild on Feb 14, 2009 16:50:17 GMT -6
But then on the other hand not a single hair pin,parasol or broach has been discovered.[Well I hope for the sake of Custer's reputation they haven't]
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Post by AZ Ranger on Feb 14, 2009 17:13:41 GMT -6
Wild you must stand corrected but you are right about the parasol.
Here are a few things gound:
Model T tire jack a safety pin a toy horse and soldier a garter hook a lip stick tube 6 bobby pins 3 straight pins a gilt pot-metal pendant a girdle fastener a piston ring a babbit rod a grease fitting
AZ Ranger
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Post by biggordie on Feb 14, 2009 18:03:03 GMT -6
There were a bunch of hair [bobby] pins found in MTC where parts of Little Big Man were filmed. They were apparently used to affix the wigs worn by the extras portraying long-haired NDN warriors.
The 1886 photo is well known, and involved an infantry platoon [probably, from the number of men] firing a volley or two [maybe three]. I see about 15 men firing n the photo. Let's say, for the sake of argument that they fired real ammunition, and not blanks, and that they fired four volleys, or approximately one hundred rounds of real ammunition; and let's also assume that they did not police their "brass" which was reloadable at the time, and would be included in the annual allowance, which I believe was 400 rounds per man for those regiments who were not supplied with reloading equipment, and 240 rounds per man, if they had been so supplied. Then there would have been one hundred head-stamped cases found in that area, if the others in the photo had also fired some, and would have been clearly identifiable as post-1876 ammunition.
The second photo is most likely from the 40th Anniversary in 1916, although it hardly matters, in terms of whether or not they left behind spurious cartridges and cases, or got together to move some of the markers around. It looks as if most of the crowds are around Custer Hill, and part way along Battle Ridge. I rather doubt that many of them went as far as Calhoun Hill, and even fewer beyond that hill and its associated ridge. There was no reason for them to have done that.
The troops of the Seventh who participated in the 1926 celebrations were not armed with 1873 Springfields, so it hardly matters what they did with their weapons. The aircraft which participated did not, so far as is reported, shower the field with expended cases of any vintage.
The cast of thousands who took part in the reenactment, however, might have gone to the expense of obtaining correct arms and ammunition, so there's a problem right there, especially when it comes to knives and arrows, and bullets which missed their intended targets.
Gordie
PS Dick Upton's book on the 1926 Anniversary celebrations is filled with great photos and lots of information as to the events and participants.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Feb 14, 2009 20:12:25 GMT -6
The photos indicate that the chances of undisturbed areas of the battlefield is about nil. While you're probably correct the vast majority of people didn't make it to Calhoun or Reno's fields, there'd have been enough pillaging already, since photos prove defacers had been about on the monument and the few markers in the valley and on the east flank of LBH. It's in Where Custer Fell.
The 1886 photo is of infantrymen re-enacting Gall's supposed tale of soldiers in the cemetery, but there's doubt about that and why they are, in one photo, firing towards LSH. Since Godfrey and Gall pretty much concluded the official translator was bogus, lord knows what the dawn photoshoot was supposed to prove since its source from Gall went through the translator; WCF suggests it may have been for the lighting as much as anything.
If they were using elder ammo for this (why waste new stuff?), and they shed it enroute back across the river, it's in the area where artifact finds are suggested for Custer's presence there. Of course, it still could be a mashed up tale involving 7th 2.0's Indians, or who knows? The point is there's been so much attested activity that alone would destroy the validity of belief in virgin areas that you don't need the accounts unverified but rather numerous. Most of the "firing lines" could be anything unless you really want a firing line there.
If the field had virgin areas of untouched cartridges, it would have been easier to edge people down to areas unpillaged if they still existed, than trudge in artifacts from Ft. Custer. Or collect from down there are salt with them. Or perhaps they already had.
And: where are and who has verified the artifacts found on Nye Cartwright and Blummer ridges? Obviously, we cannot rely on the training necessary in Superintendents of the field regarding these matters.
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Post by El Crab on Feb 14, 2009 23:17:21 GMT -6
The Nye-Cartwright and Blummer ridge complexes were likely the only spots where you could nearly safely say they weren't picked or salted. It wasn't assumed that anything happened up there, other than Custer's troopers passing in the general vicinity. And the cartridges were found, in the hundreds.
If someone was salting that area, they likely would've nudged the would-be souvenir hunters that direction. And the guys who found them weren't random visitors, but regulars of the field.
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Post by AZ Ranger on Feb 15, 2009 6:57:23 GMT -6
Sixty Six years in Custer's Shadow
page 52
Nye-Cartwright in 1946 250 (fired) cartridges were found
1969 Wiebert is on Nye-Cartwright with metal detector:
"at first I was only finding a few cartridges, maybe 15 to 20."
He moves to a hill blocking the view of MTC and finds and Indian position and 42 fired cartridges.
Wiebert moves north of Blummer Ridge he finds 38 45-70 and 1 50-70 brass case with primer
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