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Post by quincannon on Jul 29, 2012 12:41:23 GMT -6
WY Man: Only two points
Cavalry are not horsemen. Cavalry is an organized body that happen to be horsemen. I have read those statements - The (Fill in the tribe) are the finest light cavalry bla bla bla. My point was and is that because a man rides a horse does not make him cavalry. We do a disservice when we put out the "finest" statement and don't append the "but" statement. Hundreds of people read this board daily. Some are old hands like Fred, DC and others. Many though are new , coming here to do research, or be exposed to this subject matter for the first time. Therefore the meaning must be clear I think as a service to them.
The same goes for MacGillicuddy and (fill in the blank). Unsifted such stories do no good and do much harm. Nothing wrong with putting them out there, but responsability demands that when we do so we subject it to the test of plausibility for the sake of those who read digest and take these things as fact, when there may not be a word of truth to it.
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Post by chiefironhorseiii on Mar 12, 2015 23:11:53 GMT -6
For what it adds to the discussion of Custer's death and his lack of mutilation, I offer this bit of Mills family history. My Grandfather was a civilian contract Farrier with Custers 7th Cavalry, assigned to veterinarian and blacksmithing duties regarding the officers' horses. In long conversations with my Father, Grandpa detailed much of what took place in the campaign against the indians under Custer. Custer was an arrogant man seeking glory for himself. On the day he was killed with his men, he disobeyed direct orders and was led into a trap by the combined tribes of the Indian Nations. After the indians were settled on the reservations, Grandpa was assigned to the Pine Ridge Reservation and was given the additional duty of caring for the horses of the Indian chief, among which number was Chief "Old Man Rain in the Face." Grandpa had long conversations with Rain in the Face and introduced him to Jesus Christ whom he eventually accepted as Savior. Rain in the Face told Grandpa that the Indians knew there was a Great Spirit, but they did not know He had a Son. Subsequently, Rain in the Face made my Grandfather a Blood Brother and honorary Chief of the Lakota tribe, giving him the name "Chief Iron Horse" because he put iron shoes on the chiefs' ponies. The title, he said was to be hereditary and passed to the youngest son of each generation who whould bear the burden of storyteller. My Father became Chief Iron Horse II after Grandpa's death. He told Grandpa that the reason he did not take Custer's scalp was that he considered him, while an enemy, to be a brave warrier who fought valiantly to the death and he did not wish to disgrace him. It was the Indian way of showing a measure of respect even to their enemies. Regarding Custer's death, Rain in the Face told Granpa that it was he who killed custer in hand-to-hand combat. In a counsel of Chiefs, Rain in the Face asked that no one be allowed to touch Custer but him. He wanted the privilege of killing the man responsible for the murder of his wife and family in one of Custer's raids. And so it was agreed. Rain in the Face made my Grandfather promise to never tell anyone about his act until after his death for fear that the military would execute him for killing Colonel Custer. Grandpa was also present at the Battle of Wounded Knee and tells a wholly different story of the so-called "massacre." But that is another story and apparently, the historians got it all wrong again. Richard A. Mills Chief Iron Horse III Email: dickmills@pdq.net
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Post by quincannon on Mar 12, 2015 23:27:03 GMT -6
Mister Mills, you really must introduce yourself to Mister MacLeod at you very first opportunity.
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Post by locksley on Feb 12, 2016 5:06:56 GMT -6
There is a story that the Cheyenne girl Meozi recognised Custer and she asked that he not be mutilated. When you think of the hundreds of warriors present she couldn't have told them all. However, the only mutilation mentioned is an awl being pushed into both ears. The was also an arrow shoved up his penis, the significance of which fails me, unless it was to take the piss. Many of the Indians involved had never been near a fort or an agency so the name of Custer would mean nothing to them. I found this interesting theory of how and why he was not mutilated . QUOTE [White Cow Bull said he was one of the few warriors there when Custer charged into the river and the Indians opened fire (witnessed by: Bobtailed Horse)... White Cow Bull said that when the Americans tried to charge across the river at Medicine Tail Coulee, Custer rode at the head of the attack formation with the flag bearer and a "small man on a dark horse," probably half-Sioux interpreter/scout Mitch Bouyer (witnessed by: Pretty Shield)... White Cow Bull said a couple Seventh Cavalry troopers were shot out of the saddle and fell in the Little Bighorn before Custer's men could get across the river (witnessed by: Curley, Horned Horse, Pretty Shield, Soldier Wolf, Elk Head, Thomas LaForge, plus Sage, Hollow Horn Eagle and Brave Bird reported wounded American soldiers at the river after the battle, including Mitch Bouyer, the half-Sioux interpreter/scout whom Pretty Shield said rode at Custer's side)... White Cow Bull said Custer -- the officer on the "sorrel horse with... four white stockings" -- was one of those shot while crossing the Little Bighorn River (witnessed by: Pretty Shield)... White Cow Bull said Custer "fell in the water" of the Little Bighorn River (witnessed by: Pretty Shield)... White Cow Bull said Custer's charge at Medicine Tail Coulee was suddenly stopped and repulsed mid-river by the Cheyenne and Sioux defenders (witnessed by: Curley, George Glenn, Jacob Adams)... First is the relationship between the Custer brothers (George Custer and his younger brother, Thomas) and their Southern Cheyenne prisoner-of-war concubine, Monaseetah, and her illegitimate half-white son, Yellowtail (also described by Cheyenne warriors Brave Bear, Dives Backward, Rising Sun, Little Chief and Brave Wolf, but pretty much ignored by American historians, although Jeffry D. Wert does mention it in Custer: The Controversial Life of George Armstrong Custer). Second is the way Monaseetah stopped White Cow Bull from mutilating George Custer's corpse (ditto). Third is the most important (and therefore the most ignored) part of White Cow Bull's story: his crucial eye-witness description of how he shot an officer on a "sorrel horse with... four white stockings" -- who can only be Custer -- at the outset of the Custer fight when the "Gray Horse Company" attempted to ford the river at Medicine Tail Coulee and attack the huge Sioux and Cheyenne village. www.astonisher.com/store/wkc_store.html
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Post by edavids on Feb 12, 2016 8:08:56 GMT -6
Responded to this on the Did Custer Have a Plan thread.
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Post by Beth on Feb 12, 2016 15:43:04 GMT -6
Custer's horsesNeither of Custer's horses had 4 white socks. Vic, the horse Custer was riding, had 3 white socks and a blaze
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Post by Colt45 on Feb 12, 2016 16:29:14 GMT -6
White Cow Bull's story has been suspect for some time as it is largely uncorroborated. Also contradicting the possibility of Custer being wounded at Ford B is the story from John-Stands-in-Timber. JSIT walked the battlefield with, I believe, his grandfather who fought in the battle and who pointed out how Custer approached the Calhoun Hill area, and in his story Custer never went to Ford B. In fact, if Custer was wounded at the river, it would have been at Ford D.
Ford D makes much more sense tactically because from the LNC ridge line, Custer would be able to see that the village extended much farther north of Ford B, and it would make no sense to cross there as you would immediately have a 180 degree arc in front just full of Indians. Plus the Indians didn't use the same nomenclature as we do for landmarks, hence the action at the river could very well be the Ford D area as opposed to Ford B. Also, the archaeological evidence, or lack of it, at Ford B also suggests nothing much happened there initially.
If Custer had been wounded at Ford B, the actions of the battalion in leaving Ford B don't make military sense. It is unlikely the unit would have proceeded north, dropped off units at Calhoun Hill, then launched another recon of the Ford D area if Custer was gravely wounded, and his wounds were mortal, probably within a few minutes. The cavalry actions indicate someone operating on a plan of some kind, and there is strong evidence Custer didn't share his overall plan with anyone. He certainly didn't share any plan with Reno and Benteen, his other battalion commanders, and would most likely not shared his thinking with Keogh or anyone else that was with his battalion. No, if Custer was wounded at Ford B, the battalion would have most likely tried to return to Reno Hill by the route they came.
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Post by jodak on Oct 10, 2016 6:57:19 GMT -6
October 10, 1877
Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer is buried at West Point in New York. Although the body interred may well not have been his, it serves to represent Custer in spirit.
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Post by tubman13 on Oct 10, 2016 12:53:15 GMT -6
Well, hell, at least all of Libbie is there. I once visited his grave there, I understand that you may not be able to anymore.
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Post by fightingsiouxbrave on Oct 10, 2016 20:15:12 GMT -6
After the battle, Custers body was cut in to pieces and spread far apart,and his head smashed into dirt, to prevent the possibility of this antichrist from ever returning. I had his hat on a few years ago. he was pin head, who like big gay feathers. we have all their stuff up in canada. afterwards my ancestors escaped to canada.
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Post by tubman13 on Oct 11, 2016 4:16:29 GMT -6
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Post by fightingsiouxbrave on Oct 22, 2016 14:53:54 GMT -6
oh, those things will never come back to the usa soil. I tried the hat on, he had a pin head. and it had a big gay feather.
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Post by tubman13 on Oct 22, 2016 15:08:35 GMT -6
It was Tom Custer who's head was crushed, bet you can't guess who got credit for that.
Do you know who put the feather in the hat?
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Post by BrianS on Dec 12, 2016 19:10:47 GMT -6
Well, hell, at least all of Libbie is there. I once visited his grave there, I understand that you may not be able to anymore. Hi I phoned West Point Cemetary today and you can visit with a pass. You have to sign in at the visitors center. Brian
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Post by crzhrs on Dec 13, 2016 11:51:36 GMT -6
One must have to realize the situation in the late 19th century. Custer was famous, one of the most "successful" Indian fighters (take with a grain of salt!) To have Custer and the 7th destroyed by wild savages was bad enough, but to have Custer dead, mutilated and chopped up would have been to much for the nation to take. When you read reports of Custer being found in a state of repose and not mutilated and/or honored, think again.
Custer and all the rest of his command were lying dead on the field for two days in the heat and sun, throw in insects, scavengers and battle wounds/mutilations then you can only imagine what the scene was like for recovery of bodies.
Check out the graphic accounts of what the recovery teams found in the pamphlet: "Custer's Field: A Scene of Sickening Ghastly Horror" by Francis Taunton.
Whatever remains of Custer that were recovered may have been mixed up with a number of other soldiers so what was buried at West Point may have been a hodgepodge of bones from various members of the Custer's command or maybe none of Custer's remains!
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