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Post by tubman13 on Jan 13, 2014 9:11:14 GMT -6
Quincannon, Trisha asked a question. I gave one of my answers re: Custer wounding theory. Besides do you know of another horse that fits the description? Custer could have put his jacket back on by then, or maybe he never took it off.
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Post by quincannon on Jan 13, 2014 9:23:11 GMT -6
Fred: The only non-divisional brigades in Vietnam in 1966 was the 173rd Airborne Brigade and the 196th Infantry Brigade (Light). The 196th operated in Tay Ninh from August 1966 to May 1967. I suspect that would be the one. I first thought Knowles was the commander, but I was looking at an incomplete list. Col Conaty brought them over. Upon arrival he was replace by Brigadier General Edward H. deSaussure for less than a month, and he was replaced by Conaty, still a Colonel, and then BG Knowles replaced Conaty. deSaussaur commanded in September 66, for only a couple of weeks, and the 196th was attached to the 25th ID at the time. The operation was Operation Attleboro.
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Post by quincannon on Jan 13, 2014 9:26:42 GMT -6
Tom: Yes she did, and yes you did. Never said you did not. My question was directed at you, for I have heard the same story. My question to you concerned the accepted validity of the story, not the fact that the story exists.
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Post by tubman13 on Jan 13, 2014 9:31:29 GMT -6
The USAF officer I alluded to earlier had to go outside of his chain of command, to have ord. dropped in Cambodia. He received intel from an Army Capt. on the ground, that info was forwarded to Creighton Abrams, Washington had give the go ahead, then this USAF officer could roll out the mission. I am very much afraid we are seeing some of that same thing going on again. Benghazi et. el.
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Post by tubman13 on Jan 13, 2014 9:38:59 GMT -6
Tom: Yes she did, and yes you did. Never said you did not. My question was directed at you, for I have heard the same story. My question to you concerned the accepted validity of the story, not the fact that the story exists. I think I can buy that story, as much as I can believe others. Do I take it as fact, no, but none of the command left us any records of these events. Bare in mind that I ame a neophyte with regard to this study.
Off of this subject. Have you read "Custer's Best" by Col. French Maclean? If so how is it handled, and is it truly worth the read?
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Post by quincannon on Jan 13, 2014 9:43:48 GMT -6
No I have not, but the name French MacLean is familiar to me outside the world of Custer. I suspect anything he writes would be worth a read.
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Post by quincannon on Jan 13, 2014 10:11:52 GMT -6
I am rather amazed at the comments about politics in war and political generals as if this was something growing out of the late 20th and into the 21st Century. Politics in war, political influence on the waging of war, and political interference with war fighting, has been present in every conflict since the Whiskey Rebellion. Madison was in the lines at Bladensburg. Lincoln was shot at during the battle at Fort Stevens on Georgia Avenue in DC. Adams ran the undeclared naval war with France. Polk not only started the Mexican War, he closely supervised everything down to troop movements. What you both are referring to is the means to communicate with the field commander being enhanced. The Commander in Chief is the Commander in Chief, and has every Constitutional right to do things as he sees fit. That does not say it is a wise thing to do. Far from it. It is though one of the perks of office.
War is far to important to be left to generals, and far to technical to be the sole purview of the politician.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Jan 13, 2014 10:30:59 GMT -6
tubman,
Things I try to remember.
We have zero first hand accounts from Indians. We have accounts OF accounts from Indians, because they didn't speak English. Not one, at least till later on. Their accounts come to us by translation and sometimes through protective relatives. Black Elk is an example of that. You cannot treat an account by an officer in court at the RCOI as merely equal to an account by an elderly Indian thirty years later. They're olde and act like the olde. They meld tales to be polite, and they have grandkids. Just like soldiers everywhere. They don't lie more than whites, they're pretty much just like anybody else.
In any case, my criteria is to accept nothing that appears in the public record for the first time after the RCOI. Undoubtedly you lose some truth, but you also lose the vast majority of nonsense and glurge. For example Martin did NOT meet Boston Custer, the story did not appear for 30 years for the first time, it isn't mentioned at the RCOI. You cannot build time on that.
The Army experiences of Fred and QC and others tends to make them apply them back to the 7th. I never served, but there is certainly a great deal that has changed. Custer had two brothers, a nephew, and a brother in law with him when they were killed. That. The 7th was cavalry, and people who live in the saddle have different criteria, perhaps, than infantry. This is NOT saying they fight different/better/worse, but that, in my riding experience, there is a sense of momentum to which you're attached and can strongly influence but over which you have no complete control. It stands to reason that a near immobile rider is an easy target under fire, and you have to keep moving.
TWC sure acted like a second in command on the 24th and 25th. When soldiers found and shot at an Indian pillaging a dropped pack, neither the officer of the company soldiers who fired nor the officer of the pack train went and told Custer, but TWC did. He got to him as Custer was returning from the Crow's Nest, and Custer threw a fit that the command had moved forward without his command to do so. Who ordered it forward? TWC, as Reno and Benteen had not. As soon as TWC explained why, the matter folded and was not mentioned again, and a scout was witness. TWC was no hack, he knew his brother, and he acted as Custer wanted, as it near always turned out.
During the battle, Indians dressed in uniforms of the dead and rode their mounts to mock and scare. They briefly fooled Weir, they terrified the Cheyenne women, and they fooled soldiers with Terry the next day for a bit. It happened. That is the basis for theories the soldiers with Custer hit the camp and were on the west bank. They provide the artifacts found that somehow become evidence of US soldiers presence. To the end of days, Indians quite likely never got the complete story and thought soldiers HAD hit the camp.
I think the trek from MTC (not the ford, but well back)to LSH was a series of retreats, attempted firing lines, further retreat under mounting hysteria and fear. High ground offered only exposure, not cover.
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Post by Gatewood on Jan 13, 2014 10:38:00 GMT -6
As one example of QC's comments above, Hooker resigned as CinC of the Army of the Potomac on the eve of Gettysburg due to political medling in his running of the army, and Reynolds, one of the most capable Union generals is said to have been offered the command but declined it for the same reason.
I'm not sure if it is the genisis of the Custer wounded at Ford B theory, but the earliest stroy bearing on it that I am aware of is White Cow Bull's recounting of having shot an officer there that was riding a horse with "four white stockings", which supposedly matched only the description of Custer's horse Vic. However, it seems unlikely that, of the several hundred horses in the command, only Vic met that description. On the other hand, if it is narrowed down to only known officer horses, it could be that only Custer was riding a horse of that descriotion. Furthermore, White Cow Bull seems to have been quite full of himself and places himself at the center of just about every action that day, but, while he may have tried to take credit for shooting an officer that he really didn't, the fact that he provided a description of the horse might lend credence to his claim.
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Post by quincannon on Jan 13, 2014 10:55:22 GMT -6
DC makes this case of Tom Custer ordering the regiment forward as a centerpiece of theory. It might very well be, BUT. It may be because Tom Custer was detailed to the regimental headquarters element, and as the senior officer with that element he may have issued the order in that role. It would be no different than any junior officer, acting in the absence of a commander, and issuing an order to more senior sub element commander. This scene is repeated with Rommel's staff members ordering the withdrawal of the 21st Panzer Division during Crusader in the absence of Rommel from his headquarters. In fact it played out exactly the same way. Rommel was furious at what happened, until he returned to his headquarters, looked at the situation maps and uttered not one further word thereafter. Accounts are contained in the Rommel Papers edited by Liddell-Hart, and Panzer Battles by Von Mellenthin. Von Mellinthin was one of the staff officers involved.
Hanging your hat on this one DC is treading on very thin ice, for from time to time, and circumstance to circumstance that is just how military units operate. The junior had damned sure better be right though.
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Post by Yan Taylor on Jan 13, 2014 10:59:18 GMT -6
By the way, someone made the comment or alluded to a belief TWC would have assumed command were GAC incapacitated. I disagree completely. First of all, he was the 7th-ranking captain in the command, ranking only McDougall, and he had been a captain for less than seven months.
Fred that was me, Mac asked a question concerning who would take over if GAC was hit, I responded by giving the list of the three ranking Captains in the Custer five Company Battalion, and Listed them in this order;
Keogh Yates Custer
But I also mentioned about what DC said about Tom Custer bringing the Regiment forward in his brother’s absence.
Ian.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Jan 13, 2014 11:09:13 GMT -6
One thing. If you criticize Custer for acting as if he were in command of divisions rather than small units, it's then difficult to damn him for NOT following larger unit protocols in battle when communications between the smaller units was nil. A wounded Custer alters the immediate mission: do NOT let him fall into enemy hands, dead OR alive. Every bit of evidence we have has no conflict with that, embraces Benteen's critique, does not contradict what accounts we have. Keogh may never have known why Yates was heading north, but he did what he thought best.
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Post by quincannon on Jan 13, 2014 11:24:10 GMT -6
I would be interested in what smaller unit protocols you refer to.
Commanding companies and commanding divisions do not differ in protocols. They differ in size. Company commanders and division commanders issue orders along with their intent, and armed with that they expect platoon leaders and brigade commanders alike to implement those orders and in the event of changed situation conflicting with previously issued orders follow the commander's intent if at all possible.
The reference to commanding a division was made only in reference to size of units. Custer deployed a three battalion regiment, as if it were a three brigade division. Had it been a division, we would relegate this battle to the win pile and it would rarely be discussed. Had Custer had a thousand man brigade available to him on battle ridge, nary an Indian would have ventured across that river, regardless of any splitting and going north by any element of that thousand man brigade so deployed.
To use a football analogy Custer was playing like he had a full eleven man team, while only having three men on the field.
I have no doubt whatsoever that everyone involved were doing what they though best.
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Post by Gatewood on Jan 13, 2014 12:16:39 GMT -6
DC makes this case of Tom Custer ordering the regiment forward as a centerpiece of theory. It might very well be, BUT. It may be because Tom Custer was detailed to the regimental headquarters element, and as the senior officer with that element he may have issued the order in that role. It would be no different than any junior officer, acting in the absence of a commander, and issuing an order to more senior sub element commander.
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Post by quincannon on Jan 13, 2014 12:44:51 GMT -6
I was specifically speaking about Tom Custer bringing the regiment forward on the 24th, but the principle is well established, that in the absence of a commander from the headquarters the headquarters does not cease to function and issues orders upon change of circumstance that those officers present think the commander would issue were he there.
McCandless deserved two Medals of Honor for what he did on the 13th of November 42, in my less than humble opinion.
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