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Post by Dark Cloud on Jul 12, 2012 20:09:01 GMT -6
I think it was obvious then and Miles wrote about friendly fire, didn't he, just quoted on these boards?
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Post by quincannon on Jul 12, 2012 23:20:26 GMT -6
elkslayer; You can read just about anything, but that does not make it true.
Guidons: At the time of LBH the gridiron guidon was still in use and carried no regimental number at all. By the time of Wounded Knee the now familiar red over white swallowtail guidon was in use. If memory serves and I will have to check my sources but think I am on firm ground, the then new red and white had US in the upper red half and the troop letter in the lower white half. Again there was no regimental designation. Only later was the regimental number substituted for the US and that system with a slight modification is still in use today. So this begs the question how would the Indians at Wounded Knee recognize a guidon?
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Post by stevewilk on Jul 13, 2012 0:01:40 GMT -6
elkslayer; You can read just about anything, but that does not make it true. Guidons: At the time of LBH the gridiron guidon was still in use and carried no regimental number at all. By the time of Wounded Knee the now familiar red over white swallowtail guidon was in use. If memory serves and I will have to check my sources but think I am on firm ground, the then new red and white had US in the upper red half and the troop letter in the lower white half. Again there was no regimental designation. Only later was the regimental number substituted for the US and that system with a slight modification is still in use today. So this begs the question how would the Indians at Wounded Knee recognize a guidon? Your firm ground is soggy. No US on the upper half. Per reg adopted 27 Jan 1885 upper half of guidon red with regimental numeral; lower half white with troop letter. I was just today reading in Jerome Greene's Lakota and Cheyenne She Walks with Her Shawl's 1931 LBH account given to Walter Campbell aka Stanley Vestal. She mentions saddle blankets with "crossed sabers and letter(sic) seven" on them.
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Post by quincannon on Jul 13, 2012 1:09:33 GMT -6
You are absolutely correct about the regimental number only I have the authority listed as General Orders Number 10 dated 4 February 1885.
Does your citation say immediately replace, or use existing until fair wear and tear makes the guidon unservicable. My reference is mute on the subject.
Now the 64 dollar question. Do you think this story is true?" If so what makes you think so? Remember this is fifty five years after the fact and you have her making the connection between a number on a saddle blanket and a number on a guidon. A lot of stuff can creap into memory in fifty five years.
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Post by stevewilk on Jul 13, 2012 9:14:20 GMT -6
Q, the adoption date was 27 Jan 1885; signed by Quartermaster General Holabird and Secretary of War. General Order No. 10 dated 4 Feb 1885 made adoption official. My sources do not mention anything other than specifications.
As for the "7" guidon story; first I've heard of it but who knows. Lots of captured army material from LBH had "7C" "7th Cav" or similar stenciled, (such as drawers or undershirts), stitched, (such as Custer's and the officer's fireman's shirts,) or branded-the horses had the number "7" branded on their rumps. Indians attached "medicine" to wasicu flags as the soldiers seemed to place great value on protecting and saving them from capture.
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Post by quincannon on Jul 13, 2012 9:29:19 GMT -6
Perhaps that is so. No doubt there were a lot of sevens floating around. My question though was more to memory over a fifty five year span. Don't consider it deliberately lying, but over time there is a lot of creep into stories from sources the teller of the tale does not realize that what he or she is including is after the fact insertion rather than exact memory of events as they transpire.
I had cause just yesterday to remember back over the fifty years since I joined the army. For the life of me I could not remember when my unit re-equiped from the M-14 to the M-16 rifle. It was in the 1960's but was it 65 or 66. Just can't remember. The moral of the story then is if I should say we used the M-16 at such and such place, chances are I would be dead wrong, without realizing it. As it turned out I had to look it up in my personal records and it turns out the first time I qualified with the weapons was in March 1967 at Benning during the basic course, and my unit was issued them about six months later.
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Post by elkslayer on Jul 14, 2012 0:52:43 GMT -6
elkslayer; You can read just about anything, but that does not make it true. Really? Hell, I don't take a single thing I read on LBH as fact...even witness statements taken immediately after the battle. Jim
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Post by jdhoffman on Aug 4, 2016 7:17:37 GMT -6
I'm new here & I'm reading past posts so I'm sorry it's 4 years before I'm replying. The cause of WK was fear and misunderstanding on the part of the agent and hatred for the Lakota for Custer by the army. Sitting Bull had just been killed & his followers ran in fear. When the army caught Big Foots band they were heading to Pine Ridge the army agreed to take them there. They even put Big Foot in a tent with a stove he had pneumonia. Overnight they brought in cannons & the 7th cavalry. Who brings in cannon & aims them at a camp of mostly women and children? The next day it fell apart, they confiscated guns bows knives and axe's as they lined up every body. Yes a Medicine Man began singing and when searching the people a deaf man fought to keep his rifle when it went off the soldier's opened fire. Big Foot died in the tent trying to get out of bed the cannons opened up with exploding shells most of the warriors fell in the first minute, the rest fought back who wouldn't? The soldiers chased the survivors through the ravines killing women and children even when they knew they were women and children they killed them bodies were found 5 miles away. Does that sound like revenge? Now I will share what I was told by a man and his mother that had family there, when the wounded were taken to the mission for care the nuns heard the soldiers were coming to finish the job. They hid the wounded in the basement and protected them. White men living nearby hid women and children in their homes till they could safely be taken to Pine Ridge. It was a massacre the soldiers made up a song about getting even for Custer. It's heartbreaking to hear the people speak of that time.
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Post by tubman13 on Aug 4, 2016 8:28:23 GMT -6
The Army was much like a dog chasing a car. Sad event.
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Post by crzhrs on Aug 4, 2016 11:04:02 GMT -6
It was the military's responsibility to handle the refugees of Big Foot's Band and and to do it in a non-agressive and humane manner. There are numerous accounts of what took place but in the end the military failed to handle the situation which resulted in unnecessary killing, especially once the initial firing took place. Officers should immediately have called a cease fire and ordered companies not to chase after Indians including women, children and the elderly and shooting them down. Officers should have stopped cannon fire but didn't. Officers failed in basic duty and humanity.
This was not the first instance of the military mis-managing situations like this that ended up in violence:
Grattan Affair Killing of Crazy Horse Killing of Sitting Bull Cibecue
And that's just a few instances where the Military's lack of training, understanding or out-right ignorance lead to tragedy . . . usually to the Indians.
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Jenny
Full Member
Posts: 200
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Post by Jenny on Jul 16, 2023 20:51:19 GMT -6
For anyone still following this thread I'd like to revive it.
Today I was called a white supremacist for creating paintings of all the dead of Little Bighorn. That means I am including all the Indians killed, but this element was left out the equation by the guy who made the comment. I am, according to him, "spitting in his face" every time I post a painting or comment about the battle. He's half Indian, but apparently doesn't identify with his white half.
Have any of you run into this kind of thing as students and experts on Indian Wars battles? You're a Nazi because you are interested in the topic? In my case I guess I'm asking for trouble because I'm putting faces to names and in doing so giving the impression that I'm glorifying the Army, the actions of Grant, the wars themselves, and anything horrible white people have ever done to Indians. Dark Cloud made some interesting observations above and I know he's not around anymore, but I'd like to hear from all of you on this topic.
I don't think most of the rank and file at LBH were particularly religious or bright, much less did they march to their deaths for the greater purpose of genocide. They were soldiers because they didn't have a lot of other options.
Jenny
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Jenny
Full Member
Posts: 200
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Post by Jenny on Jul 16, 2023 20:54:26 GMT -6
Welllll... Did soldiers save babies from the battlefield? Evidently. Did they also shoot women and children? Most likely. Did young, angry braves pull Winchesters from under their blankets and kill soldiers with them. No doubt. Did the soldiers fire pretty much indiscriminately (in a circular formation!)? Very likely. Nobody comes out of Wounded Knee either completely pure or totally evil. And that can be said for every war, battle and "misunderstanding" everywhere at any time in human history. Jenny
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Post by noggy on Jul 17, 2023 4:19:13 GMT -6
For anyone still following this thread I'd like to revive it. Today I was called a white supremacist for creating paintings of all the dead of Little Bighorn. That means I am including all the Indians killed, but this element was left out the equation by the guy who made the comment. I am, according to him, "spitting in his face" every time I post a painting or comment about the battle. He's half Indian, but apparently doesn't identify with his white half. Have any of you run into this kind of thing as students and experts on Indian Wars battles? You're a Nazi because you are interested in the topic? In my case I guess I'm asking for trouble because I'm putting faces to names and in doing so giving the impression that I'm glorifying the Army, the actions of Grant, the wars themselves, and anything horrible white people have ever done to Indians. Dark Cloud made some interesting observations above and I know he's not around anymore, but I'd like to hear from all of you on this topic. No, and I don't know how I'd react if I did. But I have been "confronted" about objectivity, as in it was "too" objective for the liking of a person I think Michno once said that after he wrote a book about the fate of white captives in Indian captivity (the worst cases, not those who "turned out well"), he was confronted by someone who's gripes with the book was the subject matter, not that he felt Michno had made errors or something. So some people will take offense no matter. I'm reminded about the band Slayer, which I assume everyone in here just loves They created controversy when they released a sing called "Angel of Death" back in the 80s. The song was about Mengele, and it got the band labeled as nazis by parts of the media and general public. Now, you'd think it was because the song gloryfied him or something like it, but that wasn't the case. The claims were (probably also due to the genre not being recognised by main stream media) based on the lyrics being strictly factual and not trying to moralize or hammering into the listener that yes, Mengele was a sick and evil bastard. As one of the band members said, just telling about what happened was "bad enough", you don't have to tell anyone that it was horrendous. But nope. Since they didn't go full "Oh btw, Holocaust was really bad" in the choruses or whatever, they obviously had to be nazis.... Oh well. my advise is to say F it when it comes to people like your fan
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Post by herosrest on Jul 17, 2023 5:05:48 GMT -6
You are reaching people who then confront 'their' attitudes. You are doing your job and well done. This is the precise point of art and worth defending although not dying for (usually). Which half of this person was White, the Top or the Bottom?
There's a guy by the name of Salman Rushdie.............
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Post by herosrest on Jul 17, 2023 5:30:09 GMT -6
I'm going a little further with this........ into quantum and the clash of cultures. Whilst Sitting Bull for example, considered the Great Fathers to be surrounded by Bald Headed Thieves (a remarkable insight) he was unable to fathom the balance which Whites strike in dealing with appropriations of land. In essence this is Quantum. Where things became a tad tedious was those awarding what were significant sums of money (resources) configuring the deals so they managed the accounts and it becomes cynical and enduring. An example is sums dispensed from allotments to the Crow tribe which funded irrigation of the river valley settlements. It was a lot of money and managed by the engineers undertaking the work through the Agency. Walter H. Graves, comes to mind in the early 20th Century. I'm not saying there was graft on the front line but there was a feeding chain all the way back through the legal process and provisons for funding. How much better it might have been had the Senate simply handed Sitting a half billion dollars to invest in the economy for a healthy return. That would have turned what happened, on its head with the entire banking industry crawling all over Crow Agency and the Sioux Reservations and doing what they do - building magnificently. The Crow Bank of Development and Investment (In Crows). Even $1 million in 1890..... what would it be worth now? Ahem..... No one on the Planet would be messing with the Crows. If I remeber, there has recently been an 'allotment' of $440 to the tribe for water projects to clean up poisened and spoilt watersources and a number of large projects are underway. Of course, this works the way it works and I'd dearly love to see the published accounts. Has anyone taken a look at the head of the Reno Canal recently? Interestingly, the Crow Tribe recently purchased Garryowen for several millions of dollars, intending it to become Police Station. Of course, it is already a Federal Post Office..... link 1link 2 A rise and fall.......... of water levels?
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