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Post by quincannon on Mar 31, 2014 11:22:34 GMT -6
NO NO NO NO, A THOUSAND TIMES NO. I don't know how many times this needs to be repeated. IT IS AN ADAPTATION OF EXISTING DOCTRINE, THE TACTICS DERIVED FROM DOCTRINE, THAT ARE ADAPTED TO THE SITUATION AT HAND. IT IS NOT SOMETHING CREATED OUT OF WHOLE CLOTH.
He could not pass on his methodology, his adaptation of doctrine and tactics not because he died early, but because there was no organized army wide method of distributing lessons learned.
He was not cuckoo. The man was seriously ill, and that comment does him a grave disservice.
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Post by crzhrs on Mar 31, 2014 11:56:52 GMT -6
I was trying to add a little humor to this otherwise dour forum and the pedantic members who talk in circles.
As for MacKenzie he was one of the military's most successful Indian fighters yet died in complete anonymity while Custer who tanked at the LBH goes down in history and lives forever. MacKenzie's success not only included the Comanche campaigns & 1876 campaign but afterwards until 1881 when he dealt with Indian outbreaks in a firm but fair manner. By 1881 something was terribly wrong with him and he began to drink heavily and asked for reassignment to a military court or retiring board. He continued his downward spiral and died a virtual unknown in 1889. Custer goes down in flames and everyone knows him while MacKenzie dies a sad death and and is barely a footnote in Plains/Indian warfare. Go figure!
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Post by quincannon on Mar 31, 2014 12:43:01 GMT -6
You failed.
You don't have to convince me of the value of Ranald Slidell Mackenzie to both the Army and his country, nor do I need to be convinced that George Armstrong Custer was more fit to carry a load of chickenshit, than the sabre.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Mar 31, 2014 12:55:22 GMT -6
crzhrs,
I missed the Laff Riot. Where? I'm going to guess you include me in "pedantic members who talk in circles."
But, even if so (and it isn't.......mumble....) I need to argue with you. It's Monday, we have traditions. Freshen this for me......
First, aside from Chivington and a few others, I don't think the goal of most army commanders was simply to kill Indians. Certainly, virtually none of them would lose sleep or much sleep if such became necessary, but I don't think even Custer got off on slaughter. They were soldiers and the enemy becomes a non person in combat. So I've heard and read. If the Cheyenne had thrown down their weapons at Washita, do you really think Custer would have just killed them all? Surely, he was someone willing to fire three warning shots into each of their legs, but I don't see him as into genocide. He thought they were going away anyway.
I also don't think Mackenzie's lesser Indian dead was a tactical decision as much as the fact that in Palo Duro the tribes with their super fighting ways put up small opposition and bolted after inflicting an entire casualty on the soldiers they outnumbered 4 to 1 - probably because of divided tribes - while the Dull Knife village was exhausted, depressed, not up for the fight. They'd been on the run since Custer.
MacKenzie was a very good soldier in the opinion of very good soldiers, but confronted with Sitting Bull's village that day, who knows what would have happened? Opposition of the quality Crook and Custer faced when the tribes were rested, fed, enthused, and in great numbers was never remotely duplicated anywhere.
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Post by crzhrs on Mar 31, 2014 14:08:37 GMT -6
I never name names . . . let he who is paranoid (and pendantic) guess ( ) I would agree that the majority of officers didn't intentionally order the killing of Indians willy-nilly. I believe Custer stated before the Washita attack about not killing non-coms if it could be helped (then got under Benteen's skin when he chided him for killing a very young Indian (warrior?) I guess what we need to ask was if the Indians escaped at the LBH and Custer got the village and all it's belongings would he have been happy or would he have preferred a fight with a rousing Custer victory? How much of a victory does capturing a village which may result in Indians coming into the reservation count as opposed to a major military victory with scores of Indians dead and the newspapers sensationalizing it?
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Post by fuchs on Apr 1, 2014 10:23:00 GMT -6
I would agree that the majority of officers didn't intentionally order the killing of Indians willy-nilly. It depends on your definition of "willy-nilly". If I'm not mistaken, the order to kill any men and boys above 12 years was a kind of standard order when engaging in Indian "chastising". And as a matter of fact, any attack on a village that succeeded at east partially at that goal, would inevitably produce a significant number of killed women, children and feeble old men. For example at the Washita, those very likely were the majority of the victims. Only on very few occasions were male adult Indians taken prisoner. There was very much of a willy-nilly element in the selections of villages that did get hit. Often enough not those the most "guilty" of real or imagined depredations, but simply those that were unlucky, overoptimistic incompetent or confiding enough to end up in the path of an army column bent on killing Indians. So while the officers in charge may not necessarily have ordered the killing of Indians "willy-nilly" (some did), the actual results would mostly fit that expression. And any officer able to think rationally would be aware of that. I think that question is very much answered by Custers deployment of his troops at the LBH. If the goal would have been the capture of the village instead of killing as many Indians as possible, he would have chosen the compact attack through the valley.
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