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Sept 3, 2014 9:52:47 GMT -6
Post by fred on Sept 3, 2014 9:52:47 GMT -6
I was looking at the Custer portion of the narrative last night on the same brochure and have never seen so many words used to say nothing. Beautiful!Then people look at me like I am crazy when I tell them that just because these guys are park rangers at the LBH, they don't know everything about the battle and what they do know isn't necessarily correct. If it was, there would be no need for discussion. Best wishes, Fred.
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Sept 3, 2014 10:07:06 GMT -6
Post by fred on Sept 3, 2014 10:07:06 GMT -6
Are you suggesting Custer's five companies had arrived within sight of the river (and the Big Village) -- and Custer himself may even have been down in the cattails with companies E & F reconnoitering an attack point -- and that's when he decided to send Martini back with the message? No, not at all. Custer sent Martini back at some point near the head of Cedar Coulee, maybe 600 or so yards from 3,411. That would have been the time to send back a message to Benteen. From 3,411, Custer could tell there was nothing up the valley, thereby obviating the need for further reconnaissance. Why would Custer wait until he was in MTC or near Ford B? That's what most people don't understand... or refuse to understand. It is made all the worse by Martini over the years, because every time he told and re-told the story, he got closer and closer to the river... and that's a crock. Again... context.... When do you send a message? When you have something to say. Custer just spent eight minutes watching Reno and looking at his enemy and his enemy's possible whereabouts. At 3,411 he realized he had three companies (Benteen) off in the sticks accomplishing nothing. Ergo, re-call. Best wishes, Fred.
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Sept 3, 2014 10:08:40 GMT -6
Post by fred on Sept 3, 2014 10:08:40 GMT -6
Love the picture from position M. To me it shows how hard it is in this region to get a full view of anything. Backing up Fred's assertion that Custer was never able to fully assess what he was up against. I understand your question to Fred, I think. He is not suggesting Martini was sent from Ford D. Although Martini did "progress" himself a bit as the years went by he never got that far! I notice that on the NPS map they no longer label the warrior loop north of cemmetery as Crazy Horse. I think they used to. I never thought that to be correct. I have a memory from somewhere that Deep Ravine was once called CH Ravine. Really nice post, Mac. Best wishes, Fred.
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Sept 3, 2014 11:39:19 GMT -6
Post by quincannon on Sept 3, 2014 11:39:19 GMT -6
Fred I suspect those park rangers know exactly what the park service knows, and a heck of a lot more than they present. I believe their presentations are thoroughly vetted, and their responses to individual questions canned. They give no details by design, and that design is not a measure of what is known. They are in the entertainment business, and that does not include arguments with visitors about arrow shaft sizes and thrown shoes from PVT Snuffy's horse at the critical moment exactly three meters north, north west of the Indian Memorial.
About all the paragraph I referred to says is Custer came, got whacked, and peace was once more restored to Whistful Vista.
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Sept 3, 2014 16:34:05 GMT -6
Post by Mulligan on Sept 3, 2014 16:34:05 GMT -6
A glint of awareness, flashing through the cattails of a stream. In the brilliant sunlight of a summer day I approached the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument for an overdue visit. I was coming in from eastern Montana, across the Yellowstone, through Miles City, passing the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation at Lame Deer, heading westwards. Now I was entering the vast, open land of the Crow Agency. Glancing at my unfolded AAA road map I thought the park entrance might be just off the 90/87 Highway Interchange. It had been a few years. I had forgotten. When I came within a mile or so of the tall, white granite memorial marker I could see it clearly, off on the hill to my left. I knew the battlefield was on the other side of the long ridge crest, on rolling prairie grasslands that sloped down to the meandering, cottonwood-shrouded cutbanks of the Little Bighorn river. However, as I was driving along the narrow lanes of US Route 212 -- coming in the "back way" -- the battlefield and the river were obscured from my vision by the rise of the ridge, and the eastern slope of a wide, shallow ravine, which was in shadow. This was, I would realize later, the EUREKA moment. It was a completely unexpected and unplanned vantage point. Then the wide, panoramic vista I had from my windshield combined with a dizzying sense of geographic space that I experienced physically, like some ground-level form of vertigo. This juxtaposition between myself, on the roadway, and the old battleground that I knew was lying below my sight line on the opposite side of the low ridge, would be the visceral key that would open up a secret door into History. Every vibrant and thrilling matinee image from my childhood, every carefully considered adult notion obtained through endless hours of book reading, every single educated thought about the Seventh Cavalry that I had accumulated over the course of a lifetime, was about to be radically altered by a few simple revelations. An accomplished researcher's elegant insights, and his friends' surprisingly original perspectives would soon strip away all my naive preconceptions about the defining event of the American West, Custer's Last Stand. I didn't anticipate it the day of my visit to the monument, but a continuous, nagging curiosity about the battle would eventually lead me to casually register on a randomly chosen, innocuous-appearing, Little Big Horn online discussion forum -- where my intellectual grasp of the known universe would be abruptly challenged, and shattered, by brusque, unseen, high-ranking former members of the United States military command. It would take some time for me to awaken to the understanding I was being rudely baptized into a new order of thinking. Ignus Arum Probat. Fire tests gold. I was blind, but now I could see. Mulligan
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Sept 3, 2014 16:40:54 GMT -6
Post by Dark Cloud on Sept 3, 2014 16:40:54 GMT -6
Since high, low, mid level military vets don't and have never agreed on what happened with Custer - agreeing on near nothing and starting with his actual command - good to hear what the Cosmos actually awaited was your approach and arrival, a prophecy fulfilled.
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Sept 3, 2014 16:51:08 GMT -6
Post by quincannon on Sept 3, 2014 16:51:08 GMT -6
Interstate 90 does not lead to Damascus, only to Buffalo. Buffalo, Wyoming that is, not the better known one.
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Sept 3, 2014 17:31:54 GMT -6
Post by Beth on Sept 3, 2014 17:31:54 GMT -6
Mulligan, that picture makes me miss the high plains desert and the open praire so much it aches.
Beth
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Sept 3, 2014 17:59:28 GMT -6
Post by Mulligan on Sept 3, 2014 17:59:28 GMT -6
Fred, Yes, you are very correct. I have changed my NPS map segment on that earlier post to add compass orientation for the photograph, and to place my position M south of the road, which is where I was actually standing. Yes, the entrance gate ranger shack was just behind me. Anyone here is free to use the personal snapshots that I attach to my posts. Learning Adobe Lightroom 5 on the fly! Camera data for Ravine/Horses picture: Nikon D40, with Nikon DX 35mm 1:1.8G lens, F10 @1/400 Here's a shot of the entrance gate, which was to my left: Mulligan PS. Walking down from LSH, one last glance, over my shoulder:
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Sept 4, 2014 6:25:14 GMT -6
Post by AZ Ranger on Sept 4, 2014 6:25:14 GMT -6
Mulligan
From my recent visit and tour I believe CH Ravine would be in the bottom of your picture and crosses the entrance road at a right angle. Also Kellogg's marker site would appear in that picture. The drainages originally continued on around to the back side of LSH.
Regards
AZ Ranger
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