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Post by crzhrs on Aug 18, 2016 6:47:12 GMT -6
Richard I think the missions were different. Custer was following those that needed to be punished. He at least on paper succeeded. Mission accomplished and time to leave. At LBH all of the Indians were not where the US government wanted them to be. All of them needed to move back and be punished for leaving the reservation. Regards Steve The US Government's mission was to find, attack and/or force all remaining FREE (aka Hostile) Indians on to reservations. Estimates of "winter roamer" warriors was around 800. Custer and most of the military had no idea Reservation Indians were fleeing the rez and had no idea how much that increased the number of fighters. Reservation Indians were not the target . . . Winter Roamers were, the ones who were supposedly killing settlers (they weren't) and intimidating Reservation Indians into not signing any new treaties and giving away the Black Hills (they were making threats to kill Rez Indians who complied with the US Gov) We've stated many times Custer didn't care how many Indians there were but whether he could find them before they ran away. He found them but they didn't run away and the increased number of warriors was more than enough to stop the 7th in its tracks.
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Post by AZ Ranger on Aug 18, 2016 8:03:51 GMT -6
Richard I think the missions were different. Custer was following those that needed to be punished. He at least on paper succeeded. Mission accomplished and time to leave. At LBH all of the Indians were not where the US government wanted them to be. All of them needed to move back and be punished for leaving the reservation. Regards Steve The US Government's mission was to find, attack and/or force all remaining FREE (aka Hostile) Indians on to reservations. Estimates of "winter roamer" warriors was around 800. Custer and most of the military had no idea Reservation Indians were fleeing the rez and had no idea how much that increased the number of fighters. Reservation Indians were not the target . . . Winter Roamers were, the ones who were supposedly killing settlers (they weren't) and intimidating Reservation Indians into not signing any new treaties and giving away the Black Hills (they were making threats to kill Rez Indians who complied with the US Gov) We've stated many times Custer didn't care how many Indians there were but whether he could find them before they ran away. He found them but they didn't run away and the increased number of warriors was more than enough to stop the 7th in its tracks. Again the mission was this one village since Custer apparently didn't know the others existed. Custer did care about the number of Indians willing to fight even at Washita. He retrograded rather than fought those Indians that rode to support those attacked attack at BK's location. At the LBH Custer knew the number of Indians that could be expected and had a visual before proceeding north across MTC. Regards AZ Ranger
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Post by wild on Aug 18, 2016 8:44:59 GMT -6
Hi AZ Was Black Kettle just unfortunate ? Would Custer have hit the first village he came across regardless of it's standing with the "authorities".
Cheers Richard
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Post by AZ Ranger on Aug 18, 2016 9:30:35 GMT -6
Richard
I think Custer followed tracks to Black Kettle. If he had intel of a much larger number of Indians I have not seen it. Custer expected 1,500 warriors at LBH. I think Elliot's chasing the Indians that left the village turned to disaster when they ran into the much larger number of Indians. If Custer was to deal with BK only then it was a success. If his mission was to get all the Indians there back to the reservation then it was not a success.
Steve
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Post by AZ Ranger on Aug 18, 2016 9:32:07 GMT -6
Horse
Do we know the status of Oklahoma at the time of the battle?
Was it Indian territory?
Thanks
AZ Ranger
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Post by tubman13 on Aug 18, 2016 10:56:43 GMT -6
It was Indian territory, Choctaw, Cherokee, among others including some of Custer's scouts resided there. The Pawnee were moved there about 2 years later.
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Post by crzhrs on Aug 18, 2016 11:08:14 GMT -6
AZ: It was "Indian Territory" established before the Civil War.
The attacked was not directly aimed at Black Kettle but ANY Cheyenne. Sheridan stated that ALL Cheyenne & Arapahoe to be "hostile". His orders: ". . . to destroy [Indian] villages and ponies, to kill or hang all warriors, and to bring back all woman and children [survivors].
It didn't matter who the leader(s) were of any village . . . it just so happened that Black Kettle was the westernmost of the camps and that was the camp Custer hit. It could have been any other village led by any other chief.
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Post by crzhrs on Aug 18, 2016 11:17:51 GMT -6
AZ: According to many sources the estimate of warriors Custer could face was around 800. From Cavalier in Buckskin: ". . . campsites that Reno examined in the Rosebud revealed about 400 lodges which meant about eight hundred warriors. This represented roughly the magnitude of the Sitting Bull bands with no substantial infusion of agency indians."
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Post by AZ Ranger on Aug 18, 2016 11:40:42 GMT -6
From NPS Washita
Custer's orders were to go down south till he came to the Washita River and follow it down until he came across the hostiles. He was then to shoot and hang all the warriors, capture all the women and children, and destroy the camp and horses. Custer was going to do exactly what he was told because he wanted to get back into the good graces of Generals Sheridan, Sherman, and Grant. (Keim 103; Brill 142; Custer 214; Greene 96; Hutton 63)
No, he wasn't after Black Kettle. Custer more or less stumbled onto his village while following the trail made by 150 warriors in 18 inches in snow. (Custer 22; Collins 62; Greene 100 & 120; Lecky 103)
Custer's general plan was to employ the hours between the time he got there and daylight to completely surround the village, and at daybreak, or as soon as it was barely light enough for the purpose, to attack the Indians from all sides. This tactic was the U.S. Army mainstay during the Indian Wars, both before and after Washita. Troops in loose order formation would surround a village whose occupants were asleep and then they would attack from all sides at the same time, preferably at dawn, killing and wounding the residents, capturing the ponies, and destroying their property. (Greene 112; Brill 148-150; Hoig 124-125; Custer 234; Collins 68; Barnard 246-247).
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Post by jodak on Aug 18, 2016 11:53:12 GMT -6
Hi AZ Was Black Kettle just unfortunate ? Would Custer have hit the first village he came across regardless of it's standing with the "authorities". Cheers Richard The 1868 winter campaign of "The Cheyenne War" was similar to the 1876 spring/summer campaign of "The Great Sioux War" in that it consisted of three converging columns originating at different locations. The 7th Cavalry was with the force directly commanded by General Sheridan, who was commander of the Department of the Missouri at the time, and, also as in 1876, the 7th was detached and sent ahead of the main force. When that occurred, Sheridan's orders to Custer were - "“Proceed south, in the direction of the Antelope Hills, thence towards the Washita River, the supposed winter seat of the hostile tribes; destroy their villages and ponies; kill or hang all warriors, and bring back all women and children.”
This indicates that the army had a better expectation of the numbers of villages and Indians that might be encountered than is often stated when it is said that Custer did not expect other villages to be located nearby. It also indicates that Custer's mission was simply to kill as many warriors as possible and bring back the non-combatants. Once he had at least some of the non-combatants in hand he probably faced a dilemma - To continue to fight the other Indians/villages, in accordance with the first part of his order, would have jeopardized the fulfillment of the second part of his order of returning with the captives that he already had. It was likely a "bird in the hand vs. two in the bush" type thing.
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Post by jodak on Aug 18, 2016 11:58:03 GMT -6
Sorry AZ, I didn't mean to basically duplicate what you said. I was working on my post while you posted yours, which I didn't see until I posted mine.
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Post by tubman13 on Aug 18, 2016 12:11:14 GMT -6
Jodak,
Three prong is correct at Washita. 7th, outfit from NM, and Kansas Militia. Alas, much like LBH, it was a 7th only battle.
Regards, Tom
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Post by AZ Ranger on Aug 18, 2016 12:24:57 GMT -6
Here is a quote from page 89 Centennial Campaign The Sioux Wars 1876 by John S Gray
Terry assumed formal command of the expedition on May 14, and then informed Sheridan of his plan by letter on May 15th:
Information from several independent sources seems to establish the fact that the Sioux are collected in camps on the Little Missouri and between that and the Powder River. I have already ordered Colonel Gibbon to move eastward and suggest that it would be very desirable for General Crook's column to move up as soon as possible. It is represented that they have 1,500 lodges, and are confident , and intend to make a stand. Should they do so , and should the three columns be able to act simultaneously, I should expect great success. We start tomorrow.
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Post by wild on Aug 18, 2016 21:49:32 GMT -6
AZ et al
Information from several independent sources seems to establish the fact that the Sioux are collected in camps on the Little Missouri and between that and the Powder River. Note the plural and size of area. Is it possible that Custer was expecting to find as at the Washita scattered villages? His note to Benteen of a "big village£ seems to indicate that he was suprised to find a single huge village.
Hurrah Richard
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Post by montrose on Aug 19, 2016 10:33:14 GMT -6
AZ et al Information from several independent sources seems to establish the fact that the Sioux are collected in camps on the Little Missouri and between that and the Powder River.Note the plural and size of area. Is it possible that Custer was expecting to find as at the Washita scattered villages? His note to Benteen of a "big village£ seems to indicate that he was suprised to find a single huge village. Hurrah Richard LTC Custer's initial deployment from the divide show that he thought there was an outlier village at the junction of Reno Creek and South Fork Reno Creek. The Benteen movement and follow on orders clearly prove this. He then assumed an outlier village vicinity Ford A. LTC Custer did not know that the village was concentrated until he saw for himself at 4311. This is surprising since he had been on the trail of a concentrated village for several days. His scouts knew what they saw from the old camp sites, and warned him repeatedly. Custer, not for the first time, kept trying to hope away the facts. Looking at the intelligence available to him, and his decisions reveals a massive gap between reality and assumptions, and bad decision following bad decision. It is like watching the Trump campaign.
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