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Post by Diane Merkel on Aug 26, 2004 9:46:47 GMT -6
I just received an email from a website visitor, asking if Custer was mutilated. The writer said that he has heard several different stories.
I told him that I would post his question on the Message Board. Would anyone care to answer him?
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Post by shatonska on Aug 26, 2004 11:59:25 GMT -6
Custer was not mutilated , for wath i know!
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Post by Jim on Aug 27, 2004 8:46:24 GMT -6
For what it's worth, I learned from several history buff's up in Montana(6 of them), it is their consensus that besides the two bullet wounds he had(Left temple and chest), both his ears were peirced with an awl and that he had an arrow inserted up his penis. Their belief is that these mutilations were not reported in respect to Elizabeth "Libbie" Custer.
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Rylance Lord LBHA Member
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Post by Rylance Lord LBHA Member on Aug 29, 2004 16:36:03 GMT -6
Re: the query about Custer, G.A. being "mutilated". I would disagree with those who say that he was NOT mutilated. I would consider ANY such reported violations against a deceased human body/body parts to be "mutilations" - - though perhaps not gross mutilations. That is my opinion. Perhaps the better phraseology would be to say that his corpse was abused. RAL
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Post by nomadandstandby on Sept 9, 2004 9:55:37 GMT -6
For what it's worth, I learned from several history buff's up in Montana(6 of them), it is their consensus that besides the two bullet wounds he had(Left temple and chest), both his ears were peirced with an awl and that he had an arrow inserted up his thingy. Their belief is that these mutilations were not reported in respect to Elizabeth "Libbie" Custer. I have always wondered about the validity of this. Why keep any mutilation to GAC from her yet give highly detailed accounts o f how Tom Custer was found?
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Post by MontanaKid on Sept 9, 2004 12:44:12 GMT -6
This is one Montana source that states that any evidence that Custer was mutilated is sketchy. The arrow up the penis story has been around, but has no documentation to support it. The general consensus is that the only documented wounds were gunshot wounds to the temple and one to the chest. The awl-in-the-ears story comes from Kate Bighead and Son of the Morning Star, but it belies the testimony of all the indian warriors that they had no idea what unit they had been fighting. None of those at the battle had seen Custer's advance from the north until it was moving down the LBH drainage from the Rosebud. And very few had any warning before Reno's attack on the South end of the villages. One week before, they had fought Crook high on the upper Rosebud and most assumed they were attacked by those same troops. From the indian testimony, there is no reason for Custer to be singled out, because no one knew he was there until weeks after the battle. It was not uncommon for Plains warriors to shoot arrows into dead enemies, including to the groin area, but nothing in literature about an insertion up the urethra. I think it is one of those stories that survives, without any verification, because, in the minds of too many people, if it sounds bizarre enough, it must be true. Lt. James S. Bradley, leader of the Montana Column Scouts that first detected Custer and who took an immediate personal count of the bodies, missing only a few, wrote a letter to the Helena Herald in July of 1876, denouncing what he called great eggagerations of muitilation on the battlefield. He said there was severe mutilation where Reno's dead were left in the valley, but relatively little among Custer's dead. He said there was scalping and that what many took to be mutilation was from the Indian's method of dispatching the wounded, repeated club blows to the head.
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Post by tomthebomb on Sept 14, 2004 17:17:05 GMT -6
Was Custer mutilated?
I believe he was . . . and it was covered it. Why? Because it was bad enough that the most famous outfit in the military had been defeated by "savages" . . . but to have Custer . . . the country's most "famous" Indian fighter dead, and mutilated to boot, would have been too much for the country to bear. Never mind what the effects would have been on Libbie.
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Post by David on Sept 16, 2004 10:54:38 GMT -6
Laurence Barnett, in "Touched By Fire", said that the arrow on the peni$ of Custer was a rumor by Custerphobes, to put more tears in Libbie's eyes. Because it's the kind of picture that is not really glorious, to have his... thing destroyed by an arrow... Don't forget that Benteen and Reno gave to the Reno Court of Inquiry enough lies in their testimonies and enough false prooves (false petition of soldiers, false map) to corrupt all the trail. They were able to make a lot of rumors seem true, like this one... D. Custer's buff of Switzerland www.custer.tk
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Post by nomad and standby on Sept 16, 2004 17:03:28 GMT -6
Laurence Barnett, in "Touched By Fire", said that the arrow on the peni$ of Custer was a rumor by Custerphobes, to put more tears in Libbie's eyes. D. Custer's buff of Switzerland www.custer.tkFor the record, that's Louise Barnett.
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Post by David on Sept 17, 2004 6:26:40 GMT -6
ooops I tought Louise Barnett and wrote it like Lawrence Barrett, Custer's friend and actor. thanks nomadlaststandby D www.custer.tk
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Post by nomad and standby on Sept 17, 2004 8:26:08 GMT -6
ooops :-X I tought Louise Barnett and wrote it like Lawrence Barrett, Custer's friend and actor. thanks nomadlaststandby :) D www.custer.tkOne of my Six Degrees of Association to Custer is a pair of Lawrence Barrett autographs which I had framed. N&S
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Post by Lone Stars Ghost on Nov 2, 2004 16:06:55 GMT -6
I have always assumed that he was because in Bradley's description of Custer's body he seems to go overboard with the lack of mutilations he noticed on George, but Tom's wounds were detailed. I believe two days in the hot Montana sun would have turned Custer into a bloated mess.
A year later in the Nez Perce War of 1877, it was rumored by many that the Nez Perce mutilated the soldiers at the Battle of Whitebird. What they were seeing was disfigured bodies due to bloating.
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Post by Jim on Nov 3, 2004 10:03:31 GMT -6
For what it's worth, In an interview on January 20, 1876, with his friend Col. Charles F. Bates, then Lt. Godfrey disclosed that "Custer's genitals had been mutilated by an arrow which had been forced up his peni$. Startling as this revelation may be, no particular significance should be attached to this type of mutilation since it appears to have been common practice among the Indians" - page 21 of "The Custer Battle Casualties - Burials, Exhumations, and Reinterments", by Richard G. Hardorff
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mike
New Member
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Post by mike on Jan 15, 2005 20:04:58 GMT -6
do you think custer put a bullet in his temple?
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Post by shatonska on Jan 16, 2005 14:55:58 GMT -6
do you think custer put a bullet in his temple? no , i don't think so ! anyway there are not many informations , i think custer revolver was so powerfull to blow away the whole head if he did shoot himself !
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