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Post by crzhrs on May 30, 2006 9:30:32 GMT -6
Re, Condition of the Horses:
Martini stated that while going back to deliver his message to Benteen he urged his horse on faster but the animal could not do it.
Godfrey stated that while Benteen was on his scout to the left the horses was faltering and some were falling behind due to the terrain.
While the condition of the horses were not a prime reason for the 7th's defeat . . . it just added another of the many reasons.
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Post by Dark Cloud on May 30, 2006 10:28:48 GMT -6
Martini's horse had been shot, in fairness. But that reminds me. WCF says Boston told Martini this, whereas I've read Benteen told him. Did Martini give a separate and mutually exclusive story?
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Post by elisabeth on May 30, 2006 10:39:36 GMT -6
Frequently.
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Post by Dark Cloud on May 30, 2006 10:47:13 GMT -6
......regarding that specific point. Or was the error WCF's?
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Post by elisabeth on May 30, 2006 10:58:45 GMT -6
Sorry, I was being frivolous.
Yes, there do seem to be two versions (at least). In Hammer/Camp, Custer in 76 -- Martini's October 24th 1908 interview -- it's Boston; in the version in Graham, The Custer Myth, p. 291, it's Benteen. To be fair, it's Camp's footnote that retails the Boston story, and says only that Boston pointed out the horse was limping; it may have taken Benteen to point out the cause ...
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Post by crzhrs on May 30, 2006 12:16:46 GMT -6
<. . . but the scouts? Surely they must have known what they were looking at. Did they not tell Custer? Or did he simply ignore them? Because this evidence could have told him not only the numbers to expect, but that he'd find a single continuous village rather than the separate villages he seems to have been planning for ...>
It wasn't just Indian scouts who were advising Custer of the size of the village and the possible number of warriors that might be encountered. Reynolds, Girard, and Boyer all voiced their concerns. Boyer told Godfrey that they could expect a "damn big fight" . . . Custer even admonished Boyer about his info.
If Custer knew the village was so large why plan an attack like it was a small village? Divide the command into 3 units (4 if you count the pack train) each not large enough to do much damage other than possibly push the Indians away from their camp sites.
What other options did Custer have?
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Post by Dark Cloud on May 30, 2006 12:56:21 GMT -6
A limping horse is almost immediately known to a rider.
So, why is this taken over the other, far earlier and more numerous stories? Benteen could become Boston by error. If Martini was that bad a witness, Benteen's annoyance is valid. If Camp made an error, that isn't reassuring.
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Post by elisabeth on May 31, 2006 10:42:06 GMT -6
Hmmmm. Maybe they don't have to be mutually exclusive? Camp's paraphrasing what Boston's supposed to have said; it could have been something like "your horse looks in a bad way" or "your horse is favouring his near hind leg" or whatever. Martini knew the horse was tired; he might have put any "limping" down to that, or to losing a shoe or something. Given the job he had to do, unless it pulled up totally lame he had no option but to push it on till he got to Benteen. Then Benteen sees and points out the wound. Not impossible ...
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Post by Dark Cloud on May 31, 2006 14:11:21 GMT -6
Nothing's impossible. Martini in Graham says he thought his horse was tired, mentions no limp, didn't know he'd been shot, mentioned nothing about Boston's concern for his horse, only Benteen's observation.
You don't push a limping horse if you want to get somewhere. Brief speed can make him seriously lame quick, and you didn't want to be afoot thereabouts.
We're reading what Camp says Martini says that Boston said thirty years on. Third hand. Whereas Martin's accounts in first hand under oath that mention no such conversation about the horse (do they?) and to Graham are disregarded in favor of a Boston anectdote. Odd, what?
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Post by crzhrs on Jun 1, 2006 9:57:11 GMT -6
The best sources are the primary ones . . . the first reports, interviews, testimony . . . not the ones years later when witnesses/survivors had time to think and rethink their's and other's actions . . . or for some to make a buck by writing books and embellishing their actions or what they saw.
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