Countdown to June 25

[Diane Merkel]

We will be seeing countless synopses of the battle over the next thirty days. It only took this writer three words before he messed up! And there's that darn watch again(!) and "Libby" rather than "Libbie."

If you find short horrors, please post them and be sure to link back to the source.

On May 18, 130 years ago, brevet Major Gen. George A. Custer and 760 officers and men started out for Montana to bring back approximately 800 hostile American Indians. Many people don’t know that Custer wasn’t the youngest brevetted general in U.S. history. Galusha Pennypacker was only 17 when he became a brigadier general. George A. Custer was 22 when he became a one-star general.

Mrs. Elizabeth Bacon Custer and a few of the officers’ wives rode as far as present day Heart Butte Dam, the first day of travel. The last night that Mrs. Custer spent with George she had a terrible vision of Custer and all of his men falling into enemy hands. Many people don’t know that Mrs. Custer rode George’s favorite horse, Dandy, back to Fort Abraham Lincoln.

Before departing Custer gave his wife Libby his watch that the Michigan 7th gave Custer at the end of the Civil War and on the inside of the watch it said, “Go you Wolverines.” This would be the last time Libby would see her precious George alive.

Leaving Fort Abraham Lincoln, the regimental band played “Garry Owen,” the theme song for the 7th Cavalry. “Garry Owen” was an old Irish folk tune which Custer heard once and adopted to inspire the troops marching into battle.

Custer and his men didn’t realize that the Indians they were after had increased in number since January 1876. They had heard reports of 800 hostiles camped along the shores of the Little Big Horn River in Montana. Quite the opposite was true. There were more like 4,000 fighting warriors of the Sioux and Cheyenne.

To make a long story short, Custer and 250 of his officers and men were killed on June 25, 1876, 130 years ago. There have been more books written about this battle than any other battle in U.S. history.

Source: www.in-forum.com/articles/index.cfm?id=127849§ion=Opinion

[Tricia]

No, the author has the watch inscription wrong. It's "Ride you Wolverines!" Could our once and future pocketwatch fan have penned this? I'm surprised the writer didn't also include GAC's membership in the Knights of Malta ...

Oops, gotta go outside and water Dandy. You see, after Libbie rode the mount home to Fort Lincoln ...

[Diane Merkel]

;D Amazing, no?

[Diane Merkel]

Here's another one. I thought I had seen Custer's name used to symbolize just about everything, but this Realtor's angle is a new one on me!

Those deciding to sell their own home without a Realtor risk following in the hoof prints of Gen. George Custer's horse at Little Bighorn. Without cautiously finding facts on the whole picture, Custer led a charge on, what he thought was, a sleeping village of Sioux and Cheyenne Indians. But once the general and his men made it to the bottom of the valley, they found themselves trapped, surrounded by armed warriors at all sides.

Source: tinyurl.com/lbp8l

The sad thing is that, before my first visit to the battlefield in 1990, that's the way I thought it happened; i.e., Custer was in the bottom of a valley with thousands of Indians pouring down upon him from all around. I would bet that a lot of people (the Realtor included) still think that, so that is why Custer is the target of so many jokes. Where did we get that impression? The movies, most likely, but I don't remember one in particular.