|
Post by Diane Merkel on Jul 18, 2006 11:20:27 GMT -6
Welcome back, Billy! You were missed.
|
|
|
Post by d o harris on Jul 18, 2006 11:46:45 GMT -6
Billy---all of Hardorff's references to Wolf Tooth rely on John Stands In Timber. Michno qouted Fr. Peter Powell to validate Wolf Tooth. I've not read Powell's books, and at current prices my curiosity is dampened. However, in Cheyenne Memories I find sufficient information to indicate that when Powell was doing his research Old John was his guide and informant. So, even with Powell everything regarding Wolf Tooth may tie back to, well, Wolf Tooth. Absent a corroborating source, which may be in Powell, I think skepticism is justified.
Anyone who has a vested interest in the archaeological findings has a vested interest ingnoring or obfuscating the question of what happened to the dirt. I haven't read "Where Custer Fell" and have no comment. My money follows my interests, and currently there is very little interest in Custer beyond Weir Pt. I did read a review of the book that stated the authors pretty much followed Fox. If this is the case it would appear the authors were aboard the archaelogical bandwagon, but I do not know it is the case. Several months ago the issue of changes on LSH was discussed, and it was stated, with supporting evidence, (that may have been provided by Diane), that the high point of LSH had been lowered by 12 feet. Combined with the other construction activities that have occurred on the battlefield I believe the archaeoloogists, and those who subscribe to derived theories, ought to be giving some time answering this question: what happened to the dirt?
A moral equivalence between the Yorktown hasn't been established, and can't be established because none exists to be discovered. In any major disaster, civil or military, a system of triage follows, and should follow. But this in no way excuses the lack of so much as a ten second trumpet call. I agree that Reno has suffered unnecessary abuse over the years. He was not the most culpable officer in the valley that day, but he was in command. Perhaps he was not suited to fighting an Indian style open battle, but he was eminently qualified to fight a set-piece defensive battle against any foe, and I believe he nearly succeeded in securing the woods for just such a fight. Then, suddenly surprised, he cracked. He purchased his personal safety at the price of abandoning thirty or more men who were his responsibility. Some lived, and some died, because he wouldn't delay long enough to sound retreat.
|
|
|
Post by rch on Jul 18, 2006 11:47:50 GMT -6
darkcloud
I take your point re; LSH and further amend my statement to "generally northward of the point on Custer or Last Stand Hill where stands (the last time I looked) the monument to the dead of the 7th Cavalry who were killed or died of wounds received on 25 and 26 June 1876."
I have never liked the distortions created by the placement of markers destined for the Reno Battlefield on the Custer field. I think they should be removed. Do you mean to say that all these erroneous markers were placed in the vicinity of where Custer's body was found?
I do not recall casting a ballot for dishonesty in history.
Neither do I recall insisting that a "mythical template of sacrifice" inform anyone's opinions on anything other than bunts and long fly balls. For any who may be laboring under this terrible and unintended insistence, I beg your forgivenss and herewith extend a blanket manumission.
Whether there was a last stand should be based on reasonable evidence and a reasonable interpretation of it.
rch
|
|
|
Post by Dark Cloud on Jul 18, 2006 15:12:22 GMT -6
I don't think you need to amend your argument. I've just assumed that the 'LSH' was a circle of distance from the monument, and I placed my utter guess north of where you do. Could well be wrong and an assumption on my part.
I don't recall casting a ballot for dishonesty in history, either. Did I say you had?
Ah, but while you do not insist outright others believe in a Last Stand, that assumption is your baseline, as you claim it as such. I don't understand it.
A Last Stand is only such, really, as a proactive decision, one 'here and no further' or 'they shall not pass' or 'bite me.' Although unstated, that is the difference in those who favor a group on the run shot out of the saddle and forced to fight there, vs. 'rally to me.' And as you say, let's look at the evidence.
The first hand descriptions of LSH suggest Custer was with about six or eight men, including his bro and Cooke, and his body atop soldiers. So, he was in a very small clump at the zenith, few further from the village. He was not in the middle or even near it, as one who was organizing a Stand can reasonably be assumed to be. And the remarks about the site, shorn of Victorian courtesy, don't really resonate with martial turgor.
What strikes me is that Reno and Custer may (may....) have done very similar things: attacked, dismounted to thwart an overpowering response, and a mad dash out of there to high ground. Each led the "charge." Reno made it and is a coward. Custer didn't and is a hero.
I suspect, being human, and that this incident is unlikely to have produced fighting and heroism outside human experience, that both verdicts can, with no sacrifice to evidence or prejudices, be solidly nudged towards a center. But Custerphiles have chemical animosity to any comparison even being allowed, one of the reasons they've insisted upon the offense to the last for Custer. And I think that's why the offense is ceasely repeated as if undoubtedly true, and it is not undoubtedly true.
Oh, and the names of the two wounded crewman abandoned on the Yorktown and later picked up by the Hughes were Norman Pichette, who died, and George Weise, who was left in sick bay. Weise heard the staff leave with "Leave him and let's go - he's done for anyway." That's page 266 of the first edition, Incredible Victory. Weise was interviewed for the book (page 317) Doesn't get more first hand then that, does it? Naw. And the men who rescued them said they heard others aboard the Yorktown. There's more, but that's enough.
|
|
|
Post by Tricia on Jul 18, 2006 16:51:27 GMT -6
But DC, how can Custer be precluded from the benefit of the doubt or be responsible for the race to LSH when, according to your theory, he's dead or mortally wounded at MTF? Who, then, is the person who should be compared to Reno in your scenario? Yates? Smith? TWC? Or do you believe Keogh was present at the ford as well? I'm not saying it is wrong to hold a person (even GAC) on the Custer battlefield to the same account as Reno, but I just don't know who it is. And I realise you provide cover for your ideas with the words "Custer may," but how can you hold an unknown possibility to the same question as the known (i.e., Reno=coward)? I mean, what's the point?
|
|
|
Post by Dark Cloud on Jul 18, 2006 17:59:04 GMT -6
C wounded is just handy because it doesn't conflict with what's known and is simple. C leading a Reno charge to high ground is another possibility. Just saying again: Custer is given every doubt's benefit, Reno none.
|
|
|
Post by Tricia on Jul 18, 2006 19:34:39 GMT -6
No, you're asking board members and everyone within earshot/wordshot to question what is, in itself, a questionable scenario. If we knew, at/after MTF, GAC remained alive and through his specific command--or actions--hauled his scared little butt up to LSH, that would be an act that should be challenged--and heartily--with the same anger many display towards the Fair Major. But the problem is, *any number of names* can be substituted for that of the golden- haired lieutenant colonel, if your theory unfolded the way you maintain. You want us to question the previously held sacred cows, but they're nothing more than long, long shots, at best.
As I said, you can't question a dead man--he's your dead man--especially if he was killed at MTF.
|
|
|
Post by Dark Cloud on Jul 18, 2006 19:59:52 GMT -6
Well, as mentioned, some can't entertain it. To discuss it would give it credibility, and that's why they have to start with their (dubious) sureties: there was a last stand, Custer could not have crumbled, and he was on the offensive, at least, when the going got tough. This, in contrast to how Reno is represented. Reno insisted he was on the offensive as well, but is dismissed because he was running for high ground on the opposite side of the river from the camp, with himself in the lead. Whereas, Custer.....
Evidence is malleable, and it's really just how it's spun and presented.
Americans tend to view the West and its history as unique, which I'd deny, and they want the events to be so as well. They can't view the battle as just another among many in our history. It has to have mystical value for their own needs.
Even Benedict Arnold has received better press than Reno.
|
|
|
Post by Tricia on Jul 18, 2006 20:25:13 GMT -6
It is quite possible GAC crumbled (though he certainly didn't do so in similar, "your gig is up" situations during the ACW), there was no Last Stand, and for myself, Custer's offensive movement could have evolved into a defensive--we're talking last ditch--kind of movement at Ford D. Then again, he could have gotten whacked at the river, had he approached it at MTC ....
|
|
|
Post by AZ Ranger on Jul 18, 2006 22:10:26 GMT -6
Why does a run at a gallop to get out of sure death have to mean you were scared. If you walk into ambush you don't have to stay there. If you turn the horses loose at a gallop then you have a panic run because of the nature of the horse. Reno made it and Custer didn't.
|
|
|
Post by shan on Jul 19, 2006 3:39:12 GMT -6
Once again I find myself agreeing with much of what darkcloud has to say. The frustrating thing for many of us who simply wish to know what on earth actually happened that day, is that so much of what we read is rendered cloudy and obscure either by individual authors, or else by witnesses personal prejudices. If we treat the battle objectively, as battles go, it was a small, virtually insignificant affair, { not for those that took part of course,} with the casualties high, but there had been other battles with Indians that had left the American army with far more slain, the battle General St. Clair fought against Little Turtles combined Indian force for one. Yet this battle and a number of others remain is virtually unknown or else ignored. Ouite way some events become greater than the sum of their parts is a mystery. Take the battle of Hastings here in England, a battle that changed the whole course of our history and has made us the people we are today. For King Harald and his Saxon army it was as much a last stand scenario as the Little Big Horn, it had its heros and villians, there were individual acts of bravoury and cowardliness that were were observed and sung about, there was even even a magnificent pictorial representation made of the battle, and yet apart from the date 1066, it seems to play no part in the minds of the British people, even those wan, sentimental Victorions I am about to mention, seem to have completely ignored it, as indeed has the cinema.
And yet, following the upsurge of Americanised Victorian sentimentality which swept the the nation after they had read about the battle, a cultural attitude that did indeed reach back to Arthurian models for its ideas of nobility and noble self sacrifice, the heroic image of the last stand seems to have formed in the minds of those who clasped their papers in shock, almost before the gun-smoke had cleared away from LSH. Of course many of these people had already been primed to see the West in terms of Myth by the dime novel which was so popular, and then of course Hollywood eventually appeared on the scene and set about mythologizing a number of a those distant happenings on the great plains, turning them into icons, and it is these combined models that shine on in our minds as we attempt to dig down in search of the facts. Someone else, { without scrolling back, I think it was on this thread, } said that if we went back to the original sources, re-read, re-examined those first thoughts and observations of the men who were there, the men from both sides, we might be a little closer to seeing something of what went on, and I couldn't agree more. But on balance, these reports run counter to the myths that have grown up around the event and for many, { if one is to take this site as a fair cross section, } if not most people, these findings are very hard to take. There is one last element to all this , and I'm as guilty of this as anyone else, we all like to think of ourselves as a modern day version of Sherlock Holmes, the person who will discover the unnoticed, neglected clue that is lieing there in front of our face, the clue that will unlock the mystery. This is the reason I tune in each day and wade through yards of words, many of which have me shouting at the screen, like the rest of you I'm looking for that little insight that will tie it all together. In other words, although I personally believe that Custer had very little say in what happened to him and his command after he was last seen around Weir Point, I am still looking for complexity dam it. Shan.
|
|
|
Post by elisabeth on Jul 19, 2006 7:28:41 GMT -6
Shan -- how true! It's the detective aspect that makes this so addictive ...
I wonder if one reason why this battle took its place so instantly in myth and legend was its anachronicity (if that's a word)?
There was America, coming of age, celebrating its Centennial; the bad old days of the past were put behind it; the country was striding triumphantly into the modern age. The first typewriter was displayed at the Centennial exhibition, and the telephone was patented that year. The Indians were so much seen as a quaint relic, a disappearing species, as to be featured in the exhibition as such. The notion that a) there were still Indian wars going on, and b) Indians could wipe out a media-celebrity general and his entire force, must have been as shocking as we would find it today if, say, a detachment of state-of-the-art tanks was wiped out by something as old-fashioned as cavalry ...
|
|
|
Post by George Mabry on Jul 19, 2006 9:36:53 GMT -6
I too enjoy the detective aspects of this battle. However, unlike some “mysteries”, I hold no hope of ever solving this one. I mainly look at events from the Crows Nest up to and including Custer’s arrival at MTC. You actually have a few facts you can beat around there. Once Custer leaves MTC you can just pick a theory, any theory, find a few Indian accounts that agree with you, and paint any picture you please.
What I would like to be able to do, is to be able to look at one theory and be able to determine how it relates to other theories and which are more credible. The truth, I’m afraid, will elude us all.
George
|
|
|
Post by analyst on Jul 19, 2006 18:19:42 GMT -6
Actually, I see few great or hidden mysteries in this battle. Custer being wounded at MTC is not forensically supported by his wounds. As battles go this was a relatively small one, the consequence of which was the end of the plains indians influence. The only thing particularly unknown are some small elements movement around a hill prior to their demise What we have is a commander who did not follow the military plan he was instructed to follow. He wore out horses and men to arrive at the planned battleground a day earlier than the other assigned elements. He broke up his command in the face of overwhelming odds, wildly vacillating reported numbers of indians. He left his sabers at home. Turned down Gatling Guns and extra troops. Armed with defective ammunition and single shot rifles. Threw caution to the winds and attacked he knew not what! What a shock he was wiped off the face of the earth! The real mystery here is how Reno's command managed to survive? For mysteries we need to look at the real ones, not the ones conjured up out of hero worship or whatever.
|
|
|
Post by markland on Jul 19, 2006 19:03:57 GMT -6
Welcome back, Billy! You were missed. Diane, thanks! It was traumatic but for the best when considering the lack of options available. Now to finally find myself a good book-non Custer-related, thank you-in a cool spot and BBQ some chickens, drink some beer and wonder about life-choices. Be good, Billy
|
|