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Post by bigpond on Dec 10, 2005 17:16:46 GMT -6
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Post by Diane Merkel on Dec 29, 2005 17:51:50 GMT -6
Here's another from my small collection:
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Post by elisabeth on Dec 31, 2005 13:45:29 GMT -6
Love it!!!
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Post by markland on Jan 19, 2006 11:53:14 GMT -6
Found this today. It is from: www.trapshooters.com/cfpages/thread.cfm?threadid=80192&messages=7Just before the battle of Little Bighorn started Custer sent a scout ahead to assess the situation and report back. Soon the scout returned & said "well General, I got good news and I got bad news", Custer--- "give me the bad news first." "Well General---there's THOUSANDS of indians down there---and they've already spotted us---looks hopeless!" Custer---"DAMN, after THAT what could possibly be good news?". Scout---"well, the good news is; we won't have to go back to North Dakota!" Billy
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Post by Diane Merkel on Mar 4, 2006 21:53:31 GMT -6
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Post by El Crab on Mar 6, 2006 23:05:00 GMT -6
That link took me on a weird adventure of discovery and excitement. And its rather ironic that one of the most successful officers in US Army history is considered a symbol of losing. I can understand the exaggeration for humor of his defeat, but it wasn't a habit of Custer's to lose battles. He lost one decisively, as we all know. But hey, good or bad, people remember Custer.
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Post by markland on Mar 7, 2006 0:34:48 GMT -6
OK, we will have to move this to another thread, a serious one as GAC was not one of the top-notch commanders in either the Civil War or the Indian Wars. OK, I understand that I am basically spitting in the faces of many friends but the only thing that he had going for him was aggressiveness and some sense of terrain. Off the top of my head, he had the Spencer rifle and Gregg's troops to save his bacon at Gettysburg and at Trevallian <sp> Station he just plain out-fought Fitz Lee's men. Certainly he did well in the Civil War but Merritt, Upton, Grierson, Wilson (you can put the crucifixes down now) did as well if not better.
In the Indian Wars, consider Grierson, Hatch, Crook (yes, he had a brain fart at Rosebud), Miles, Mckenzie, Sumner and others who I can't name without resource to my books which are 1100 miles away. All of them fought more Indians, more successfully than GAC.
Sorry, but as anything but an aggressive cavalry officer, GAC falls into the middle of the pack. Actually, if in the Napoleonic era, GAC would have been ideal for either Ney's futile charge on the British squares or the British Hussars equally futile charge into purgatory at Waterloo.
Best of wishes,
Billy
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Post by elisabeth on Mar 7, 2006 5:51:24 GMT -6
That sounds pretty fair to me. Aggressiveness was highly prized, though; there was a distressing lack of it around, both in the CW and in the post-CW army! I get the feeling that his superiors saw him as a sort of half-trained Rottweiler, useful as long as you kept him on the leash, but a serious worry if he once got off it ...
His public profile must have helped, too. The Indian wars weren't at all popular back east, nor was the army in general; if they wanted to get public backing (and funding) Custer made an extremely useful poster-boy for them, I imagine?
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Post by Melani on Mar 7, 2006 16:49:25 GMT -6
I get the feeling that his superiors saw him as a sort of half-trained Rottweiler, useful as long as you kept him on the leash, but a serious worry if he once got off it ... Elisabeth, that certainly brings this thread back into the realm of humor!
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Post by Tricia on Mar 7, 2006 17:15:58 GMT -6
Billy--
I think your assessment of GAC is right on, militarily speaking. But I think Elisabeth is on to something: he gave good cover. Now whether that was completely manufactured by GAC (as Van de Water seems to think) or by a press looking to find the newest hero (not unlike the Bode-ization of the recent Winter Games) to inspire the home fires, I really don't know.
But I think GAC's placement within Ole Peter Balling's "Grant and His Generals" gives a sense where he was within the talent pool of the Union.
Regards, Leyton McLean
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Post by Rabble on Mar 10, 2006 9:37:53 GMT -6
From the late Larry Frost in 1990
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Post by Diane Merkel on Mar 10, 2006 17:43:02 GMT -6
Thanks for posting that Rabble! It's amazing to think that Frost's interest in Custer began with a pair of boots!
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Post by Diane Merkel on May 28, 2006 18:09:19 GMT -6
Thanks to Jim Ball in Mississippi who sent me this one from April 25:
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jc
Junior Member
Posts: 60
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Post by jc on Sept 4, 2006 18:43:00 GMT -6
One from my collection, from The Far Side. jc CUSTER'S LAST VIEW
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jc
Junior Member
Posts: 60
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Post by jc on Sept 4, 2006 18:53:02 GMT -6
Another from my collection. jc
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