Sitting Bull's Blunder?

[BrokenSword]

We are told that Sitting Bull strongly suggested to the warriors (after Custer was chopped) that their siege of Reno’s command be abandoned. That “those soldiers” be left alone and allowed to live. The warriors apparently took his advice. Was this a blunder? Can it be considered a strategic mistake? If the Indians had pushed forward and overrun the survivors of the battle, destroying the ENTIRE Seventh Cavalry, what would have been the consequences?

With Crook defeated and Custer truly wiped out, what then for Terry’s Summer Campaign? Would Terry and Gibbon have pressed on? Coming upon both scene’s of destruction at the Little Bighorn, and having no witnesses to debrief on the battle, and answer his question, “What the Hell happened here?” what should Terry do? Hearing additionally of Crook’s seriously bloodied nose, just what would Terry’s reasonable choices have been? Retreat completely from the area? Go back to Fort Lincoln, or at least the PRD, and rethink everything face to face with Sheridan, et. al.?

The Indians would be in possession of more than twice the number of firearms that they took from just Custer’s force alone, as well as, thousands upon thousands of rounds of ammunition to go with them. What would have been the reaction among the Indians remaining on the reservations? How would the Crow and Ree allies have ajudged the situation? Might it have caused the powers in Washington, DC to seriously consider terms of peace for once, and on somewhat more favorable terms to the Indians’ cause?

Lots of speculation possible, and all of us ‘generals’ are admirably courageous and supremely confident while sitting safely at a computer, but the hard realities of Terry’s and Sitting Bull's responsibilities and situations were a completely different matter.

SOOOOOO, company commanders, was it a blunder to let the Seventh’s survivors off the hook?

M

[conz]

Good question...

First, I'm not convinced that Sitting Bull really had much choice. IOW, it may not have really been his decision, regardless of what he (or his translator) says. Indian casualties were very heavy (no matter what figures you use) and they had expended a lot of ammo, probably only partially compensated by what ammo Custer's men had left on them. But I really don't think the surviving Warriors and their families had much stomach left for another bloodbath as they had on the 25th.

But if SB had decided that they needed to exterminate the 7th Cavalry, and he could have convinced enough other War chiefs and Warriors to do the job, some other considerations occur to me:

Could it have been done...at least by dusk on the 27th? After that, Terry shows up, and he'd have to fight them, too. Personally, I don't think the Sioux nation had the ability to destroy Reno's command, if it had stayed "holed up." Instead, they would have lost a lot more Warriors, and used up the rest of their ammo, for nothing. That's the most probable outcome had SB decided to continue attacking, and I think he knew that, too. So I think SB made the correct choice here, if it was his to make at all.

I think the Natives took some 400 casualties (killed and wounded) in destroying Custer's unprepared battalions. Even the most conservative estimates have around 60 deaths which means about 120-180 total "casualties." They would take at least that many, but most likely much more than that, to overrun Reno's dug in units. Can you see the Sioux force, that started at some 2,000 capable Warriors, reduced to perhaps 1,600 combat-effective Warriors against Reno, losing maybe 800 more to get what they want? Not likely.

I do believe that the Natives needed to keep attacking the Army units if they wanted to preserve (or extend) their period of independence. But not by attacking entrenched and well-stocked Army positions. If they wanted to do this, they would have to pull back and play the maneuver game, being chased and ambushing different Army columns before they could entrench.

But the Natives didn't even have the stomach for this. Either due to loses, or because they were trying to adhere to their traditional, dispersed, ways, they never came back together to form a fighting force capable of defeating the Army that summer and fall. By winter, we find, it was too late. They may have not realized this.

If SB made an error, it was in not trying harder to combine the tribes again in the fall, after their end of season buffalo hunt, to attack the Army columns. They had done this in fall campaigns many times in past years, against the Army and against other tribes, but they didn't do it in 1876.

I believe this was because of demoralization over their losses at LBH, which deprived SB's capability to make that decision.

Clair

[crzhrs]

To completely destroy the remainder of the 7th the Indians would have to attack the soldiers en mass and into their guns. They were not going to risk lives if their village was not at stake. The soldiers were trapped and appeared unwilling to move. The Indians were content to keep them there with minimal loss of life.

Was it a blunder? If we look at it from the White Man's side . . . yes. If we look at it from the Indians side . . . no. They did what needed to be done to protect their families.

Two different cultures with two different ways of fighting. Some would call it a weakness for the Indians failture to capitalize on their victory, but they were satisfied in what they did and the chance to live another day.

As for not having the stomach to face the soldiers? Bull Crap! They attacked one of the largest standing armies on the Plains . . . Crook with far less warriors than at the LBH and forced him to retreat. They leisurely left when Terry approached with many warriors willing to take on Terry, but elders consuled against it.

Many stayed out against all odds, going hungry, suffering mightily, always on the move rather than give up. To say they did not have the stomach to fight or take a stand is completely wrong.

[elisabeth]

What a very interesting question.

First thought: that it would have brought an even bigger US boot down upon the Indians' heads, justifying an overt policy of extermination.

Second thought: that the country couldn't afford that sort of military operation at the time, so would be forced to treat.

Third thought: the railroad interests etc. weren't likely to give up on that line of country, so a treaty wouldn't be countenanced -- or, if countenanced, kept.

So ... on balance, I'd be inclined to think that in the end it probably wouldn't have made much difference. The outrage at the Custer "massacre" was quite sufficient as it was to do the army's job, budget-wise and recruitment-wise; even with more weapons and higher morale, Sitting Bull would probably still have felt it wise to cross over to Canada; the reservation Indians might have been even more terrified of reprisals, and left to join him; it could have led to yet bigger diplomatic difficulties between Canada and the US, with even more impetus for Canada to encourage Sitting Bull to return; but in the end, I can't myself see anything different, other than perhaps an earlier Wounded Knee, minus ghost dances.

As for Terry/Gibbon and Crooke: yes, I should think the Summer Campaign would have come to an abrupt halt. All units withdrawn to their base posts. But since they didn't achieve anything much while out, again it could be a case of not much difference ...

In the end, it might really have been quite a smart move. As long as they hadn't brutally massacred the entire regiment (despite having the opportunity and ability to do so) they retained the status of people merely defending their "hearths and homes", as Benteen put it: something the American people could well understand, even in the light of the Custer disaster. They hadn't de-personalised themselves. So it just might have kept eastern/liberal opinion on their side, and prevented a mad rush of national feeling that would support extermination.

But then again, I'm frequently wrong.

[BrokenSword]

Here I am using the word blunder after bc’s excellent thoughts on the differences between a mistake (blunder) and a decision. I take back the word blunder as too harsh. In the world Sitting Bull grew up and lived within, if an enemy is kicked in the butt hard enough, that enemy will leave you alone. He perhaps didn’t comprehend the overwhelming weight of people flowing into the White Man’s World in the east, and the need for that population to spread out into the territories beyond the actual borders of the United States.

There is not a doubt in my mind, but that the Indian casualties would have been significant in an all out assault on Reno Hill. To my way of thinking, crzhrs’s suggestion of a rush in force from all directions and all at once, would be the best tactic. I also have no doubt that it would have worked and probably in comparatively short order. The survivors were already unhinged to a large degree, many (besides Reno) with shattered nerves or sitting numbly on the verge of such. There was, not a small number of warriors that had their blood up and were hot for just such an attack on the hill.

Clair, I disagree with many of your numbers, but so what? It’s opinion as much as anything. The momentum was on the side of the warriors and who’s to really say that a mass panic would not have swept Reno’s position shortly in advance of the oncoming Indians. I also agree with crzhrs about the Indians having the stomach for more fighting. Many may have started viewing themselves as capable of pretty much anything by the end of the Custer portion of the fight.

Elisabeth, I think, has hit on the hinge point. Public opinion. Mr. John Q. Public was outraged that a Civil War hero and celebrity had died with a couple hundred of his men (‘…at the hands of mere savages…’) and demanded retribution. The complete destruction of the 7th (every officer, enlisted man, civilian, horse, mule, and mascot dog) however, may have been so completely shocking to the public that, railroad interests or not, it would have demanded a radical change of course and policy. I saw it happen after the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, and we won that one. The Viet Cong was destroyed and effectively ceased to exist, the PAVN had been more than decimated and with comparatively low losses on our side - yet public opinion took a turn. A turn against further efforts, believing the goal to be ‘too costly.’

Sympathy for the Indian cause was already there to a degree among the white population. For the public at large to learn that Crook’s regiment was beaten to a standstill, and that Custer’s regiment had been wiped out entirely, may have had many ears very seriously listening to their ideas as too how it should all be handled. No survivors to tell the tell would be like the monster in a movie not being shown. The imagination makes it all the more terrifying to contemplate. There was a boogieman out there that maybe couldn’t be overcome after all.

When Elisabeth is wrong, she is rarely far from the mark. I, on the other hand, often land in territory completely off the map. Still in all, I can almost see stationary from the White House today that would read: From the offices of the President of the United States of America, and the Council of Elders of the Commonwealth of Native American Nations - IF, Sitting Bull had said to his warriors, “Sic ‘em boys!”

M

[crzhrs]

If the Indians had totally destroyed the 7th I doubt the country would have said: "Oh, let's change course, stop Westward expansion, and let the Indians have the entire upper Great Plains . . . we don't need the gold, the timber, the farm land, room for settlement. Let's just have a bunch of wild people roaming freely and occasionally killing Whites if they felt like it."

Once word of Custer's defeat came out there was a call for revenge by many, stepped up efforts by the government/military to end it once and for all. It didn't take long for the last of the old-outs to come in . . . most were on reservations by the following Spring with the remnants of Sitting Bull's people going to Canada.

It wouldn't have changed anything if the 7th had been completely wiped out . . . it may have ended even sooner and more brutally and they may have fared even worse once on reservations (if one can even imagine it being any worse than they already had it)

[clw]

If my estimate of the number of warriors should be correct, there could easily have been a scene like the one in Ft. Apache. Poof. No more 7th Cav. But Reno's men behaved like the NDN enemy is supposed to behave and broke contact under pressure -- I've even had a tribal historian point that out to me. The Lakota/Cheyenne way was to fight until a threat had been neutralized. I'd be willing to bet that Custer just kept coming, so there was only one way to neutralize him -- and it turned into an unstoppable killing frenzy. Blood was up, but Reno's entrenchment allowed time for wiser heads to prevail. They knew where Terry was early on and had kept track of Gibbon all spring. It was time to move on.

Clair never seems to consider that an army that fights without their loved ones safe at home fights a battle on two fronts -- offense and defense simultaneously.

But as to the end result, it was inevitable. Grant was cornered. With Sherman and Sheridan he had conquered the entire south. I know that's an oversimplification, but a few NDNs weren't going to do more than slow them down a little.

[pohanka]

Jun 27, 2008 9:52:04 GMT -6 crzhrs said:

Was it a blunder? If we look at it from the White Man's side . . . yes. If we look at it from the Indians side . . . no. They did what needed to be done to protect their families.

Two different cultures with two different ways of fighting. Some would call it a weakness for the Indians failure to capitalize on their victory, but they were satisfied in what they did and the chance to live another day.

I agree with you completely. European-American officers saw battle as extended, large scale clashes while Native Americans relied on sudden raids, "sparring with enemies rather than engaging in toe-to-toe combat."

The native Americans had a good reason to favor guerrilla tactics. They needed to keep their own casualties to a minimum.

"A dozen men lost from a company of soldiers could be easily replaced with recruits, but a generation was required to replace Indian warriors killed in battle."

Once the non-combatants in the village were no longer threatened by the soldiers the need of an Indian frontal assault against an entrenched Reno, which would incur heavy losses, was not feasible.

[mcaryf]

If we wanted to look at the action as purely a military exercise in increasing the enemy losses then the better tactic for the warriors would have been to hold off Terry's column whilst the Reno Hill defenders were driven to desperate measures due to lack of water. A mass assault on Reno Hill, except possibly at night, would have been an absurd tactic.

In fact if the intention had been just to increase US Army losses, then Terry's column, strung out along the LBH, probably offered a better early target. If the warriors had succeeded in turning that back, then the remnants of the 7th would have suffered much greater privations and greater difficulty in getting to the Yellowstone even if the warriors had raised the siege and moved off fairly quickly without attacking again.

Regards

Mike

[biggordie]

Since at various times during their marches, Terry's cavalry and infantry were not only moving through horribly difficult country on the Tullock divide, creating huge gaps in the column, but the cavalry was often so far ahead [sometimes being pushed almost relentlessly] as to be beyond supporting distance of the infantry, and the whole lot of them totally fagged-out, that command would have been if not at the mercy of attacking warriors, at least highly vulnerable. And the Gatlings were, for the most part, unavailable for any worthwhile service.

So much for co-ordinated movements and attacks, or hammer and anvil approaches, or what have you.

As to the reactions of the public and the military to any of the possible scenarios which would have resulted in say, total destruction of the Seventh and/or a severe mauling of Terry's column, those can be debated ad infinitum, and would cover rather a large spectrum. I would expect a mixed reaction on the part of the GAP, with a vocal minority saying "I told you so. Nothing good can come of this government's misguided Indian policies," and probably the majority clamoring for revenge and retribution and the extermination of the "Red Menace."

The military reaction would have been, I think, much more guarded. A large percentage of the available combat force in the Department, indeed in the army, would have been destroyed, and perhaps not so easily replaced as was the case when it was only the Custer battalions which were wiped out. It is one thing to declare "Avenge the Dead Hero!" and have recruits lining up to do so, and quite another to declare "Sign Up Now, Boys, and Avenge Custer, Terry, Gibbon, Crook, Benteen, Reno and the Other Thousand or so Troops Killed or Beaten in the Powder River Country!!" More planning would certainly have been required, and there is the problem of funding. "What will Congress Do?!? a newspaper headline asked. What would they do indeed had the army lost 1, 000 men, and dozens of officers, not to mention the horses, mules, ammunition, foodstuffs, forage and etc.etc.etc., and blah blah blah.........

Of course, the real purpose of the warriors was not to inflict as many casualties as possible on the enemy, but to defend the people and to win as many war honors as possible while doing so. The casualties were more or less by-products of those efforts. Whether or not Sitting Bull and/or other elders recommended letting Reno/Benteen survive by saying "these men have suffered enough" is debatable [have at it, if you will], but I would wager that there was some little sentiment of that sort.

There was also the question of conserving ammunition, and I am sure that some grew tired of shooting at a large non-specific target at long range with little idea of whether their shots were inflicting much damage. You didn't gain much by riding through camp singing "I shot at something a half a mile away, and I might have hit it, or maybe something else."

Gordie

[mcaryf]

Hi Gordie

I think you have summarised the situation very well. The logic that might have induced the warriors to attack Terry's column was not that it was strategically desirable but rather that the column was still mobile and therefore a threat whereas those on Reno Hill were not. However, I guess they judged rightly that Terry's priority would be to conduct the Reno Hill remnants to safety.

Regards

Mike

[conz]

Perhaps Sitting Bull should have allowed his young bucks to attack Terry, and then go back and finish Reno. In retrospect, wouldn't have been impossible to do at a price, and certainly would have better results for Indian independence (if not survival) than historically happened.

Sitting Bull had them all together, and that was hard enough. He knew he wouldn't have another chance until fall, after the summer hunts had stocked up food for winter. By not attacking the Army that week, he was betting that he could do it later.

He did indeed try later, but the Army columns (especially Miles), prevented their union and their ability to stock enough food for winter.

SB had ONE shot to have a force big and worked up enough to attack sizable Army units...the couple weeks at the end of June. He should have known it was his best chance, and that getting this chance again later would be problematic.

For some reason, he allowed his people to dissipate rather than to continue the summer campaign.

For Sioux independence, he chose poorly.

Clair

[clw]

Except Sitting Bull was a Lakota holy man and your conjectures are far removed from his reality.

[conz]

Jul 6, 2008 7:07:56 GMT -6 clw said:

Except Sitting Bull was a Lakota holy man and your conjectures are far removed from his reality.

Interesting that you believe this is an important factor...but how do you think it affected his strategic decision making for the tribes?

I think Sitting Bull was a Warrior first, father second, and holy man third, is my perception.

At any rate, he was making decisions more like a general and a politician, than like a priest, seems to me, if we need to use Western comparisons.

But the good question you raise is:

How did Sitting Bull's position as a Sioux "holy man" change the way he made political and military (security) decisions for his tribes?

What things would SB consider that Crazy Horse wouldn't, and how would they decide things differently as a result?

Thanks,
Clair

[crzhrs]

Except the Indians' style of fighting was not all-out seiges, long, drawn-out battles, but quick fights then get away, especially with families close at hand.

Do not confuse Western culture with Indian . . . a fault it seems when you try to compare the two sides.