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Post by Dark Cloud on Jul 31, 2008 8:27:52 GMT -6
Lee said something like 'it's good war is so awful or we should grow too fond of it.' But they had to have known that before hand and restate the obvious for adoring scribblers. A book needs to be written on how commanders and people in power play the media of their time, who in their ignorance tend to think they are present a Great Moment when they're being used. That's if it's true at all and not constructed later.
Nothing was learned, because there was nothing to learn from it. There was nothing unique absent Custer's command was wiped out. Had it been Reno's, hardly a burp of shock. If twenty or even one had surivived, nothing whatsoever would have been particularly memorable.
Nobody likes to be nagged that bad preparation will come back and bite you (especially if it becomes a habit), never underestimate your enemy, and mathematically the odds increase against you the longer you're in a dangerous profession.
Custer violated known procedures, he underestimated his enemy, he continued to participate as a Lt. leading company charges rather than retaining battlefield view.
"Craze's last post just about says it all. The only time I know of that the Winner came out the Loser!" Then you need to read more history. That the winner of one battle came out the war's loser is rather common. Start with Bull Run, Pearl Harbor, various German invasions of France, various French invasions of Germany, the list is endless. In fact, it's a rare war where the eventual losers didn't win at least one battle.
Vietnam, for example, proved that you can plan and expect to lose EVERY battle but have a shot at winning the war. Russia and China both used to have an accepted strategy of losing battles, retreating inside their huge nation, subsuming or wearing the enemy out. Can be gussied up as 'defense in depth', I suppose, but it's much the same.
Had the Indians anything like the organization or skill of others and worked together, they might have achieved better things. Or, equally plausible, they might have annoyed the Feds to wipe them out with CW type precision and mass.
As typical, the concern with learning went out the window so that an utterly implausible and entirely evidence free dramatic moment occured when the Indians were shocked to discover they'd killed them all. Proof positive that nothing was learned, nobody actually wants to learn, they want to shape it for their emotional needs and then deform even that into history to justify it.
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Post by elisabeth on Jul 31, 2008 9:28:26 GMT -6
"an utterly implausible and entirely evidence free dramatic moment occured [sic] when the Indians were shocked to discover they'd killed them all."
While I understand your mission to have a dig at everyone who posts, may I point out that this was presented as a movie scenario, not "deformed into history". It feels emotionally right, to me; the best production of Julius Caesar I ever saw was one in which a similar moment occurred just after the assassination -- an "oh sh*t" moment when the assassins realised there was no going back. Emotionally, this could well have been true for the Indians, or at least the wiser heads such as Sitting Bull. But in no way am I saying, or did I say, that this was the case. Just that it was plausible. (As you perfectly well know, but you will have your fun.)
Not at all sure that you're right about the reactions if only Reno's command had been wiped out. Yes, it would have lacked the headline name among the victims. But it would surely have been even worse for Custer's reputation if one of his sub-commands had been wiped out and he himself had survived. The reverberations would have rolled for decades.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Jul 31, 2008 9:43:50 GMT -6
I know it was a movie moment. That's the problem. That it feels emotionally right in a postulated movie has what to do with 'what was learned?' Nothing. And in fact deforms the question and all answers if such are allowed to be considered relevant to it.
"Imagine if......" isn't the sharp scalpel of history.
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Post by crzhrs on Jul 31, 2008 10:01:35 GMT -6
Is anything ever learned? Mistakes made centuries ago about warfare or dealing with social and environmental issues continue to this day.
I guess human nature is still evolving . . . or maybe it's all about greed and who's in control?
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Post by elisabeth on Aug 1, 2008 8:03:35 GMT -6
DC, my apologies to Bab, then, if I have "deformed the question". I was trying to think my way through to what the Indians might have learned from the battle. Whether, if there was a moment or two of "oh my God, what have we done?" before the joyful looting commenced, the wiser heads might have realised there and then that the game was up: that a slaughter on this scale would have to be avenged by the government, and that anyone who couldn't sneak quietly back to the agencies would be on the run from then on. Hence, decamping to Canada. But it was probably a silly thought. Their immediate actions seem to imply that they thought they'd be left in peace now that they'd neutralised the threat. So, apologies also for thinking aloud and thinking stupidly.
The validity or otherwise of using imagination to visualise the "how it was" of an historical event is another debate, and one I won't start here.
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tatanka
Full Member
Live for today like there was no tomorrow
Posts: 125
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Post by tatanka on Aug 1, 2008 9:14:27 GMT -6
The out of sight, out of mind philosophy?
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Post by elisabeth on Aug 1, 2008 9:57:39 GMT -6
Just "out of mind", probably.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Aug 1, 2008 10:28:21 GMT -6
Please, make the whining stop.
The subject was "What Was Learned." It readily decayed into a postulated movie moment. My point, pretty much as stated, was that you need to feel there was a dramatic moment of realization (one that would speak poorly of Indians' intelligence) and want to focus on that. This is probably how the Last Stand came to be. It was a handy, well known template, there was evidence not in conflict with it, and it became the story because it made people feel better. Truth or lust for Truth be damned.
Now, such a moment need be constructed for the Sioux and Cheyenne because it's felt needed to go with current emotions. And there is precedent. Killing the Sioux Grendel meant Mommy Time was a comin', as it had only occured to Beowulf's tribe after he had slain the child that Unintended Consequences awaited. But the Sioux did not have an appreciation of the size, might, and content of American society. They didn't understand they were dust mites to our military, and they did not understand that within the same horrifying society there actually were people who were compassionate and wanting them to prosper in health and good fortune. And in the Blood of the Lamb, of course. Yes, that. They could not fathom how multifaceted societies work (and don't) because they'd never needed to know.
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Post by elisabeth on Aug 1, 2008 11:22:05 GMT -6
OK, so an apology -- and one not made to you, you will note -- is "whining". Fine.
The point about mythic templates is that they encapsulate and interpret real life. But never mind. Much more fun to deny their potency.
One question: if you had been a Sioux or Cheyenne warrior on June 25th 1876, and had looked at the devastation you'd wrought, would you have felt entirely happy about it? Or would you not have felt some faint sense of foreboding? I'm not asking for "current emotions", just for logical and coherent thought. The Fetterman massacre had brought an increased army presence on the Plains. The Saline attacks had brought Washita. Why would any intelligent Indian not have thought LBH would bring equivalent retribution? It doesn't require "Blood of the Lamb", just common sense.
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Post by conz on Aug 1, 2008 12:14:16 GMT -6
We could collect statements, but from what I've read on the Native families attitudes after LBH is that they were filled with "impending doom." After all, it was the natural Native way of war...one good bloodletting deserves another, as in aboriginal "blood feuds." All massacres must be avenged, and usually not in like measure, but more a 10-for-one scale. This is how Native tribes fought each other, and they would have similar attitudes towards the Americans.
I doubt any Native seriously thought that after LBH the Americans would "leave them alone."
Note that after LBH Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull both rapidly lost their followings, and by the end of the year only the hard-core families remained with them. The rest had surrendered. This hard-core of both followed those surrenders in the spring, and Sitting Bull's own family fled to Canada and then surrendered a couple years later.
They had no inclination to make another fight...they lost all the half-hearted ones that occurred that fall and winter. No more concentrations, and no heart left for big offensives against the Americans. They'd had it.
Clair
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Post by conz on Aug 1, 2008 12:20:11 GMT -6
Shouldn't we propose what was learned by the Native Americans?
They learned that they could destroy whole Army battalions, albeit at great cost to themselves.
They learned that even if you win a huge battle (by their standards) against the Army, it still stays in the field and comes after you.
They learned that while they can only concentrate power a couple times a year, the Army can maintain itself in the field constantly, so long-term they get little rest to build up supplies for winter.
They may have learned that the American couldn't care less about how many men they had killed, but the Natives found more than a dozen deaths a campaign to be devastating. This lesson could be very demoralizing.
They learned that all the big "war" talk by their War Chiefs didn't translate to an improvement in their families' condition...pride and freedom came at great cost, and probably wasn't worth it.
Finally, I think they learned that they were very alone...the the bulk of the Sioux and Cheyenne nations stayed with the Americans on the reservations, and would not come to their support even after a big war victory. In fact, after LBH, more Sioux Warriors joined the U.S. Army as scouts to serve against the hostiles under Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull. This may have been the saddest lesson at all for a people who valued independence so much.
Usually the loser of any battle learns more than does a victor. In this case, do you think the Natives actually learned more from the LBH result than did the Americans?
Clair
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Post by crzhrs on Aug 1, 2008 13:04:47 GMT -6
By 1876 most Indians realized what was up . . . but the opportunity, the chance for one more summer to be free of the White Man and all his craziness was very tempting. One more chance to live the old live . . . one more chance to taste the flesh of the buffalo, the antelope instead of that stringy cow the government was forcing on you. One more chance to count coup . . . one more chance to tell your grandchildren how it use to be.
I'd do it to . . . only the earth and sky live forever.
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tatanka
Full Member
Live for today like there was no tomorrow
Posts: 125
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Post by tatanka on Aug 1, 2008 13:42:23 GMT -6
One more chance to be free, to be a warrior.
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Post by Montana Bab on Aug 1, 2008 14:10:06 GMT -6
DC, my apologies to Bab, then, if I have "deformed the question". I was trying to think my way through to what the Indians might have learned from the battle. Whether, if there was a moment or two of "oh my God, what have we done?" before the joyful looting commenced, the wiser heads might have realised there and then that the game was up: that a slaughter on this scale would have to be avenged by the government, and that anyone who couldn't sneak quietly back to the agencies would be on the run from then on. , No apology is necessary, Elisabeth. I happen to agree with your post, and Sitting Bull's withdrawal to Canada is a simple proof of your analysis. I think he knew what his people were in for, and it would not be living a free, simple life as they had known.
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Post by Montana Bab on Aug 1, 2008 14:21:21 GMT -6
"Imagine if......" isn't the sharp scalpel of history. I think it is interesting that you use a 'surgical' example for your statement! That is precisely what was in my mind when I asked the question "What was learned?" Our government didn't learn anything. And they never have seemed to. They just surgically cut away anything and everything that stands in their way of succeeding in whatever endeavor they desire, and it doesn't matter who or what is in the way. In this case it was just a bunch of "savages" and their families. No loss to the "great society". As you can see, I'm not above doing some "whining" of my own!
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