Post by herosrest on Jul 13, 2011 8:27:41 GMT -6
F.W. Benteen (1834-1898), commander of Company H, 7th cavalry at the Little Big Horn, was criticized for slow travel and decision to join Reno instead of aiding Custer. Later brevetted Brigadier General, he was also suspended for drunk and disorderly conduct. Convicted and faced with dismissal, Pres. Cleveland reduced his sentence to one-year suspension. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
AP 1 - There is a view, that Benteen did not know what was going on, or what to do, as he approached Ford A.
AP 2 - This is born out by the man in his own comments, particulaly the horns of dilemma.
Benteen was not in command, nor even second in the pecking order anymore, and was there to do as he was told, like it or not. How he did it was up to him. He was to attack the big village. That he was a better soldier than Custer, more capable, braver or today idolised for his courage is entirely irrelevant. That he knew better than Custer is irrelevant. What is relevant is that he was a subordinate officer, under orders to go to the big village which his regiment were already attacking.
AP 3 - 'Benteen was utterly reliable, trustworthy, had a keen sense of humor, a very fine natural sense of distances, areas, number of men in formations, either large or small and that he was especially fine in strategy and tactics. His ideas of striking distances never failed to hold good. He was especially good at the judging of the capability of man or beast on a campaign, and that he was especially good in the conservation of the troops under his command.' E.S. Godfrey
AP 4 - Benteen's 1876 account of his oblique is entirely reliable by predating Whittaker's study of the battle. It is problematic in modern light of the battle; rubbishing Graham, Gray, and genres of fantasists who defend him by turning events on their head and ignoring people like Curley, who carried a message to Reno; Soldier who carried a message to Custer, Kanipe and Martin, Charles Varnum, Alfred Terry, E.S. Curtis and pretty much the entire hostile population of the village of the many tribes at Greasy Grass that summers day in June 1876.
AP 5 - The message carried to Benteen, as it is presented and understood, tells him where to go. Despite pick and mix over officers call, it is clear beyond doubt, that at the close of that meeting, that regiment were attacking a big village and that village was in the valley of the Little Big Horn, where Custer and Reno marched to. Benteen also, twice.
AP 6 - The big village proved bigger than the initial big of the officer's call. That is, to eyeball from the bluffs at Reno Hill. Custer with Trumpeter Martin beside him and the five companies watering horses, saw a big big village, as he sat looking at the big village through field glasses and was seen up there by Gall.
AP 7 - Trumpeter Martin was not sent to Benteen at that time and stated the village was quiet. He further stated that Reno's three companies were unseen and that when Custer rode back to his command, Lt. Cooke was there.
AP 8 - No one to date has satisfactorily discredited Charles Varnum's sighting of Custer's command on the bluffs. He located them beyond Weir's Peak and marching - albeit only gray horse troop. There was a parallel advance by the commands of Reno and Custer at that precise point and place in time.
AP 9 - It was not Trumpeter Martin who talked of skedaddling Indians. That was Sgt. Kanipe and thus Benteen's recollections are flawed. Note please flawed and not tainted. He did lie to his wife about the battle.
BB 1 - Benteen was intended to march into the valley of the Little Big Horn to the big village and the route lay across ford A. That is where Lt. Edgerley went with his platoon and you know, rather than have to assume, that Weir was there with the other platoon of Company D. That is from Edgerley's 1881 account.
BP 1 - Benteen presented himself with a dilemma by pondering where Custer had gone. A dilemma Benteen presented himself, despite a message directing him to the big village.
BP 2 - W.A. Graham produced entire waffle in defence of Benteen, J.S. Gray did exactly the same thing. Both prevaricated Benteen's arrival after the retreat from the valley and did so in his defence. Benteen was not a reserve and was expected to pitch in. His delay prevented that.
BP 3 - Custer's command were at least three miles further down river beyond Ford A and it would be a moron who ordered Benteen to Ford B or anywhere else down river of Ford A. Custer was not a moron. No-one knows what his intentions were, when the message was sent to Benteen but the message suggests Custer intended to be in the big village. No one yet, throughout the entire study of events, has suggested that Custer's command retreated from the river before Reno's retreat from the valley commenced.
BP 4 - Until retreat towards Battle Ridge took place, Custer's command intended to cross the river into the village. Custer's retreat from the river did not occur until Reno was in retreat and therefore, Benteen was sent to Reno. The matter really is that simple.
BP 5 - Both Graham and Gray, entirely ignore Benteen's 1876 narrative of the battle, quoted and referred to by Whittaker in his book and destroying entirely any study based on assessments by Graham and Gray who both offered robust defence of Benteen. As did Benteen from the moment he read Whittaker's book. Benteen gave the facts of his march to the left which were published in 1876. Edgerley was marching to the Big Village and doing so via Ford A.
BP 6 - Benteen told Terry where he was when the action commenced, and described later how he got there and where he got there from before Whittacker published his book. Five miles to the left to reach the bluffs of Long Otter Creek where it flowed into Little Big Horn river, two or two and a half miles upriver of Ford A. Those were Benteen's own words in 1876, before Whittaker published. I do not believe that Long Otter Creek was so named in 1876 but that is where Benteen was after five miles of march, obliquely.
BP 6a - The Reno Inquiry produced moments of blissful hilarity and one is most certainly Benteen's valley hunting. It should bring tears to the eye. Reno's qualifictions of Benteen and insight of village life, just pip Benteen to post and the Balaclava jibe is brilliantly pernicious. Reno certainly had no confidence in his commanding officer. Benteen kept his powder a little drier on that occasion.
BP 7 - Graham may or may not have been aware of the Arikara scout Soldier carrying a message to Custer. Gray certainly was aware of the information. The content of the message is not difficult to discern from comment left by the anonymous Ree. The one who saw Peter Thompson on the bluffs.
BP 8 - F.F. Gerard talked himself into a corner with Reno. Four days after the battle, he mentioned a talking to Cook, who rode off to talk to Custer. T'was impossible waffle from Gerard but Reno told Gerard to note it down and he so duly did, a myth was born.
BP 8a - When Gerard met Cooke, Cooke was with the five companies watering horses as Custer surveyed the Big Village, which was quiet, John Martin was at Custer's side and both returned to the five companies and Custer had conversation with Cooke, who was nowhere near Ford A. Reno's command were not seen by Custer from the bluffs as he looked over the village with binoculars.
SFSS - All sort of scenario can be wended, to place Cooke at Ford A as Reno's command crossed into the valley; but they be hogwash, because there was a parallel advance that placed Custer's and Reno's commands opposite each other as Lt. Varnum dismounted in the valley.
TFSS - That throws a nut tightener into many time-line studies of events and hoorah. Hoorah! Hoorah! Hoorah!
JJ A - Little of what occured subsequently to Custer's advance is known because it is today a jigsaw of puzzles despite considerable effort by eminently disciplined fine minds, that have mulled matters over an ensuing century and decades. Virtualy all modernity recognises as 'fact', meeting between Gerard and Cooke as Reno's command crossed into the Little Big Horn valley.
JJ B - Gerard did not meet Cooke - it didn't happen. Does that make Gerard some kind of ogre, well no - he just didn't get on with Reno and opened his big mouth once too often, four days after the battle. There was interesting history between the two men.
JJ C - I held interest in bugle calls at Lima Bravo for a time, expecting, hoping, study might provide insight to events. Various inconclusive study of acoustics has taken place, but it came from right field and tends heavily discredited by left wingers. It is amusing that those who tend towards support of Reno and/or Benteen see themselves as moderate right wing types and yet Custer led the right wing and was about as right wing as anyone who has walked the planet ever, or will do. Reno goofed, Benteen wasn't there and Custer died, unfortunately. What a prospect offered by Custer surviving the battle.
JJ D - No-one understands or knows what Custer had in mind when the message ordering Benteen to the Big Village was sent.
JJ E - Can F.F. Gerard possibly assist? - it turns out as possibile. He didn't understand the trumpet calls. That is from the Reno Inquiry.
JJ F - Despite having trashed Gerard's viable status in matters Ford A and existing timing relationships derived in error and attributed to movements and advance by Custer and Reno, can Gerard's comment about the bugle calls solve a mystery of what happened to Custer. I believe it possibile and invite thought and discourse on the matter.
R&R - Don't all leap at once, and let us see if what may, nee will, seem gobbledeegook to many established views of events, can bear fruit cake.
SUPP - Shown is a map of the valley sketched July 5th 1877 which provides the best information available of the flow of the Little Horn through Greasy Grass valley, and idicating where Charley Reynolds remains lay. Norris recovered Reynold's remains.
MAV - Were the trumpet call's that Gerard introduced to record in his testimony at the Reno Inquiry, those of Custer's command?