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Post by quincannon on Apr 18, 2012 8:55:20 GMT -6
Richard: I am not suggesting that anyone allow the adversary possession of a feature that dominates the landscape. I am saying stay off the skyline. There is a difference. Not allowing someone to dominate a feature by standing on top of it, is just bad form.
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Post by wild on Apr 18, 2012 9:51:00 GMT -6
Of course Colonel but there are some here who would not understand the difference between fieldcraft and tactics.
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Post by quincannon on Apr 18, 2012 10:21:19 GMT -6
And it is our implied task to educate and enlighten without pissing upon. A mighty task but I think both of us are up to the mark. Well you are anyway. If I get to soft I can't go to the dark side and piss in Rini's cornflakes.
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Post by wild on Apr 18, 2012 10:26:07 GMT -6
Ah bugger the educating, just let me piss on them Colonel please ;D
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Post by quincannon on Apr 18, 2012 10:43:58 GMT -6
Look upon your self as a missionary of human enlightenment, but like any missionary do not hesitate to chastise those that fail to observe the path of light and virtue. Right now old hind/headquarters in the saddle, him of dubious progeny and cut rate costumes, is the reason for my saber to be drawn and my magazine well loaded.
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Post by El Crab on Apr 18, 2012 12:19:54 GMT -6
Richard: I am not suggesting that anyone allow the adversary possession of a feature that dominates the landscape. I am saying stay off the skyline. There is a difference. Not allowing someone to dominate a feature by standing on top of it, is just bad form. Who stood on top of it? I doubt anyone was standing anywhere on Last Stand Hill at the end of the fight, until perhaps the end when the Indians moved in to finish them off hand-to-hand. It was said the soldiers were all behind dead horses and couldn't be seen, but the Indians knew they were so they sent their shots into the vicinity.
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Post by quincannon on Apr 18, 2012 12:42:56 GMT -6
El Crab: You obviously have mistaken me for a serious academic, when reality reveals I am just a poor pseudo-big mouth.
I also doubt if anyone was standing on that hill at the end of the fight. More likely they were in the twisted prone, adorned with the rictus of death.
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Post by El Crab on Apr 18, 2012 14:19:07 GMT -6
El Crab: You obviously have mistaken me for a serious academic, when reality reveals I am just a poor pseudo-big mouth. I also doubt if anyone was standing on that hill at the end of the fight. More likely they were in the twisted prone, adorned with the rictus of death. I'm not sure what to make of the first part. I certainly consider you very well-versed in these matters, as well as the military and tactics. So I don't believe I'm mistaken at all. Besides, who else but a serious academic would use the word "rictus"? I had to look it up!
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Post by quincannon on Apr 18, 2012 15:20:16 GMT -6
Just having a little fun with you old son. Of course you are correct, anyone on that hilltop would be seeking any and all cover available to them. There is a problem with getting down low though. The lower you go, logic tells us, the more cover you have, except in instances where your adversary is higher which does not seem to be the case here. That is a given. It is also a given that the lower you go, the more restricted your fields of fire are, as it creates more dead space, defined as space immune from direct fire. So it is very much a two edged sword, more protection, but less opportunity to visit destruction upon the Amalekites.
Rictus from James Warner Bellah. Amalekites from John W. Thomason. I had to look both of them up too.
Stay well old friiend, and away from casinos and bawdy houses. I didn't have to look them up.
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Post by fred on Apr 18, 2012 15:28:02 GMT -6
Came across this in the Dustin book and added it all to my notes. Some interesting stuff that firms up some things.
From Dustin, Fred, The Custer Tragedy, El Segundo, CA: Upton and Sons, 2011. Reprinted from the original manuscript. Article by Gibbon, possibly from the American Catholic Quarterly, April, 1877:
“He [Benteen] comes forward, dismounts, and in a low, very quiet voice, tells his story. He had followed Custer’s trail to the scene of the battle opposite the main body of the Indian camp, and amid the rolling hills which borders the river – bank on the north. As he approached the ground scattered bodies of men and horses were found, growing more numerous as he advanced. In the midst of the field a long back – bone ran out obliquely from the river, rising very gradually until it terminated in a little knoll which commanded a view of all the surrounding ground, and of the Indian campground beyond the river. On each side of this back – bone, and sometimes on top of it, dead men and horses were scattered along. These became more numerous as the termination knoll was reached; and on the southwestern slope of that lay the brave Custer surrounded by the bodies of several of his officers and forty or fifty of his men, whilst horses were scattered about in every direction…. Of Custer there could be no doubt. He was lying in a perfectly natural position as many had seen him lying while asleep, and, we are told, was not at all mutilated, and that, only after a good deal of search the wounds of which he died could be found.” [184]
As the regiment’s wounded began moving down the valley on June 28, Gibbon crossed the Little Big Horn to view the battlefield for the first time. He crossed at Cheyenne Ford, the lower ford generally identified today as Deep Ravine Ford. Dustin wrote,
“Arriving at the ravine where Smith’s men were found, he noticed that its lower course was filled with brush, and thinking that perhaps some soldiers might have taken refuge there, he and those who accompanied him looked carefully but found nothing until they had proceeded some distance up the little open valley towards Custer’s last position, when they suddenly came on a body in the tall grass, which was in an advanced stage of decomposition, but was clothed and booted, although scalped and minus an ear which had been cut off. The boots were of unusual pattern and it was through them that the remains were identified as those of Kellogg.” [186]
As Gibbon and the party continued toward the site of today’s monument, Gibbon himself said,
“We can see from where we are numerous bodies of dead horses scattered along its southwestern slope, and as we ride up towards it, we come across another body lying in a depression just as if killed whilst using his rifle there. We follow the sloping ground bearing a little to the left or westward until we reach the top, and then look around us. On the very top are four or five dead horses, swollen, putrid, and offensive, their stiffened limbs sticking straight out from their bodies. On the slope beyond others are thickly lying in all conceivable positions, and dotted about on the ground in all directions are little mounds of freshly turned earth, showing where each brave soldier sleeps his last sleep. Close under the brow of the knoll several horses are lying nearer together than the rest, and by the side of one of these we are told the body of Custer was found. The top of the knoll is only a few feel higher than the general surface of the long straight ridge, which runs off obliquely towards the river. In the direction of that ford at which it is supposed Custer made the attempt to cross.” [186 – 187] [This long straight ridge running obliquely toward the river is obviously Battle Ridge and the referenced ford is Ford B. It is the same one referred to by Benteen as running obliquely from the river.]
Best wishes, Fred.
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Post by bc on Apr 18, 2012 16:45:05 GMT -6
Fred, when I read that, I don't think Deep Ravine ford as Dustin suggests. You won't get to Kellogg's body that way or they would have found all the other bodies in Deep Ravine and alongside first. Sounds to me like Cheyenne Ford is one of the D fords going into Cemetery Ravine where Kellogg was found towards the top. Then Gibbon went along Cemetery Ridge to LSH.
That is how it reads to me. That's puts Smith's E company men over in Cemetery Ravine.
bc
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Post by fred on Apr 18, 2012 19:27:45 GMT -6
BC,
I wondered myself, but after I read it a couple of times what it does is tells me rather than go up the ravine Gibbon moved out onto the flats that front Cemetery Ridge. It seems to me he moved up Cemetery Ravine, maybe close to the SSL and Kellopggs body was found in that lower-lying area. That is one of the reasons I believe Custer's route from Ford D brought him into that area, then he sort of swung back on the ridge, a somewhat flatish, scythe-like movement. I have played it out a hundred times on a map and I have used Gibbon's ID of Kellogg to place the body and consequently the command's movement.
That kind of move would give Custer a fair to decent look at that ford, obviously something he hadn't seen before. He could now see Indians moving across the ford and that, combined with seeing Indians coming out of the ravine's headcut, prompted him to send Yates into the basin area.
Best wishes, Fred.
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Post by El Crab on Apr 18, 2012 22:35:41 GMT -6
Stay well old friiend, and away from casinos and bawdy houses. I didn't have to look them up. The bawdy houses shall never a dollar of mine take. I've got a freckled sweetheart wearing my ring. Now, the casinos, that's a different story. Won a 45.00 on a few baseball games a few days ago. And looks like about 70.00 tonight on basketball, unless something crazy happens.
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Post by quincannon on Apr 19, 2012 6:57:44 GMT -6
El Crab: Only the foolish measure wealth in money. Like you I think it best to measure it in freckles.
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Post by fred on Apr 19, 2012 7:13:36 GMT -6
Well, I guess if the "Crow" thread can be hijacked by George Washington's handling of the American Revolution and some ridiculous poll containing results for Attaturk, Michael Collins, Washington and Erwin Rommel... huh?!... then I can post the following without too much noise....
This is part of Terry's dispatch to Sheridan, written on June 28, 1876, while the whole shebang was still camped on the LBH:
"The wounded were brought down from the bluffs last night and made as comfortable as our means would permit.... A reconnaissance was made to-day by Captain Ball, of the Second Cavalry, along the trail made by the Indians when they left the valley. He reports that they divided into two parties, one of which kept the valley of Long Fork, making, he thinks, for the Big Horn Mountains; the other turned more to the eastward. He also discovered a very heavy trail leading into the valley that is not more than five days old. This trail is entirely distinct from the one which Custer followed, and would seem to show that at least two large bands united here just before the battle...."
This is the first report of a second large column of Indians that clearly joined the village after the Rosebud fight with George Crook and is further confirmation of a larger gathering rather than smaller.
What I find so interesting is the survivors of the battle admitted to misreading the trail they followed up the Rosebud and it clearly showed a large overlay trail that increased the estimated number of 800 warriors (Bradley, Boyer, et al) to _____ [fill in the blank].
Then you figure most estimates claim about 1,200 Indians attacked Crook (June 17) and that figure supposedly represented between 2/3 and 1/2 of the available warriors, then, camped along Reno Creek. Now couple those two groupings-- the Bradley discovery + the "overlay" Indians-- with this group coming down the LBH valley and what do we have? _______ [fill in the blank].
Best wishes, Fred.
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