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Post by herosrest on Apr 20, 2012 7:29:57 GMT -6
A look at how early evidence of events transformed through misunderstandings and by misinterpretation.
Bluff views Custer's march. Gillespie's numericals. Ford C A myth about Gall. Freeman's 'Little Big Village'
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Post by fred on Apr 20, 2012 11:23:21 GMT -6
A look at how early evidence of events transformed through misunderstandings and by misinterpretation. Did you write this sentence all by yourself or did you have help? Best wishes, Fred.
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Post by herosrest on Apr 24, 2012 10:12:00 GMT -6
Regards Fred, Help is always at hand........ LBH is a small part of our greater wonderful collective, and history itself, as a topic - is a serious issue. UK still has problems with fallout from the Norman and Viking invasions of 1066. There is a great book by Marc Morris, reviewed here, www.thisislondon.co.uk/arts/book/a-welcome-light-on-1066-and-all-that-7621109.htmlwhich is history very well done. Ultimately, we each arrive at our own decision. Be well and best wishes. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- During one hundred years before, and the hundred and more since military disaster afforded to Lt. Col. G.A. Custer's 7th Regiment of the United States Cavalry at Little Big Horn, that nations pursuit and practice of its independence has offered a shining beacon of hope to the world. No-one and nothing is perfect, the endevour remains a struggle of immense proportion that often in practice, compromises its stated principals and objectives. The pursuit of wealth and practice of its arts can be at odds with freedom and bravery.
Can we hope one day that all will truly be equal before god, law and right; that those who garner and hoard wealth are enlightened and deprived of arrogances that privelage it. Justifcations for argument which elevates Marcus A. Reno and Frederick W. Benteen to accepance of their parts in the destruction of Custer's command on 25th June 1876, are at best the spurious product of embarrassements that subsequently fell to their family line. A struggle to vindicate Maj. Reno endured 92 years before he was deemed worthy to lie in Montana, besides those who fell with his regiment at Little Big Horn. Whilst aruably a noble matter on the part of his family, the entire matter of Reno's part in the loss of Custer's command, is yet to be fully or properly aired to the cold and harsh light of history's glare.
Reno's dismissal from the military, his fall from grace, was unrelated entirely to events at Little Big Horn and is a matter greatly confused and obfuscated today. That Reno ommitted reference and detail of messages carried between Custer and himself on 25th June 1876, must bring into question the last note carried by Trumpeter Martin to Benteen; it being an entirely strange document which as it stands accepted; can only have been instruction to Benteen to join battle in the valley as quickly as possible with all available manpower. Benteen was ordered to attack and as the expedition commander, Alfred H. Terry, was informed on the 27th June 1876, he: 'came to the river, and rightly concluding that it was useless for his force to attempt to renew the fight in the valley, joined Reno on the bluffs'. This is and will remain indisputable fact.
That Reno ommitted reference and detail of messages carried between Custer and himself on 25th June 1876 will ever be a matter of conjecture and obfuscation, which must fall subject to the thrust and purpose of his actions after the battle. For Reno, throughout his life, the pen was truly mightier than the sword until the irony of his attempts to publish during 1886. A letter by Reno to Sherman of 4th July 1876, firmly lays blame at the foot of Custer, Gibbon and by implication Alfred H. Terry. An application to U.S. Grant that same day, applied for Custer's job in caveat that the principal of seniority be set aside; and was supported by a document which remains today under investigation by the FBI.
Ancestors have ever brought anguish, distress, and embarrassment to descendants. Is that just cause for malady that is righting of wrongs that were and remain undeniable as wrongs. There is no intellectul excuse for not taking a family disgrace, upon the chin, with head held high. You do not turn a matter of such importance and historical significance into an almighty and enduring fubar, because of a families embarrasments.
God bless America, its high ideals, and their practice - eventually.
There were two Lone Tepees. Custer watched Reno trot off towards Ford A, when Custer was one mile from Ford A. It was impossible for Frederick F. Gerard to ride back from Ford A to meet Lt. W.W. Cooke with warning of enemy strength and intentions.
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Post by fred on Apr 24, 2012 13:14:53 GMT -6
Regards Fred... Be well and best wishes. Thank you... and to you, as well. Best wishes, Fred.
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Post by AZ Ranger on Apr 24, 2012 19:03:15 GMT -6
It hard to take someone serious that uses Medicine Tale and Medicine Tail in the same article. Also interesting where they show Sgt Butler and does it state a Looking from Reno at the bottom? I posted a different view of Butler's stone a little easier to read for most. Taken horseback 2010. AZ Ranger Attachments:
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Post by herosrest on May 30, 2012 13:45:47 GMT -6
Hi AZ Ranger, point taken about tail in Medicine tale...... although we all know it's really Reno's trail??? ;D The opinion, views and information of officers present during the fighting or after is quite varied, and to varying dergrees is guarded. Below is one off Lt. Offley Paulding's letters from the camp on the Yellowstone, which doesn't seem to have been over exposed. An interesting read. Terry's Indian Expedition Camp on Yellowstone mouth Big Horn July 8. 1876.
My dear Mother:
On the night of the 2nd I wrote you about the Little Horn affair but had not time to finish before the steamer left with the mail. A courier leaves tomorrow so I will endeavor to finish the account. I believe I got as far as our arrival at the site of the Indian encampment, where we found signs of the recent battle. As we proceeded up the valley we found a lot of dead Indians lying on scaffolds, under trees and in 2 lodges, saw nothing of any white man except a very few bodies and some heads, evidently dragged from a distance. The bodies may have been of wounded or captured men tortured. Our small party of scouts from across the river sent word that they had just found 28 white soldiers lying dead in a ravine crossing the bluffs opposite and a mile or two behind where we then were.
Soon after they reported a total of 196 which afterward swelled to 204 dead, all except the first 28 being found along the summit of the bluff and about 40 in one group which was on a little knoll higher than the rest where they had made a last stand and among which were recognized Gen. Custer, Tom Custer (Capt.), a brother of Gen. Custer who had accompanied him on the trip named Boston Custer, Calhoun, his adjutant and brother-in-law, Capt. Cooke (reg't adj.) and Capt. A. E. Smith. We were shortly after met by Lts. Hare and Wallace of the 7th Cav. who rode down to us and shook hands and from them learned the particulars of the affairs, or such as they themselves knew at that time. Major Reno to whose battalion they belonged was at the time we arrived corralled on the summit of the bluffs across the river about 3 miles or more from where Custer had fought having been driven there on the first day of the fight, and had with him his 7 companies or what was left of them.
The particulars in brief as we learned them from these officers and from one of our Crow scouts named "Curly" who had been with Custer until the fight was over or nearly so (and who had escaped by mixing with Sioux after all the whites were killed but 5. one of whom was then wounded) were about as follows: Custer with his entire regiment had been marching, with a pack train up the Yellowstone but 20 or 30 miles back near the mountains where he could cross all the streams near their head and scout them. He was to meet our column at the mouth of the Little Horn on the 27th but on the 23rd struck a fresh trail of Indians moving and lit out after them instead of waiting as he should have done to strike when we should be near enough to help if it should be necessary. I dare say he thought his regiment capable of whipping any number of Indians (a common error) and wanted it all to himself. Anyhow he marched his regiment 75 miles in 36 hours, resting about 5 hours, so for 31 hours his men were in the saddle with but one interval. They were then, about 8am of the 25th, where they could see the smoke of a big Indian camp on the Little Horn and very soon after Custer, becoming satisfied that he was discovered, determined to attack at once so as to give them no chance to leave. He ordered Capt. Benteen with 4 companies to guard the pack train and proceed toward the bluffs, while he with 5 companies attacked from one end of the village, and Reno with I believe 3 companies was to charge down toward Custer from the other. Before making his final disposition he sent a scout ahead to find out where the tepees (lodges) were the thickest, as there was where he would charge. The scout returned and it is said that when he reported told Custer with perfect terror that there were lodges as thick as the grass and begged him not to fight so many. Custer merely said with a laugh that he was glad they were all there. Then giving his orders to Reno and Benteen he left them.
Where he charged from was very bad ground. From the summit of the bluff to the river was a slope of about 2 miles the village lying in the valley across the stream, in plain sight of the whole length of the slope. Custer and his men gave their yell and charged down for a ford. They did not strike it exactly, but had to move along a cut bank for some distance, under heavy fire from the timber opposite. Finally on reaching the ford they were met by an immense body of Indians fighting on foot. They crossed in the face of this terrible fire but were driven back, dismounted and put in one or two volleys, remounted and retreated alternately, until what was left of them reached the summit of the bluff. At this point they were met by another large body of Indians who had swept around behind them and here surrounded by about 2,500 or more warriors they fought to the death. Our Indian Curly says they began to fight before the sun was yet in the middle of the sky and when he got away it was nearly half behind the bluffs about 8 o'clock. They must have fought with desperation and it is thought they must have killed right there more than the entire number of soldiers in the outfit. Indeed they must have been so thick and in such short range that it must have been almost impossible to shoot without hitting some one. There was not a white man escaped out of about 250 with Custer. Some 20 or so cannot be accounted for except by the fear that they were carried off, alive or dead. Among those whose bodies were not positively identified were Dr. Lord and Lt. Sturgis. Their underclothing found in the camp, Sturgis' with 2 bullet holes through the undershirt, show that they are gone. The dead were when found almost entirely stripped, slashed up and mutilated so as to be hardly recognizable.
The officers were Gen. Custer, Capts. Keogh, Cooke, Smith, Yates and Custer, Boston Custer, Lts. Porter, Sturgis, Riley, Harrington, Crittenden and Calhoun, Dr. Lord, a friend of General Custer, Mr. Reed and the Herald reporter, Mr. Kellogg. I did not see any of these as they were buried where they fell and during the 2 or 3 days we were there I was too busy with the wounded from Reno's party. While Custer was fighting, Reno with his 3 companies went up the river and crossed in the timber and then charged down the valley toward the upper end of the village one or two miles away. As they galloped over the plain they heard several volleys from where Custer was and soon after engaged themselves. They were met by 1000 or 1800 warriors who began to pour in a fire through which these 3 co's (about 150) charged a mile or so. The Indians were mostly on foot, a great advantage, as cavalry has to dismount to do any fighting. Reno was driven back, dismounted and fired, charged a second time until met by a large body who had come from where Custer was fighting and driven back again this time blindly making for the river and by a provident accident making the water at a fordable place, the only place where they could have got over within a mile either way. Opposite were bluffs several hundred feet high with a cut bank, the river running close beneath. At this point there was a small shelf for a landing and from there they went up an almost perpendicular ascent to the top through loose sliding bad land earth. The Indians stood on the opposite bank firing at them as they toiled up here (protected however partially by ravines) and also some firing from their flanks on the same bank. They were not met by Indians on top, the idea probably not having occurred to them of Reno's making for such a place.
Benteen was also near this place with his 4 cos. and pack train and that night they joined. They dug out small holes with their tin cups on the best place they could find and made barricades of their packs, cracker boxes and dead animals. Dr. DeWolf was shot going up the hill but it left one surgeon, an Acting Assistant Surgeon from Bismarck, a Dr. Porter whom I knew very well at Lincoln. The mules were put in a circle with the hospital in the middle and every now and then a mule would drop into the ring, shot. They found it impossible to get water for 2 days. All day of the 26 they kept up a fight from different spots where the Indians had taken positions. The Indians charged their works but were repulsed and Benteen made a counter-charge. This fight kept up all day of the 26th letting up about noon as they think—from the Indians running short of ammunition. A party of men undertook to crawl down a ravine hoping to reach water under the concealment by the bluffs on each side the ravine and the smoke from the burning timber on the opposite bank set fire to drive out some of our men who had taken refuge there. They got some water although some were killed and some badly shot in the effort owing to their having to run the gauntlet of 20 or 30 feet to the river and back into the ravine. The Indians hauled off on the evening of the 26 and then they got water—all they wanted. We (Gen. Gibbon's column) were lying quietly in camp about 8 miles off when the Indians left.
Dr. Williams and myself were ordered ahead to Reno's position as soon as it was discovered and when we got there they did not know where Custer was. Varnum (whom I thought dead and who was with me last year on the White River) came up and shook hands. He said "Where is Custer, is he coming up with your column?" and when I told him he turned around, broken down and crying like a baby. All the men were—when I got there—in spite of their hardships and sufferings, cheerful and apparently as cool and nonchalant as though nothing much had happened and though the announcement of Custer's fate fell on them like an unexpected shock, they soon rallied. The fact is that now we are lying quietly in camp. They appear to be just beginning to realize what it all means.
For the next day or two we were busy enough caring for the wounded of whom there were 50 left. Lt. Hodgson died that morning. Lt. MacIntosh was killed in the 2nd charge and the total loss of this part of the regiment was then 41 killed in the charges and during the fights of the 25 and 26th: several of the wounded, 2 or 3, have since died. The rest were sent down the river in the steamer Far West with my last letter of the 2nd. We had a hard job carrying off the wounded, marched during the late afternoon and nearly all night of the 28th carrying them in hand litters. This was slow and exhausting and next day (we hadn't marched over 6 miles the night before) Doane of the 2nd went to work and made mule litters from timber frames with thongs of rawhide cut from some of the wounded horses we found in the camp and among the timber and which we killed and skinned forthe purpose. These were wound over the frames making a sort of bed, on which blankets and such canvas and tents as we had were laid.These were suspended with the projecting ends lashed over pack saddles and a mule at each end and proved as easy travelling as a boat would have been; also very rapid and the night of the 29th, we marched clear to the mouth of the rivers. It was very dark and raining and our guide got lost for about 2 hours, but at last found the steamer and we got our wounded aboard just before the sun rose on the morning of the 30th. I was nearly dead with the fatigue of the past 3 days and nights on top of our hard march up there from the 24th with packs and when all was fixed and the men attended to you bet I didn't make much bones about going to sleep for 3 hours.
The next day the steamer came down here and I followed with the command including Reno's 7 cos. all that's left of the regiment. The 7th lost 16 officers, more than half, and about 329 men killed and wounded, also more than half. Varnum was shot in the leg slightly but don't show it at all. I don't know the exact figures yet. In addition they lost the regimental colors and 8 guidons, about 400 head of horses killed, mules killed, wounded and captured, with all their equipment and the arms of all the men killed. What we know of Custer depends of course on the signs discovered and the statement of Curly who is a good, brave and truthful young warrior of the Crow tribe. He says they fought well and were not afraid to die.
After the boat left the Little Horn and as we were marching over the high bluffs at its mouth, we could see the smoke from a big camp off the base of the Big Horn mountains where the Little Big Horn river emerges from its cañon, 40 miles away or over that. The same day about noon there went up two big signal smokes—their mode of calling together their warriors and the next day the entire country was covered with a pall of heavy smoke nearly rendering invisible the mountains, which are usually clearly and beautifully defined in this pure atmosphere. Our interpretation, and the interpretation of such scouts as we had along was that they were having another fight the first day—that they had set fire to the grass on the 2nd day in order to scatter under the smoke and escape—and we only hope Crook has at last found them. He should have been there before this and if he struck them—short of ammunition, and suffering severely from the fight with Custer in which they are believed to have lost much more than ourselves—he must have whipped them completely. If he has not we are in for a long tedious campaign.
On returning here we found information in the papers of which we knew nothing before starting and they knew what we did not, that there were between 3000 and 4000 warriors in the band and also pretty definitely their whereabouts. It came too late for us. We are now waiting here for news from the East and from Crook, and for orders as to what is to be done. Some Crows came down from the upper Yellowstone today and with them one who says Crook had a fight with a band of Sioux over 2 weeks ago in Tongue River, whipping the Sioux but losing 18 men and that he had told them (the Crows—of whom there were 140 with him) that he was going to have one more big fight and then go home. Some of the Sioux have had a fight with the Crows about 60 miles from here above on the Yellowstone, at Pryors fork the Crows whipping and getting away with 6 scalps. One of these fellows who came in today was shot by a glancing ball on the kneecap but don't appear to care much. I have been writing so disconnectedly and hurriedly that my little yarn must be hard to untangle, but then I suppose you will have heard so many stories that it may be of interest to know the truth or as much of it as an eye witness could discover no matter how mixed his account is from having to scribble away so fast in order to get through by the time the mail goes.
The steamer Josephine came up yesterday to take the place of the Far West gone down with the wounded and it was a great pleasure to find they had on board clothing to replenish our rags at any price. By a chance the ladies from Ft. Lincoln who were to have come up on the Josephine this trip put off the excursion until the next, otherwise the Mrs. Custer, Yates, Calhoun, Porter, Smith and Moylan would have been here a day or two after we got back and found out the horrible news. I believe all the ladies of the Cavalry living at Ft. Lincoln excepting only Mrs. Moylan, have lost their husbands in this fight.
I understand that Col. Reno has made a report of the affair in which he reflects strongly on Col. Gibbon who was in command of our column for having gone into camp on the evening of the 26th "in the face of the enemy and without attempting to satisfy himself as to the character of a large body of men who crossed his front" or something to that effect, referring to the Indians Reno's Co. saw while scouting or flanking the column on the march up to which I referred in my last letter.
My messmate and tent mate Roe got orders by last mail detailing him as reg't adjt 2nd Cav. Hdqrs. Ft. Sanders. It will be a splendid thing for him but a loss to Ellis. He won't go until our return from the field. Before this reaches you, I dare say the whole affair will be settled. Whether we are to go home or find ourselves just beginning a big Sioux War is just now a conundrum. If we are to have a winter's campaign they ought to let us go somewhere to refit and rest a little for a month or so. I am getting rather weary having been in the field since Feb. 22 excepting just two weeks between March 17 and April 1 after the Fort Pease trip. If I could only work it to get some other fellow ordered back with my outfit to Montana so I might accompany the other column East I might even afford a leave as I haven't drawn pay since March. To be sure it costs nearly as much to live here as at a post, but I started with over $150 which I hadn't a chance to send away before leaving.
Please let at least the family know how I am getting along and send such little news as I send you for it is impossible for me to do any more than write to you alone. Write as often and as much as you can since a share if not all your letters must reach me eventually through Ft. Ellis. My last letters have been sent June 27 from the Little Big Horn, July 2 and the present from here. They all go together, and take the place of a diary more than anything else and as I haven't been able to keep up my diary you might keep them if you care to as a sort of memoranda to look over in future, and I hope more peaceful years.
Love to all the Sisters and yourself. Regards all, Be well.
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Post by AZ Ranger on May 30, 2012 20:06:08 GMT -6
That's why you don't rely on second hand narratives without proofing them. What a bunch of false information.
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Post by bc on May 30, 2012 22:51:40 GMT -6
I see that Lt. Paulding states the 7th lost their regimental colors and 8 guidons.
bc
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Post by fred on May 31, 2012 5:34:46 GMT -6
Lt. Paulding states the 7th lost their regimental colors and 8 guidons. BC, Doc Paulding seems to have been a rather out-spoken character. If this were true, I would suspect only B, D, H, and K were the companies not losing their guidons, meaning Reno left all his in the valley. I tend to doubt Paulding was correct here. Without digging deep, didn't A and M manage to keep theirs? Best wishes, Fred.
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Post by fred on May 31, 2012 5:41:25 GMT -6
That's why you don't rely on second hand narratives without proofing them. What a bunch of false information. Yep! The distortion, narrow-mindedness, favoritism, and lack of objectivity boggles my mind. The sheer and utter stupidity of it all is numbing. I do not have the mental acuity to even address it. I guess that is why God made minds like Dark Cloud's. Stunning s**t this all is. What disappoints me so much is that "herosrest"-- who seems to me to be pretty sharp-- falls for this drivel. What a shame! Best wishes, Fred.
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Post by bc on May 31, 2012 9:59:21 GMT -6
Lt. Paulding states the 7th lost their regimental colors and 8 guidons. BC, Doc Paulding seems to have been a rather out-spoken character. If this were true, I would suspect only B, D, H, and K were the companies not losing their guidons, meaning Reno left all his in the valley. I tend to doubt Paulding was correct here. Without digging deep, didn't A and M manage to keep theirs? Best wishes, Fred. I've never kept up on the guidon count but there are others such as Joe who are interested. Benteen said he planted his for Co. H for Custer to see. I assume he left it there or there is no other reason for him to mention it as he wasn't up there all that long. And then it would be normal for any company to plant a guidon when setting up a skirmish line as they all did. DeRudio grabbed one but I forget if he got out with it or if it snagged on a bush. bc
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Post by Dark Cloud on May 31, 2012 13:05:50 GMT -6
AZ is taking the other board to school over what is and what is not 'fact.' Apparently, because something is in print and says it is fact does not, actually, make it fact. Who knew? Well, they didn't and apparently don't.
So pleased to see all that and this here. It's important to slam down nonsense or at least notify the public there are things that cannot be known and shouldn't be assumed to be knowable at all, no matter how much 'study' and 'investigation' (ie, reading books) they put into it.
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Post by fred on May 31, 2012 19:52:59 GMT -6
That's a big joke over there. AZ quoted some stuff Reno said at the RCOI and in his official report that someone claimed was a lie... or one was a lie because it contradicted the other... or some such tripe. If you read what Reno said, neither contradicted the other. All they are concerned with is in condemning anyone but Custer... who doesn't need to be condemned, either.
Someone named "Mark" asked an intelligent question, one that will never be answered over there, but would be answered over here. Too bad. It was a good question; fit right into "Macabre."
Comic books still live on though, don't they?
Best wishes, Fred.
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Post by "Hunk" Papa on Jun 1, 2012 11:25:27 GMT -6
I see that Lt. Paulding states the 7th lost their regimental colors and 8 guidons. bc The Regimental Standard was not lost. It was rolled up and put away with the pack train. It is, or was, on display at the Visitors' Center at the LBH. I believe that 7 guidons were lost. The 5 companies with Custer of course, plus A & G in the valley with Reno. The Company M guidon was saved by Corporal Sniffen, who was reported by fellow M member William Morris as having stuffed them in his shirt during the retreat from the valley and producing them promptly on the hill, when Captain French said, “Corporal, you damned fool, where are your colors?” Apparently, French had them put on a carbine and stuck in the ground. As to the originator of this thread, why dignify his nonsense by responding to it at all guys? Hunk
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Post by Yan Taylor on Jun 1, 2012 15:22:29 GMT -6
You know what Hunk, one of the funniest things I ever read on this board was the Herosrest story about a mobile wood cutting shed, this shed was there to cut wood to make a fort 20 miles away, the more I think about it the more I start to laugh, classic story (I think darkcloud tore a strip off his ass over it too).
Ian.
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