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Post by alfakilo on Jan 27, 2013 20:04:25 GMT -6
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Post by quincannon on Jan 28, 2013 6:58:43 GMT -6
AK: One of my favorite fictional authors remarked in one of his works that "It better to make sure you shoot 'possible' before the regimental band plays to loud".
Victory disease has many mothers, none however claim to be the father.
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Post by alfakilo on Jan 28, 2013 7:20:13 GMT -6
I don't think the author's premise was unique, but it is worth reconsideration. I found this to be particularly appropriate for any discussion of LBH:
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Post by quincannon on Jan 28, 2013 8:32:36 GMT -6
AK: So do I. The author's message was make sure that you are ready for anything the enemy can throw at you, rather than what you think he will do. All this before you convince yourself that all you need to do is show up and the other guy will fold.
Readiness takes many forms, but chief among these must be mental readiness.
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Post by Yan Taylor on Jan 28, 2013 9:07:19 GMT -6
Hi Chuck, AK, good morning to you both.
A very interesting read, one thing that jumped out at me concerning Crooks Wyoming Column, after both the Sioux and Cheyenne stopped Crook at the Battle of the Rosebud, Crook returned to Goose Creek. But could he have got a message to either Terry or Gibbon to inform them of the large numbers he encountered and most importantly their willingness to fight, now reading AKs link it says, on the 22nd of June Custer received written orders of Gen. Terry, that’s five days after the Rosebud Battle, and I don’t know at what date Crook arrived back to the camp at Goose Creek, so could Crook have got a note to Terry in time for him to inform Custer of what he maybe facing.
Ian.
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Post by benteen on Jan 28, 2013 9:55:59 GMT -6
so could Crook have got a note to Terry in time for him to inform Custer of what he maybe facing. Ian. Ian, Good point, but to me the simple fact is, that it wouldnt have made any difference to Custer. He was going to attack that village no matter what. The more Indians the greater his fame and glory. This is a statement from Custer to Doctor Porter "Porter, there is a large Indian camp ahead and there will be a great killing" Be Well Dan
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Post by Yan Taylor on Jan 28, 2013 10:19:38 GMT -6
Hello Dan and good morning.
Yes I agree that GAC would have continued his advance, but knowing that there could be over a 1000 Warriors up ahead and they were not going to run, and in fact they were going to fight, would he still have split his Regiment into three Battle Groups (GAC, Reno and Benteen), and not sent one off on a scout, this is if he got word off Terry that the Indians were in strength and were not deterred when faced with Crooks force of over 1000 men.
Ian.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Jan 28, 2013 10:23:31 GMT -6
No. They could not. Look at the map. The three elements had no idea where the other two were, although Gibbon and Terry were one unit at the time of Crook's battle.
"Terry and Gibbon worked in concert while Crook’s column, advancing from the south, had virtually no communication with the other two forces." This is bad writing. Crook had no communication whatsoever with the other two - how could he? the land in question was the point of the campaign - but the term 'virtually' implies there was some.
The author confusingly uses Gray's Centennial Campaign and Last Campaign both and notes reference only "Gray" with page number.
Victory Disease is a strategic concept, not one to apply to a single battle. It references the assured feeling of success that permeates an army and society but of course assumes periodic road blocks and defeats without moving the underlying confidence. It applies to Germany in two world wars and Japan for social and religious reasons. It does not apply to the US in 1876, which - while embarrassed - immediately got serious about the Indians and its Army, neither of which were big deals to the government at the time.
Nonetheless, at no time was the US under threat, nor did Boston arm itself in fear of the Sioux. There was no fear and the confidence was utterly justified.
Victory Disease seems to afflict those who have unexpected degrees of success early on. They cannot take advantage of it because their infrastructure is inferior. When defeated, they cannot adapt to compensate because they cannot admit to their people what has happened.
Beware the handy cliche, because lazy writing misapplies it and confuses.
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Post by quincannon on Jan 28, 2013 10:47:52 GMT -6
DC: Agreed in principle. Victory Disease comes in two sizes though. One, like that of Japan effecting populations at large for reasons we don't always understand, is like the flu, always serious, never to be taken lightly, and that can infect millions. The second is like a case of the sniffles, lower grade and more localized, unlikely to cause anything more than a very bad few days.
Where was Crook going to send messengers to Dan and Ian? North Dakota and Montana is a very big haystack when one is trying to locate a needle. If you want to be critical of the campaign plan, three columns "cooperating" without the means to cooperate that is one thing, but placing blame on Crook under those circumstances is like trying to blame RGIII from trying to play injured. It was the coach's responsability to pull him, just as it was Sheridan's responsability to design a campaign plan that could at least try to give the three columns a chance to cooperate.
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Post by Yan Taylor on Jan 28, 2013 11:01:38 GMT -6
Hi Chuck, I know there would have been great distances between Crook and Terry, one of the reasons I asked was if there was some sort wire/telegraph between the larger military camps or forts, and with couriers moving between these large camps, could a message have gotten through, I was not taking Crook to task over not sending a report to Terry, the link posted by AK brought this to my attention, so it was the link that (seemed in my view) was asking the question, I just thought it needed to be banded about between ourselves, and both you and Darkcloud have explained in good order the pit falls of distance and not working together as a unit, rather than three columns acting independently, so I think you are right Sheridan should have given more thought to the Campaign.
Ian.
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Post by quincannon on Jan 28, 2013 11:30:21 GMT -6
Ian: That is a very good question you ask about the telegraph, and one that I do not know the complete answer to, but someone will. During the ACW front line telegrephy was quite common, however there was also infrastructure in place to accomodate it.
Nearest I can figure the closest telegraph to Crook was Fort Fetterman, near present day Douglas, Wyoming, and about two hundred miles, perhaps a few more from present day Sheridan, Wyoming near where Crook's forward base was located. The closest to Custer/Terry/Gibbon, was probably Fort Abraham Lincoln in Bismark, ND. Assuming both of my assumptions are true, communications would be two hundred miles overland from Crook's location to Fetterman, by telegraph to Chicago, and then telegraph to Fort Lincoln and overland to wherever Terry was at the time and further overland to Custer. I do think Crook communicated to Sheridan after Rosebud and from the Goose Creek location. When that was I do not know. The date of that communication and its receipt date by Sheridan would be interesting information to know.
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Post by Gatewood on Jan 28, 2013 11:46:24 GMT -6
I don't think the author's premise was unique, but it is worth reconsideration. I found this to be particularly appropriate for any discussion of LBH: AK - I think this is an apt description of what we would now call "game theory", in which a participant says "If I do this, then he'll do that, then I'll do this, and he'll do that ...", sort of like a player in a chess match thinking several moves/counter moves in advance. I don't think there is anything wrong with that, and it is in fact prudent, but sometimes you are simply going to be wrong and the opponent is not going to do what you expected. That doesn't necessarily mean that you were wrong in expecting what you did, as that may have been what any rational person would have done in most cases. In the Atlanta campaign in the civil war, when Johnston was replaced by Hood, Sherman said that he would rather fight Johnston, as Johnston was a reasonable man who did reasonable things, while there was no telling what sort of, often totally irrational, move that Hood might make. As it relates to the LBH, one of the things that Custer, et al, are constantly criticized for is their expectation that the Indians would run, based upon the fact that the Indians "always" ran. Personally, that doesn't give me any heartburn, as that was a reasonable expectation, based upon experience, upon which to base tactics "up to a point". However, when things began to not pan out as expected, whether or not Custer and others then modified their tactics to best address the true situation is a different matter. In your experience as a combat pilot, I'm sure that much of your training centered around how to best address the enemy's standard tactics or what he could be "expected" to do in a given situation, but, in actual practice, you probably encountered any number of situations in which he didn't react as expected. Does that mean that you and your training were wrong in your expectations? No, of course not, and neither does it mean, in my opinion, that Custer/Terry/whomever was wrong in expecting the Indians to run, but, just as you had to modify your tactics to meet reality, so should have they, and I believe that they tried but just not successfully.
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Post by Gatewood on Jan 28, 2013 12:11:06 GMT -6
Ian, the way that you worded your question - "could" Crook have gotten a message to Custer/Terry, leaves it open to conjecture. Not only, as several have mentioned, would a messenger have had to locate them, but he would have first had to negotiate his way through hostile territory, where it was very possible, if not probable, that he would have been intercepted. I suspect that may be the reason that Crook didn't attempt to notify Terry, as he may well have considered it a suicide mission.
If you had worded your question a little differently and said "should" Crook have attempted to notify Terry, that is a different issue. You must keep in mind that, not only were Crook's and Terry's two different combat commands, but they were two entirely different administrative departments, each with its own command structure. In that sense Crook did exactly what he was supposed to have done - reported his engagement up through his own chain of command, where it would then be disseminated to other commands, as necessary. As you indicated, there was already a fairly extensive telegraph network in place, which is evidenced in the manner in which news of the LBH was disseminated throughout Army command and the newspapers within only a few of days after the battle. However, I think the issue was probably not the inability to effectively telegraph news of the Rosebud but the delay in getting it to and from telegraph facilities on either end. Both Crook and Terry (and even more so Custer) were several days' ride from the nearest telegraph facilities, and there were undoubtedly bureaucratic processing delays as it passed across departmental boundaries, etc., so, all-in-all, the fact that that the news did not flow up the pipeline from Crook and back down to Terry/Custer in time is hardly surprising.
On a side note, rather than asking if Crook should have gotten word through to Terry, we might just as easily ask whether Custer should have made some effort to establish contact with, or at least ascertain the location of, Crook. He knew that Crook was supposed to be in the field to his south, exactly where his "instructions" from Terry were supposed take him, so it seems to me that it would have been prudent for Custer to try to ascertain Crook's whereabouts. However, I don't recall ever seeing that issue raised, so maybe I am totally off base with it.
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Post by quincannon on Jan 28, 2013 12:20:57 GMT -6
Gatewood: I do enjoy your posts for their insightfulness. This one however stands out above the rest.
No heartburn at all with the run expectation either. Soldiers most often do what their experience tells them to do and expect what that same experience tells them to expect.
The difference here is not what Custer expected. We have all sorts of opinion expressed about he was doing what the great cavaliers on the other board expected him to do, cavalry minded and all that. There came a point however when the hostiles did not do what was expected, and Custer by virtue of his deployments had already crossed the tactical Rubicon, from which there was no recovery. So the bottom line is that deploying over a large amount of territory would be just fine if the hostiles called a cab, it was not fine if they decided to stand their ground and defend the cab stand.
If part of your pre-game planning does not include what to do if your forward pass is intercepted, then it's to late to go back and say - the book says.
In your second post you clearly outline the disregarding of a Principle of War -Unity of Command.
By any chance would you happen to know the deck markings Hornet wore at Midway?
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Post by Gatewood on Jan 28, 2013 13:09:20 GMT -6
By any chance would you happen to know the deck markings Hornet wore at Midway? That rings a bell as to something that I probably have some information on somewhere. I'll have to see if I can dig it up.
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