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Post by wild on Mar 7, 2013 10:29:45 GMT -6
Gatewood I have never, ever seen any evidence that his professional actions were influenced in any way by his dislike of Custer or his disagreement with his assignment that day. Benteen departed Reno Hill without orders or without reference to his CO Reno. The manner of his departure was anything but professional.He departed not knowing that only one company of his battalion was with him. Benteen was of the opinion that the regiment should be kept together and he stated this to Custer who brushed it aside. Why does he want the regiment kept together?Because he fears it will be defeated in detail. Then he finds himself leading a 3 company detail off into the unknown with the rest of the command diverging away North West. This could be construed as a suicide mission. So we have Benteen returning from a very questionable mission and his behavior would suggest that he was one pissed off camper.And hovering over all this is the gutted ghost of major Elliot.
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Post by Yan Taylor on Mar 7, 2013 10:35:46 GMT -6
Thank you Chuck, I know Clair won’t mind, he is a big boy, and probably has a good sense of humour.
We have an old saying over here; Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Ian.
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Post by Yan Taylor on Mar 7, 2013 10:43:01 GMT -6
I think Benteen falls into the dammed if you do and dammed if you don’t category.
As you have said in the past Richard, Benteen disobeyed a direct order from Custer by staying on Reno Hill and handing his Battalion of three Companies over to Reno, now you say Benteen leaves Reno Hill with his Battalion of three Companies to find his Commanding Officer, and still he is disobeying orders, the man cannot win.
Ian.
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Post by quincannon on Mar 7, 2013 10:47:47 GMT -6
Ian: Yes Clair is a big boy, and I don't think he will mind either. But neither should big boys with little boy's ideas be taken seriously.
I don't mind at all that either of them surround themselves in the period moment, that can actually be helpful in a way. What I do mind is when their sense of period romance gets in the way of good judgment about anything they say. What I do mind is taking a sentence or two out of context, like Gatewood pointed out this morning, disregarding anything else that was said about the matter, and saying - See someone agrees that Custer was the greatest thiing since slice bread, and it was all the fault of those others.
What happened that particular day is all on the shoulders of Custer. He was the commander. He made the dispositions. It is his judgment(s) that must be called to account. I will give Custer the benifit of the doubt. He may have very well seen something that none of us in a latter day can devine. But he was the one that made the decision to move away. No one else.
The captain of USS Queenfish disobeyed an order sent at least nine times over a period of three days, when he sank Awa Maru by mistake. The Japanese were to be given free passage for humanitarian reasons. They were abusing the free passage for their own ends but that is not the point. He was ordered relieved by King himself, and King further ordered that he face General Courts Martial. He was court martialed found guilty and given a reprimand. Nimitz was so pissed at the light sentence that he issued a letter of repremand to each member of the court. The moral of the story is that the Queenfish's communications officer failed to pass along the message traffic to the captain. Never once during the testimony did the captain himself mention this. He took full responsability for his actions and the actions of his crew. He also put himself on report after the mistake was realized. He could have just as easily covered it up. That is what commander's do.
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Post by Yan Taylor on Mar 7, 2013 10:58:19 GMT -6
Yes Chuck, Custer ordered the night march, then he splits his Regiment into two fighting Groups and a pack train, Custer then sends one fighting group/Battalion on a scout, Custer then divides the other fighting group into two Battalions, Custer then takes his Command out of sight and out of supporting distance from his other Battalion, Custer then (allegedly) splits his Command into two wings, so the blame must fall on his shoulders.
Ian.
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Carl
Full Member
Posts: 125
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Post by Carl on Mar 7, 2013 11:08:23 GMT -6
Ian,
Good summary but you left out an important aspect.
The reason Benteen was late was because lst Sgt McCurry insisted on stopping to have the baseball team take their scheduled practice.
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Post by wild on Mar 7, 2013 11:54:44 GMT -6
Hi Ian As you have said in the past Richard, Benteen disobeyed a direct order from Custer by staying on Reno Hill and handing his Battalion of three Companies over to Reno, now you say Benteen leaves Reno Hill with his Battalion of three Companies to find his Commanding Officer, and still he is disobeying orders, the man cannot win. Disobeying two orders does not make compliance.That kind of behavior sows confusion.What next will he do? Has Benteen got carte blanche as far as orders are concerned? and no I did not say that he left Reno Hill with 3 companies of his battalion. This is what I said He departed not knowing that only one company of his battalion was with him. At best Benteen was passive.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Mar 7, 2013 13:08:04 GMT -6
This is where mere detail inserts falsehood.
If we're going to bring Talmudic study to the Cooke note, you have to explain the two 'bring pac(k)s'. I don't think Cooke put a lot of thought into the note, and since anything and everything could have happened to the calliope accompanied pack train, it was an exhortation to check and make sure that snail paced ensemble was arguably together.
At the battle of the Falklands in 1914, the doomed German admiral signalled 'you were right after all' to his subordinate who had been against the Falklands raid. The admiral and three sons drowned and a ton of German ships were sunk within the next few hours. That stands as a class act, I think.
I sense that sort of interpretation is being applied to Cooke's note. Might be true, but really I think first impressions are accurate here: it was an exhortation, unhampered by fear, to bring everything to the same time zone and hemisphere and a good officer like Benteen could be relied upon to make the right decisions when they arrived in a half hour plus or minus from the point Martin was sent back.
Again, the ONLY mystery is why Custer did what he did leaving Weir Point's neighborhood. Once across MTC it was milk and cookies, game over. To that point, perfectly logical scenarios are among his options for what he did. AFTER that, I defy anyone to claim logic. That's why I think he was out of it, wounded, and the mission of the five companies changed. I really encourage people to seriously entertain that thought, because it's logical, has no evidence against it, doesn't conflict with anything and doesn't interfere with event momentum.
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Post by montrose on Mar 7, 2013 13:23:12 GMT -6
Hmmmmm,
God help us if we want to discuss Clair's posts of the last few weeks.
The US Army in Vietnam was less trained and less experienced than the 1876 Army.
An annual desertion rate of 25-33% has no impact on combat effectiveness.
Tactics have no relationship with weapons. Tactics from the Brown Bess musket are identical to the 1873 Springfield carbine. Hussar tactics of units without firearms are identical to those with firearms.
You can conduct a flank attack by the simple fact that you are on the same land mass as other friendly units. It does not matter that you can not see or be seen by enemy and/or friendly units. Range of weapons, lines of sight, capabilities of weapon systems, terrain, distance, movement, time, space are all for Infantry types. So is reality and rational thought.
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Post by montrose on Mar 7, 2013 13:39:36 GMT -6
Dark Cloud,
If LTC Custer's body was found at 3411 benchmark, I would agree with you.
My problem with GAC died early is it means his decisions had no impact on the battle.
The other is the implication that he was a tactical genius, incapable of making the numerous tactical errors in this battle. To me, this hypothesisis the counterpoint to the Keough/Conz theory. In both cases, GAC was a tactical genius, despite his body of work 1861-1876.
Whatever went wrong had nothing to do with GAC. He as dead or there was a conspirary to murder him and his command between Benteen, Reno, Grant, the Illuminati, and the aliens that built the pyramids.
I don't buy it. There is a culture to being a commander. Qunicannons is trying to describe it with Navy analogies. I admit, I have failedto describe it myself. Commanders command. My battalion command ended up being in recruiting Command, but the priciples that applied there were no different than in my combat commands.
Dchas a valid hypothesis, but what if GAC made the decisions in the northern sector? And how do you explain the Hussar Fantasyland decisions he made prior to Ford B?
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Post by wild on Mar 7, 2013 14:00:30 GMT -6
it was an exhortation How do you distinguish an exhortation from an order? Why was it necessary to send two "exhortations"? How big would the village have to have been to trigger a regular order?
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Post by Dark Cloud on Mar 7, 2013 14:58:53 GMT -6
I don't think Custer was killed only, but wounded. I'm a proponent of the alternate chain of command. The official one included Cooke, the actual featured TWC as second in command. I don't think Custer's nepotism, excessive even for the time when lots of it went on, was instituted without this sort of thing in mind. Further, I think it a common mindset in the Army, and nobody objected because Tom was a good officer and DID know his brother's mind.
I realize this is viewed as an insult to officers and the Army, but I think it true. If it is NOT true, then who brought the regiment forward at the Crow's Nest which set Custer off, and Tom talked to him, and that was that. If it had not been Tom - and with his new information Tom provided, Custer apparently agreed - who was it? And since nobody objected and the matter vanishes as an issue, what does that say? Even Benteen doesn't complain about this. And neither he nor Reno brought the command forward.
I think Custer was set to hit the village to support Reno, was wounded a ways back from the river (he was always up front), the thought was to get him to cover (they are not going to leave a wounded Custer), and that set the direction and the train of events that led to LSH. Doesn't require a ton of Indians, just the small band on the east highlands.
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Post by wild on Mar 7, 2013 15:20:24 GMT -6
The withdrawal of the element of leadership while in close contact with the enemy will produce something similar to what Benteen observed. It fits.
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Post by wild on Mar 7, 2013 15:44:58 GMT -6
Further I suggest that only Custer would have forced a crossing into the village. A retreat from MTC Ford spelt disaster.
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Post by wild on Mar 7, 2013 16:00:52 GMT -6
Further further. Custer's orders to Benteen and Reno was to attack.He was aggressive as per his character. The pissing about on Battle Ridge or the GNJ is just not him. I suggest that there was one line missing from his message to Benteen and that was "am attacking now". No Proof but it fits and is simple.
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