Rational Thought and LBH

[montrose]

It is the end of another year. I am going to use this thread to discuss the past year's theories and the overall state of the LBH discussions.

1. Emotion versus logic. Mr. Spock does not frequent these boards. The majority of arguments are emotion based, and value laden. LB. Some folks have wrapped their own self identity to certain emotional beliefs about the battle or its participants.H attracts a lot of people with agendas.

2. Rational discussions are difficult here. I have learned to be careful in believing other people's versions of facts. To be blunt, some folks are so locked in to prove a theory that they lie. They post false testimony, and claim false facts. So to prove the valley fight took place where your theory requires it, cut and paste sentence fragments of testimony to completely change what that person said, claim artifacts found across the river were really found at your site, misstate the work of secondary sources, slander anyone who disagrees with you.

3. The archeology work of the 1980s disproved many of the old theories on LBH. In particular, the LBH disaster had nothing to do with Reno or Benteen. The northern sector showed a US force that fought badly, and was defeated easily. SO how do we handle new facts? Deny the facts.

Fox is now being called a fraud on the other board who fabricated his data. Anywhere artifacts were found and documented is disputed as plants by unscrupulous men. Any find that has not been videotaped, photographed, surveyed, and fully documented is suspect, and can be moved anywhere you want to match a pet theory. This means all work before 1980 is of no value, and any work after 1980 is the work of fraud.

4. The other claim is that panic does not exist in military history. The claim is that the panic theory is solely derived from SLA Marshall. Marshall is a well proven fraud, who made a living off his work. He supported his flaky theories by claiming to have conducted hundreds of interviews that were completely fictional.

An easy example is his claim that men do not fire their weapons in combat, especially if badly led and badly trained. This was identified immediately by combat veterans as nonsense. Men fire like crazy at targets they can't see and at targets far out of range. (Notice how much this fits the 7th Cav at LBH, with widespread firing at targets 500-1000 meters away.)

But to claim that the idea that men panicked in combat originated with Marshall is counter factual. The argument presented is that Marshall originated the theory that men and units panic. Marshall is a fraud. Therefore, men and units do not panic in battle. Makes sense, as long as you ignore 4,000 years of recorded military history.

4. Command and control is a vital part of the LBH defeat. The literature on decision making in organizations is vast, both military specific and in general. Applying this work to LBH is difficult because it overturns the emotional based theories. LTC Custer had a regiment with 14 moving parts; 12 companies, the scouts and the pack train. He died with a single company within his command and control. His failure to command is mind boggling. It takes some work to fail that badly.

[Dark Cloud]

This is why it's important for those who've never been in combat nor served at all to value the opinions of those who've actually been in combat over those who have not. By "opinion" I do not mean as Automatically Accepted Truth. We know that trauma shreds that early on, and two guys in the same foxhole can describe utterly different circumstances and events, and mean it truthfully. By 'in combat' I mean under orders in mortal circumstances with people trying to kill each other, and this for a long period. When asked in they've met that criteria, some say they've heard bullets whine/whizz/crack..... along with other deflections away from a simple yes or no. Hunters, gang members, others can say as much. Not the same thing whatever.

Those most adamant about others lying, and conspiratorial fraud, and false history are the costume wearing, the Bevo officers, the utter fabricators of personality enhancement to be something they most assuredly are not. I've been in jail and the justice system and listened to the letter sweater blowhards there, and some of the posters in Custerland sound not unlike them as they try to create worth out of little. I wish they were called out more often, and certainly not allowed to slander dead officers or soldiers for their own ends.

[quincannon]

Many, many years ago my Dad, an avid Civil War buff (that's buff not historian) fell under the influence of one such person as you describe here Will. In fact it was a man from your own and DC's state. A man with an agenda. All my life this man was discussed in our home, although he passed away in 1948, as if he were Zeus making pronouncements from Olympus. His truth was the truth according to my Dad. My Dad made guns, big guns. Guns like you would find aboard Missouri and down at Fall River, aboard Massachusetts. Just like them. In fact those very guns, but he could not read a map or understand tactics for squat.

According to my Dad, the railroad cut at Manassas was not there anymore, and Porters attack on Jackson took place some three miles away. This all could not be because Fred (different Fred) said this could not be. This persisted until I physically took him to the railroad cut and we walked its entire length, until I showed him with map, and marker just where Porter went in.

When my father passed away, it was my job to go through his papers, and save what needed saving, and dispose of the rest. In a dusty old box I found thirty of so "after action reports" of battlefield trips taken, by Fred and his crew. My Dad was evidently the junior member and detailed to compose and type up an account of their various adventures in Virginia. I sat down to read them all thinking I was discovering some new find, something that would shed new light on both my Dad and the places they visited. What I found were accounts of motor trips, places they ate breakfast and lunch, old folks talked to. Mentions of Major this and Colonel that(It seems Fred handed out honorary commissions like they were lollypops to his stalwart band of eight or nine) but mention of events, of terrain, of tactics, of fire and maneuver were all absent, because not a one of them knew diddly squat about the subject. These things that my Dad had held so dear turned out to be long Sunday drives, a relief for them from the pressure of war production, as they were all employed at the same place, the Naval Gun Factory, and this was their only escape from 60 to 70 hour work weeks of the war years.

I met most of these men in later years, except Fred, and there was not a bad man among them. They were all still sheep dipped in Fred's falsehoods. Nothing could dissuade them. They knew what they knew, and anything different than what they knew was false, contrived, manufactured, for in truth there was no romance, and these guys to a man were all about romance. the sash, the golden sword, the reckless charge to glory. Stories of Barlow and Gordon at Gettysburg were there centerpiece, not why the flank maneuver broke XI Corps. I suppose that was unimportant. Flank attacks aren't all that romantic after all.

I just wish that the costume wearers, the jock sniffers, reckless adventurers, and impregnable skirmish line boys, the hero worshipers, and the occasional whack jobs that are drawn to these pages understood that with each passing day the neon sign with arrow pointing to them saying Phony is brighter. They won't of course, for like Fred (the other one) if the facts don't fit their impressions change or ignore fact.

Custer had to work at being so bad. Will you are prone to understatement, but that one is a loo loo.

[wild]

4. Command and control is a vital part of the LBH defeat. The literature on decision making in organizations is vast, both military specific and in general. Applying this work to LBH is difficult because it overturns the emotional based theories. LTC Custer had a regiment with 14 moving parts; 12 companies, the scouts and the pack train. He died with a single company within his command and control. His failure to command is mind boggling. It takes some work to fail that badly
The problem with the moving parts was that when detached they were not controllable.
Custer's system of communication was not instantainious having as it did a fatal time lag.
And this being the case why exacerbate the problem by detaching himself for the purpose of recce?[The area of operations was far greater than the Waterloo battlefield]
So many suggested scenarios ignore the communication difficulties.I'm sure Benteen's advice to keep the regiment together was not only in order to keep their strength concentrated but to also maintain command and control.
I also think the weapon ie the regiment was unsuitable.Dragoons are not a stand alone system;they are a support system.On their own they have no plan B insurance.

[mac]

Montrose
Agree with you and to take your final point...
The question left for me is why did Custer make the decisions he made? I do not mean this in terms of the correctness or otherwise of the decisions but rather this....
Custer was an experienced commander and evidently well enough respected by his superiors that he was placed in this situation so why did he get it so wrong? Often the other stuff you mention masks the real answers to this question.
Cheers

[Yan Taylor]

Mac, I think it could as simple as Custer underestimating his enemy.

Ian.

[mac]

Agreed Ian a very important point of human nature and critical here I suspect.
Late here so goodnight.

[wild]

The question left for me is why did Custer make the decisions he made?
Probably pride prevented him from effecting a withdrawal and link up with Benteen.
No way was he going to retreat back to Benteen.

[quincannon]

I too suspect the answer is as simple as him thinking he could do it and get away with it before any countering reaction. That is a form of underestimation, and any form of underestimation is a sign of battlefield incompetence. If this was the only time such a thing had happened during Custer's career it would be one thing, a one of, a momentary lapse in judgment. It was not and there is a pattern that builds over the course of Custer's career. Therefore I think Will comment, - he had to work at it - is on point. Taking that forward to its ultimate conclusion, the simple answer is probably correct. He just was not very good at what he did.

[wild]

One huge advantage the Indians had was the simplicity of their reaction/counter attack.They knew what the call was and each was responsible for his own actions and inspired by natural leaders and in the presence of brother warriors the surge forward must have been shock and awe in motion.
The 7th were moribund by a control system more suited to the rigid tactics of the CW.The ordinary troopers did not have a clue what was happening or what was expected of them.

[mac]

Agreed Custer has a history of shall we say rash attacks.
I had a conversation recently with a young man just graduated from the Australian Defence Academy. He was unaware of this battle but in a brief discussion his first thought was don't divide the force. Custer is an experienced commander with a military education yet he divides more than once. It begs the question why and my only response is as others have said which is he does not think his opponents will mount anything more than a defensive wall.
Custer's actions, like all of us, are based on what he knew and thought. He knew there were Indians in front of him in large numbers but he thought they would not mount an assault on his troops. Now, I think, whatever view you take on subsequent troop movements they can be seen in a logical perspective where there are motive thought processes involved and not just Custer love or hate.
Cheers

[quincannon]

Mac: If you love the guy you will ignore what facts we do have, and concentrate on those under him who you might think did the hero wrong.

On the other hand if you hate the guy you view this as him doing everything wrong, no excuses, everything done was wrong period.

The real answer, like truth, always lies somewhere in the middle. Custer could only act on what he saw. He had no way to see through terrain or any other visual obstruction. In addition his working hypothesis of numbers against was probably off by at least a third and probably more like half. I believe he also felt the river would impede a rapid build up of hostiles on the eastern bank. Going on forward lacking this situational awareness, and making the assumptions he obviously made we can readily see by virtue of hindsight, that Custer was fornicating with Fido. If I had the knowledge of who was going to win Sunday's football games in the NFL on Sunday morning, that I have after consulting the scores on Sunday evening, then I would be quite wealthy. I don't of course, and Custer did not have the information he required for the combat decision process.

Now did he do everything wrong. I don't think so. We have discussed it before. His employment of small units, particularly as he employed them for the looks at Fords B and D were doctrinally correct. His use of a cavalry regiment to conduct armed reconnaissance over a wide area was as far as I can determine by the book as well. So the guy had some knowledge of his business. Where he failed again though was doing all these correct things, when the situation called for something else entirely. You are either going to conduct a regimental recon or you are going to attack. One procedure requiring dispersion over a wide front is not conducive to quickly grouping together in a mailed fist the attack requires. Moving to a ford for a look when you know that behind that river and obscuring terrain lies a whole bunch of people who want to kill you was not the brightest thing he ever did either, no matter how correctly he did it.

That is why I like what Will said so much - This guy really had to work at it to perform so badly. He used the right procedure to climb hammer in hand onto the roof, when the problem that needed addressing was in the basement.

PS: You brought up another point which I missed when I first read your post. Commanders who go into battle thinking that they know what the enemy will do lose more than they win. You go into battle having previously listed at least in your mind what the enemy can do. You take this list and apply terrain and situation to it and often deduce what they are most likely to do given the circumstances, but you never put all your chips on that one course of action. I guess hedging your bets is the best term to use, but still that is not complete. You must make a plan of action, but included in it is the flexibility to react to the unexpected. I don't see much if any of that analysis at LBH. Maybe a little in the valley, but no other place that comes to mind.

[mac]

I have been plagued by the Reno in the valley business but if we take the idea that in the Custer view there will be an enemy withdrawal then I can see this being his thought process.
There are a lot of Indians in the valley so we will attack them. Reno can lead the way.
When he hears that there are a number of warriors coming out to Reno he decides to change the attack plan and moves off to the right. He looks into the valley and as he expected he sees the Reno skirmish line moving forward.
If his view is that Reno will continue this trajectory then I can see how he then starts to fiddle around on the river banks. The Indians will not give a problem, Reno is pushing on, have a look and try to set up a coup de grace further on.
As you have said, and my point too, he bases what he does on the false premise that the enemy will act in a particular way. He has put himself in a position where he cannot know what the rest of his command is up to.
I have an uncle by marriage who was a career soldier (finished a Colonel) once said to me that sometimes it only takes one person to do the unexpected to turn a battle. I think now of Lame White Man.
There are of course so many more dimensions but this underestimation, to me, is a big one.
So Reno burns in the valley while Custer fiddles by the river.
Cheers

[montrose]

Mac wrote, "The question left for me is why did Custer make the decisions he made? I do not mean this in terms of the correctness or otherwise of the decisions but rather this....
Custer was an experienced commander and evidently well enough respected by his superiors that he was placed in this situation so why did he get it so wrong? Often the other stuff you mention masks the real answers to this question."

1. Charismatic leader. Custer was selected as a general officer on minimal experience. He had a few months of company time, and spent most of his time as a general's aide. His selection was due to GEN Hooker's reorganization of the Army. Prior to that, the US cavalry was deployed in penny packets. The CSA cavalry ran rough shod over them. The reorganization massed the cavalry in a Corps and allowed equality with the CSA. The problem is that US cavalry leaders were gunshy after 2 years of having their butts whipped.

So Custer was selected not because of tactical skill, but because he was aggressive. Throughout the war he would show up at a regiments location, and order an attack. It was not a bad tactic as from 1863 to 1865 the Union forces steadily grew in combat powere against their CSA opponents. Sometimes his lack of situational awareness and tactical skill got him in trouble, but other forces were available to save the day.

2. Post ACW. LTC Custer was appointed as the deputy commander of the 7th Cav. For the vast majority of the next nine years, the actual commander was posted to other duties, making him the functional commander. His first major campaign was his first ever leading a regiment. Heck, he never commanded a company. And the 1867 campaign was a disastrous performance. It led to his conviction by court martial and suspense from the Army for a year. So when you call him an experienced commander, not all these experiences were positive.

In the following Washita campaign, spring 1870 campaign, and 1873 campaigns he was closely supervised by Department and Army commanders. The 7th was an average unit, nothing special. Compare them to the 4th cavalry over these years to see the difference.

Still, LTC Custers performance, particularly in 1873 shows some competence. (It also shows a marked immaturity and a devotion to his own comfort over that of his men). SO why was his performance in 1876 so horribly bad.

3. Personal factors. Custer was under enormous stress in 1876. He had been involved in numerous shady financial deals, that left him facing bankruptcy. He spent 9 months away from his duties chasing various deals. He kept extending his leave, even though a winter campaign was in progress. Note the 7th had the easiest logistic situation, and was the last to get started, months after Crook and Gibbon. His long hiatus from his command impacted the readiness of both himself and his unit.

In particular, the long dormant lifestyle meant that he was physically out of shape for a campaign. So combine mental stress and physical limitations to an arduous campaign, and it is no surprise that his judgment was impaired.

[quincannon]

Mac: If you look at how the man deployed, sending Benteen one way, Reno in with no follow up, and him sightseeing on the other side of the river it looks more like (if you drew it all out on a map with no knowledge of intentions - just what the map tells you) that he was conducting a armed reconnaissance on a regimental front. At least it looks that way to me. That is all well and good for the prime cavalry mission is reconnaissance, but reconnaissance for a larger force, that once contact is made or an opening discovered the cavalry turns that attacking over to the follow on heavier force coming up behind. It cannot retract itself, consolidate, and go after the discovered target itself. Well it can, but not in a timely manner, and time in these situations is of the essence.

That pitch in business is just what you do in an armed reconnaissance. You pitch in to develop a situation with the further intention of handing it off to the attacking force. Hope I am making that clear for understanding of it is essential to the you will be supported part. No support or no way to support leads only to what we see here, and it was neither the first or last time we see the same thing play out.

If cavalry is on the other hand the main attack force, it should detach only a small portion of that force to reconnoiter, retaining the bulk well in hand for employment in the desired location. There are force ratios written down somewhere for relative sizes of the recon force vs. the main body, but I don't recall specific ratios off hand. In essence though you spread thin to reconnoiter and feed and you consolidate to fight.

It bears repeating - The man had to really work at it to lose so badly.

I also think Will has nailed everything you need to know about the man himself. Flawed people, as badly flawed as Custer at least, rarely do any good on a battlefield, and your Colonel friend was just about as right as right can be.