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Post by mac on Jan 2, 2014 1:10:38 GMT -6
Montrose Thank you for your summary. I was reading and ticking them off mentally. Although I was aware of your points I had not really put them together that succinctly. I particularly like the first point about charisma. Charisma is a great attribute but I am always suspicious of what lies beneath, remembering the old saying,a mile wide and an inch deep. Again following your Spock analysis he doesn't look good. Chuck Thanks for your reply. For you my saying is "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing". Custer knew some stuff but not enough stuff! I think once before some one made the point that Custer was always at his best when closely supervised. Couple this analysis with timing considerations and one can get a pretty good idea of what went on. No conspiracy theories required! Cheers
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Post by Yan Taylor on Jan 2, 2014 3:31:08 GMT -6
After they left the divide, Custer’s Regimental advance to contact does seem like a reconnaissance in strength, it was a move towards an area with no real idea of where the main objective lay, sure there could be a village somewhere and they could be satellite villages too but in reality they were still advancing up a blind alley.
Ian.
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Post by AZ Ranger on Jan 2, 2014 7:28:47 GMT -6
My thought is to it one step further and that Custer did not understand what he saw. He processed it differently than the reality of the events. That would make it look really bad in hindsight but made sense to Custer at the time.
AZ Ranger
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Post by Gatewood on Jan 2, 2014 8:41:32 GMT -6
Mac touched on something that I have often wondered about when he said that Custer's superiors held him in high regard. Montrose detailed why that regard was unfounded, but, none-the-less, it does appear to have been present. Most notable were Sheridan and Terry, who supported him and requested his reinstatement (Sheridan in 1868 and Terry in 1876),as, per them, no one else was capable of leading the expeditions in question. Why was that? Why did they apparently not only have high regard for him but feel that he was the most capable field commander they had?
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Post by quincannon on Jan 2, 2014 9:36:59 GMT -6
Maybe it was as simple as him being the most capable field commander THEY had. The Army was a very ridged place in those days.
In Sheridan's case I think there was some residual loyalty he had to Custer from the ACW. Custer did some good things under Sheridan. Remember in whose living room the surrender table ended up.
With Terry, I don't know. Don't think there was any previous close connection but I am not sure.
Remember also what Will said. Closely supervised Custer could do some good things for you. It was when operating on his own that he was no great shakes.
If we are talking here about who let him off their hook and let him roam unsupervised, then Terry has that particular stone tied around his neck.
Off the battlefield, and as an officer of considerable rank for the time and place Custer had four monumental lapses in judgment. Two led to courts martial, one to financial ruin for self and family, and the fourth was pissing off no less a personage than the President of the United States. So, under those circumstances, having at least three of those widely known throughout the Army, I can only assume that the responsibility for what happened at LBH, linked directly to the things Custer personally did there which were huge lapses in judgment themselves, must be borne by all those above Custer complicit in his reinstatement.
Steve: I think there is something very valid in your statement. We understand what he must have seen, but Custer understanding what it was before him, then being able to process it, plan for it, and then accomplish what he set out to do is another matter entirely.
Ian: It, this battle, and specifically Custer's formations and methodology have always seemed to me to most resemble either a regimental level armed reconnaissance over a wide front as a regiment would do for a corps, or a squadron for a division, OR Custer employing the tactics of a divisional commander, with only an understrength regiment to work with. All this from just drawing out the routes and actions on a map, and using no other source like stated plans or testimony.
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Post by Yan Taylor on Jan 2, 2014 9:50:29 GMT -6
Would I be out of order calling Custer “a legend in his own mind’’? Was he as good or better than other Cavalry commanders like William Selby, Ranald Mackenzie, Adna Chaffee, Winfield Hancock, Robert Page-Wainwright, Wesley Merritt or John Gregg?
Ian.
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Post by Yan Taylor on Jan 2, 2014 10:00:31 GMT -6
Chuck, I wrote that post before I saw yours, but I get what you mean, Terry should have given him orders to perform a reconnaissance and after he found the objective, wait for Terry to catch up, and that is where the night march comes into play, if he had rested on the 24th and continued with his mission on the 25th, he only had to wait another 24 hours for Terry to move up to support any attack, so Terry should have stipulated this to Custer.
Will if I have taken your original post off topic then I apologise in advance.
Ian.
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Post by Gatewood on Jan 2, 2014 10:02:10 GMT -6
Ian, I think the answer is a clear no. I forget the exact quote or who made it, but someone made a statement to the effect that there was a lot of resentment of Custer among his fellow officers not because he had risen higher than his merits warranted but because he had risen higher than many of equal or greater merit. However, that is not unique to his situation, and there is always resentment both within the military and in civilian life when someone receives a promotion that others feel someone else was more deserving of.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Jan 2, 2014 10:21:05 GMT -6
This has been a pleasant and informative thread. I remember those.....
It's good to see and read the getting away from deep analysis of trivia (a lot of Custerland is) and just taking what was known at the time. Custer fell flat and suddenly everything in his past is labeled Foreshadowing and obvious and all that. This was a near street gang fight, small and violent and intense. Small unit action more than large unit tactics and maneuver.
Custer thought well of himself and winged it a lot and it had worked out well enough that he continued. I don't think he had a clear idea on June 25 about much of anything except bringing his total force near, attacking, and things would work out as ever, since the enemy always ran, don't we know. Unlike Fred and others, I have to believe that at some point he hit Weir Pt.'s height because even if the earlier point is only seven feet shorter, it's view north is blocked by Weir. Basically I don't think Custer could ride by the high point with no blocked views of substance and not take advantage of it. Not like the Crow's Nest, it was a few feet to his left requiring no time as they moved north.
It's atop Weir that he could see near the entire camp by smoke, dust, noise, and periodic clear vision. He could worry about what was even further north some miles, if anything. He could see the land to the north east of the river. He could see for the first time wtf he had done, with Reno engaged, and himself not, and no clear way to amend that soon. The best way was MTC and across. Benteen was coming, knew what to do, Benteen would make sure the train was safe, he was competent, now to business here. And I think he planned to maintain momentum and every shock advantage he had left to support Reno and rout the village. It has never made sense to me he planned to extort behavior from kidnapped civvies, alone many times his own number.
If the camp were destroyed, and all the belongings burned and ponies killed or herded and the tribes scattered and worrying about food early in the summer, THAT was the sort of thing hitherto could be considered a victory, and because of the size could be presented as such. Custer knew that and would not see it as a violation of orders or intent. He would have walloped them. Problems afoot: they were not running, they were advancing, there were a lot of them, but the shock of a cavalry assault with one village end already engaged would do it with Benteen coming now and Terry soon. Would work.
Don't know what he thought, but that strikes me as reasonable, and thoughts in terms of complicated deceptions, splitting the force further, unpracticed maneuvers, and WAITING, all these ring way wrong for me.
Momentum once engaged.
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Post by quincannon on Jan 2, 2014 10:26:38 GMT -6
Will seems to think the 4th Cavalry was the best there was. I agree, but always remember the 4th Cavalry was Mackenzie. They did not come any better.
I don't think just finding the village was the issue, and then waiting. The finding and subsequent attack of the hostile concentration had to be done in one fluid motion, find and immediately attack. Custer could do both, had he done it right. There was no need for instance to spread that regiment out to find. That could have been done with relatively few, and husband the rest of the force to execute the attack itself. There was a breadcrumb trail to generally where the hostiles were concentrated. All that was needed were the specifics, how the circles were arrayed, avenues of approach, possible avenues of escape, delineation of attack positions. where the pony heard was located, things like these that were specific intelligence objectives. In other words if he was engaged in finding fords on the afternoon of 25 June, he had already had his assignation with Fido. When you attack, attack, don't fiddle fart around, press it, and press them.
If you are conducting an armed reconnaissance, your objective is first to find, then mix it up, while assisting that follow-on force to pass through you and continue the attack to the point of decision. Once that pass through occurs the A/R force gets the hell out of the way and concerns itself with the next item on their mission menu.
Just as it is inappropriate to call upon the queen wearing Bermuda shorts, it is equally inappropriate to knock on the kings front door, without the Queen behind you to give the king what he richly deserves.
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Post by Yan Taylor on Jan 2, 2014 10:28:04 GMT -6
Gatewood, that would be more true in the British Army of the time, I don’t know if the same goes for the US Army of this period but the British still had a notion that an Officer should be a gentleman and he should originate from the right family back ground, and someone like Custer would be frowned upon. There is a tendency in the British psyche too resent someone who has made his way in life, if a guy starts from the bottom and ends up being successful he gets called out of petty jealousy, but this trait is not as prevalent in the US.
Ian.
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Post by quincannon on Jan 2, 2014 10:50:23 GMT -6
Ian: There is not so much of the wealth and position in society aspect, but there are undertones of where you went to school, source of commission and things like that. I think that sort of thing is around in every walk of life though and not just an Army thing.
There is a police chief in DC, an unwed mother at age 15 who joined the force in 1990 as a patrol officer, and by 2007 was Chief. She has had a remarkable career and from what I have seen of her she is both highly competent and hard as nails. Her educational resume is impressive, having a degree and a masters. She has studied at the Kennedy School and the Naval Post Graduate School. How I know this is that she is also an honored alumni of Prince Georges Community College, starting the climb there in the same place I received some of my spotty and generally miserable on paper education. So what's inside the person, makes a hell of a lot more difference then how pretty and pampered they are.
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Post by Gatewood on Jan 2, 2014 10:51:48 GMT -6
Ian, promotions in the U.S. army of the day were very much based upon seniority. That doesn't mean that it was always the determining factor, but it was predominant. That is still largely the case today, but at least now it is more a question of overall seniority or time in grade in the army, whereas in Custer's day it was primarily based upon the regiment or even the company. As with the British army of the time (and even later), officers did not generally transfer between units and could spend their entire careers or a substantial part in one regiment. As such, there was little opportunity for advancement until a slot above opened up due to death, resignation, or retirement, so an officer's advancement was often at the mercy of circumstances. As a result, a more junior officer might advance more rapidly than a more senior one just based upon the fate of the circumstances in their respective regiments. A good example is the 7th Cavalry itself, where, after the officer ranks were decimated at LBH, there was a rash of internal promotions to captain and 1st lieutenant to fill the vacant slots, rather than bringing in more senior/deserving officers from outside. I recall one fellow that had just graduated from West Point and been assigned to the 7th as a 2nd Lt. but had not yet reported at the time of the battle. Then, as a result of the officer casualties, he was promoted to 1st Lt. before ever reporting and within a couple of months of his graduation. On the other hand, his classmates that were assigned to other regiments probably lingered for years as 2nd Lts. before the opportunity for promotion arose.
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Post by Yan Taylor on Jan 2, 2014 13:32:27 GMT -6
Taking things further and keeping everything in the context DC alluded to, if Custer’s objective was to attack the village with five companies from the east, could he deploy this force to deliver blow in one fell swoop? Would the terrain allow for a five company assault? He has a river between him and his goal and surely he would have an idea that this would fragment his force and prevent him from delivering a concentrated strike. So taking all this into consideration, why did he try such a long distance thrust?
Chuck, the education issue is still prevalent over here, we call it the old school tie network.
Gatewood, I have only scratched the surface of the US Officer Corps, so would I be correct in saying that there is a lot more Officer Transfers in the US Army then in the British?
Its good when we all sing from the same hymn sheet, I sometimes get left behind when you boys talk about different Commanders and campaigns, when you guys look at a map of a battle you talk about the thing as a whole, but if I look at a WW2 battle map and see the various arrows pointing at places in the line, I want to who was leading that unit, what is the main strike force, how many AFVs are involved plus the troops, similar to what Chuck says when he mentions “down in the weeds’’.
Ian.
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Post by quincannon on Jan 2, 2014 13:45:08 GMT -6
Ian: I would first have to be convinced that he tried a long distance strike as you put it. I can't see where Custer himself, tried anything like an offensive move. There was no place to do it. There was no opening, no terrain to fully deploy an attack force. There was of course, but it was not where he was. There is to the north of Ford D. There is beaucoup good terrain for deployment south of the village. East of the river was one big dry hole for the intent of offensive action. That is probably why he was screwing around so long to the point where he was caught up in his own folly.
No one speaks to this terrain over there more eloquently than DC. It was a crap hole. Nothing offering anything for offense in the direction Custer needed to go, and I really don't have to comment on any good defensive possibilities do I.
It is really to bad that some of these later day buckskin cavaliers don't get down in the weeds, for if they did, the folly of what they say would soon become apparent even to them.
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