What should the 1876 Centennial Campaign have looked like?

[quincannon]

Yes.

Part of that planning for a summer campaign should have been the allocation of more forces to permit three combined arms brigades to be formed. The numbers that were committed, 2000 +/- were sufficient, but what they lacked was a sufficiency of balance, enabling each of them to operate independently in sufficient force, having near equal amounts of infantry and cavalry. Terry for instance, once Custer was detached, was unbalanced. He had enough for limited operations or semi static blocking, but not enough for the broad spectrum of operations required.

So it is not the numbers it is the balance of arms that must be achieved.

Coordination was no one's strong suit. These guys as it stood would have a hard time coordinating a little girl's tea party. That too speaks to lack of training.

Balance, setting clear operational objectives, training, coordination, unity of command, economy of force. All this stuff is first grade knowledge that was either not pounded into their skulls, or ignored, because of hubris.

[Dark Cloud]

WO,

The original '76 campaign had over 2k which is still a ridiculously low number for the land under consideration which, in any case, was not graced with accurate maps. They had no communication between each other. The nature of Indian warfare was that after a skirmish/battle you had wounded that had to be protected. This essentially meant there could one battle, and then the soldiers would have to retreat absent sufficient escort ability for the wounded to be saved absent next day battle options they could win.

The campaign is misdescribed, anyway. Gibbon and Terry were always to form one force, and Crook the other. It was not reasonably supposed that the Indians would be caught between them in one event, although if it happened, great. More likely a fight with one and with luck, they'd bounce into the other a few days later.

As I say, I don't doubt different commanders could have done 'it' better, but in the wide scope of the campaign, there was just so much that could happen bad and good I don't see a huge difference in overall end result, and - really - not that much in immediate result. The 7th could not really function if the Indians did not run. They had no plan B. They were untrained in anything else and in aggregate were not good horsemen or shots. What "command structure" for the battle could overcome that? I can grasp that one commander who doesn't intelligently utilize the men's training would fail where another who did would do better, but without that training - the issue here - what really can change regardless of commander or structure? Sometimes the charismatic commander would lead a charge to victory, sometimes to disaster.

So when you wonder what the campaign should have 'looked like', I think you're implying a different 7th to work with.

[quincannon]

WO: To answer you question of where to position a division headquarters, I would think somewhere around the present town of Kirby, Montana, would be OK. It is certainly closer than Chicago. That places me to the east, and within forty miles or so of each of the three forces scouring the Rosebud and LBH valleys. Not great, but I think it would get the job done in a pinch.

[Yan Taylor]

Yes I agree the balance was all wrong, only Terry had a full Regiment of 12 Companies, the 2nd Cavalry had 10 Companies split between Crook and Gibbon, the 3rd Cavalry had 10 Companies with Crook, don’t ask me were the other four Companies disappeared to as they were probably either detach to another role or something.

Terry had five Companies of Infantry + three Gatling guns, Gibbon had six also with three Gatling guns, Crook had the around the same number of Infantry with five Companies.

I suppose in this age the Infantry and Cavalry never trained together, so to ask them to support and fight as a whole would be too much to ask.

See the thing I don’t get is this, the top brass want to end this Indian problem so they assemble there three columns to finish the job once and for all, but then they bungle the whole job, I am sure that they didn’t even have enough cavalry horses for a start, some of the mules were untrained as well and then they detach troops from the fighting units to guard the various staging and supply bases that lay on route.

As far as I can recall the US Army had 10 regiments of cavalry (or was it 12) and it couldn’t give each one of these columns a full regiment each, seems to me they couldn’t organise a piss up (wild drunken party) in a brewery.

In answer to the US advances in Europe one can ask the question that their military forebears in the Indian wars could even locate the their foe and bring him to battle, similar to the British in east Africa during WW1, they spent months trying to locate Lettow-Vorbeck and his men, as time and time again he slipped the noose.

Ian.

[quincannon]

DC: "Should Have Looked Like" is the subject of the thread.

The underpinning of that "should" is what the units, all the units, involved should have looked like along with what should the standard of officer and enlisted training should be. If you don't answer those questions you are wasting your time in assuming that those involved looked like history tells us they did.

That is the crux of the issue, stalemate, stalemate, failure, until commanders were brought in to eventually achieve success.

Well trained, disciplined, supplied, equipped units, well led do things right THE FIRST TIME.

You also have no experience with hardship and depravation, expecting all to be endowed with the "it's too hard so we can't do it" bullcrap so prevalent in today's society. In the Foreign Legion there was once an officer who remarked "You joined the Legion to die, I am sending you to die" A little extreme perhaps, but I think it gets the idea across that, when you put on the blue, you are not signing up for a cake walk at a church social. You might get killed, worse yet you might get wounded and your comrades forced to leave you. You might starve, get some obscure disease, you may be captured, tortured, and deprived. You might be called upon to traverse or fight over ground not of your choosing.

Throughout the sum total of your posts the constant "it's to hard" is frequently seen. If that is the way you feel, thank whomever you pray to that you were not, and that there are those who either don't mind hard, or who are trained to deal with it. You owe your very life to those who say "Too Hard Bullshit-I'll Try"

If you cannot understand the concept "No Mission Too Difficult, No Sacrifice To Great, Duty First" you will never fully understand anything discussed here. You waste your time.

[quincannon]

Ian: Ten Cavalry, Twenty-Five Infantry, Five Artillery (from which separate batteries or even sections of field artillery could be fielded upon requirement).

[welshofficer]

Nov 19, 2014 12:58:50 GMT -6 quincannon said:

WO: To answer you question of where to position a division headquarters, I would think somewhere around the present town of Kirby, Montana, would be OK. It is certainly closer than Chicago. That places me to the east, and within forty miles or so of each of the three forces scouring the Rosebud and LBH valleys. Not great, but I think it would get the job done in a pinch.

QC,

Given the communication issues, I am minded towards Gen Sheridan directly commanding the northern force.  GAC under his immediate command.

Gen Terry can command some sort of smaller detached eastern blocking force, with troops re-deployed from other sub-divisions and/or divisions.

The army roughly knows in which of several river valleys "one of the largest towns west of the Mississippi" will be located...

WO

[welshofficer]

DC,

The point is that, once approaching the hostiles and in ignorance of Crook's rebuff at the Rosebud, Terry split his force in two on 21 June 1876?

GAC to assault northwards down the LBH valley, whilst Gibbon/Brisbin would move southwards up the LBH valley...?

Was not Terry recreating his and Crook's intended uncoordinated assault with a more coordinated assault within his own sub-division on a lesser scale?

WO

[welshofficer]

Nov 19, 2014 13:17:06 GMT -6 Yan Taylor said:

In answer to the US advances in Europe one can ask the question that their military forebears in the Indian wars could even locate the their foe and bring him to battle, similar to the British in east Africa during WW1, they spent months trying to locate Lettow-Vorbeck and his men, as time and time again he slipped the noose.

Ian.

Ian,

I think that is a little harsh.

I don't think any of the commanders, Crook (17 June) GAC (25 June) Terry (27 June, albeit moved on), had any difficulty in locating hostiles.

Even if they underestimated the size of the hostile village, they still knew there were not many river valleys that could sustain the size of village they were hunting.

WO 

[quincannon]

WO: I do not agree, about Sheridan commanding the northern column. I know communications are an issue, but with some pre-campaign planning and coordination they could be mitigated if not overcome.

Your task force commander in the Falklands, could not command a brigade, and tend to his other duties. Terry Allen could not command the Big Red One and the 16th Infantry in Tunisia. No man can serve two masters. One always gets the short stick. I would rather the senior command the whole and give his full attention to that task.

Also I want each force equally capable, and equally sustainable should they have to fight separately as what was anticipated would inevitably involve separate fights, You can't preplan what contingency may arise, you can only prepare yourself for any contingency., therefore a balanced force is a must. I want none of the strike force nonsense. A waste, a needless scattering of resources. You move and position to the place where all your resources can be brought to the fight. To do otherwise is to play the enemies game.

I regard Terry detaching Custer as the worst operational mistake of the campaign. Keep in mind when he detached him he had no idea that Crook was given a bloody nose. The Terry column, including Custer should have approached just the way Terry did, from the north. The west was Crow country. The east was the direction they wanted the Indians to flee, if there was to be any fleeing. North and south with the forces available. Another balanced brigade to the east, the third, but un-resourced requirement would have then be in the category of very nice.

[Yan Taylor]

Yes Justin "harsh but true" going back to the columns, these top brass had a job to do, we are talking about mens lives here, and the whole mission looks like it was planned over dinner whilst enjoying good brandy and choice cigars rather than a military expedition to sort out the Indian problem.

Ian.

[quincannon]

Ian: I don't know about the brandy and cigars, but I do know that the operation was poorly planned and coordinated. What absolutely baffles me is that all he time in the world was available to do so. They had six months, more probably a year to sort this thing out, train, equip, allocate resources, and it still amounted to nothing more than the player entering the game with his shoelaces untied.

[welshofficer]

Nov 19, 2014 13:48:35 GMT -6 quincannon said:

WO: I do not agree, about Sheridan commanding the northern column. I know communications are an issue, but with some pre-campaign planning and coordination they could be mitigated if not overcome.

Your task force commander in the Falklands, could not command a brigade, and tend to his other duties. Terry Allen could not command the Big Red One and the 16th Infantry in Tunisia. No man can serve two masters. One always gets the short stick. I would rather the senior command the whole and give his full attention to that task.

Also I want each force equally capable, and equally sustainable should they have to fight separately as what was anticipated would inevitably involve separate fights, You can't preplan what contingency may arise, you can only prepare yourself for any contingency., therefore a balanced force is a must. I want none of the strike force nonsense. A waste, a needless scattering of resources. You move and position to the place where all your resources can be brought to the fight. To do otherwise is to play the enemies game.

I regard Terry detaching Custer as the worst operational mistake of the campaign. Keep in mind when he detached him he had no idea that Crook was given a bloody nose. The Terry column, including Custer should have approached just the way Terry did, from the north. The west was Crow country. The east was the direction they wanted the Indians to flee, if there was to be any fleeing. North and south with the forces available. Another balanced brigade to the east, the third, but un-resourced requirement would have then be in the category of very nice.

QC,

It's a difficult one, and evenly balanced IMHO.

There are a number of mischiefs that need remedying, some with a smattering of hindsight:

(1) Under the communications of the time, what effective C+C can be exercised from even Kirby?

(2) Therefore I would rather Sheridan accompanied a column, and the obvious choice would be the northern column (whether led by Miles or Gibbon).

(3) I think the presence of Sheridan would have kept GAC on a tighter leash.  Terry was not the CO to exercise proper control over GAC.

As regards the southern column under Crook, something went seriously wrong in that it was not numerically, logistically and mentally prepared for a pitched battle against the hostiles at the Rosebud on 17 June and fell back.  There is something ironic that the CinC and Commanding General of the US Army at the time were the generals who wrote the global manual on advancing to victory in the face of battlefield reverses against frequently better tactical battlefield opponents...  

WO  

[quincannon]

If these issues were not hard WO, we would not have to spend so much time on them.

1) Courier, for both information and the issuing of orders. Each would be about the same distance as from Manassas to Fredericksburg. But there are more than one way to skin a cat. In the absence of instantaneous, and in the presence of the intermittent and unreliable, you can compensate by issuing pre-campaign orders that are more tightly controlled, much more specific in nature, that contain more in the way of do's and don'ts and less in the area of fiddle farting around on your own hook.

2) I have no problem with Terry up north, and Miles or someone else to the east. From the transit from point of origin it makes more sense.

3) The Custer issue is not solved by Sheridan's presence, if Sheridan exercises the option to turn him lose. The Custer problem is solved by a Sheridan sitting down one on one with Custer and saying something along the lines of - George this is your last chance, fail in what I am about to tell you and it's down the toilet you go. When Terry says jump, you say how high. I don't care what you think in the matter. You will do what he says. You will do it when he says do it. If you fail to obey me, you are gone, regardless of win lose or draw. If you disobey him, I will put you before a court of my choosing, you will be found guilty, and seven of yoru nearest and dearest will shoot you, when the gavel is dropped for the last time. Do you understand? To Terry I would say - Let him off the leash and you will be standing beside George. Do you understand?

Intermission to give my sick cat an IV.

You are correct WO, Crook was mentally prepared for the long hunt, not the pitched battle. This was not Arizona, They were Sioux and Cheyenne, not Apache, and he was not in Oak Creek Canyon or the Verde Valley.

[welshofficer]

QC,

Indeed, hard issues.

I am not convinced by couriers in Sioux hunting ground country, and the safest way to best utilise GAC is to keep him close to Sheridan. The history and dynamics between them are very different to between GAC and Terry.

WO