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Post by custermania on Mar 23, 2021 20:03:24 GMT -6
If Custer charges and let say gets through between the Woman and the warriors. Do the warriors still fire on them? I don’t even think he needed to capture them just in sight. I truly believe Custer knew this and that was his only way to win this battle. What do you guys think
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logan
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Post by logan on Mar 23, 2021 20:18:30 GMT -6
Good question. I truly believe that Custer’s plan was valid, unfortunately, the officers he needed on the day failed him. That said, he kinda failed himself, if he was going to repeat the tactics of Washita he should have said, but remember, Maj Elliott and his men were killed, so mentioning this tactic would’ve created quite a bit of doubt and animosity.
Don’t get me wrong, I do not like Custer one bit as a person, but on the day, his plan was sound, he just didn’t want to share it in case old grievances raised their head.
He thought it’d be over and done to say afterward - ‘I told you I was right, I know the Indians’ - but he never expected himself be taken out of the action at the beginning.
It must’ve come as a shock to himself more than those who were with him, he was indeed mortal, and life was more than his plans and bravery.
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Post by wild on Mar 24, 2021 5:26:17 GMT -6
In a cavalry charge there is no picking and choosing . Men women children aged infirm are all fair game. Custer was not looking to seperate the illegal combatants from the non combatants he was looking for a battle and he got one. Custer sent two columns against the village neither having orders to discrimate between the warriors and the non combatants. A second Washita would not look good in the history books. A second Washita would demonstrate that a policy of extermination was being followed. Thus the spurious concern for women and children. Ya think Custer was looking for a peaceful bloodless resolution to this issue? He was out for slaughter and blood. The more the better for his career in Washington.
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logan
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Post by logan on Mar 24, 2021 6:13:09 GMT -6
If Custer was thinking about life after the military, it may have affected his usual bravado, you can’t go into politics if you’re dead, and maybe he considered that the public opinion of him after the campaign might change, instead of a clean cut image, all they might imagine is seeing him not much more than a glory hunter with his uniform covered in the blood of those he killed.
After all, they would want to appear ‘civilised’ and try to forget the bloody campaign, and those including Custer who fought in it.
Wasn’t there an instant he seemed very uncertain at an officer meeting before the battle, he was conflicted, was he thinking beyond the battlefield, or even then considering changing his tactics ?
This was a man who rode head first into action, but on this occasion, he gave the impression of being full of doubt, not sure whether to do what he usually did, or would he think it’d be better to try and find a more bloodless end to the campaign, capturing the non-combatants and literally neutralising the fighting spirit of the warriors, without too much loss to himself.
This might be the new Custer he was creating for a career in politics, handing the now subdued Indians over to the government intact, I guess it could be seen as a way to shame the Indians in defeat, that they had to give up the fight to save their families.
There is a cruelness to this too, without all the death and destruction
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Post by wild on Mar 24, 2021 11:03:50 GMT -6
You can make such a case Logan but I see very little evidence for it. "Pitch into whatever you find" "sweep everything before you" not the words of a conflicted commander. What was his reply to Terry who called after him not to be greedy and leave some for the rest of them ? A definitive "NO I WONT". The noncoms theory is very weak at best. Unless the officers of the detached battalions had been informed that an attempt would be made to take hostages then it would have had zero chance of success. And his "Hurrah boys we've caught them napping" does not lead one to suspect that he was thinking of some tactic less than a full blooded attack. Best Richard
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Post by custermania on Mar 25, 2021 11:25:58 GMT -6
In Calvary charge there is no picking especially making the entrance. But they did capture 55 woman and Kids at W. They would of shot some im sure of it. But plenty to grab as hostages.
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Post by wild on Mar 25, 2021 13:00:43 GMT -6
The camp was over run. Benteen begged Custer to call a halt to the slaughter. The hostages were those who survived. There was no plan to actually secure hostages.
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Post by custermania on Mar 25, 2021 14:17:53 GMT -6
Weak at best yes he wanted to kill warriors but there is ton of evidence. Benteen was used to protect his side. The separation of units say more he was trying to sneak in than a battle. That camp was way to big. There is plenty of evidence and past behbior
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logan
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Post by logan on Mar 25, 2021 14:59:14 GMT -6
At Washita I think Custer learned this, not maybe considering this as a strategy beforehand, only realising he had to make some kind of decision, when he was aware of the other warriors, as he seemed to have made sure they saw the women and children, whether he thought it as some kind of human shield between his force and the Hostiles to stop their approach, or whether he was demonstrating he would kill them himself if the warriors came any closer who knows.
Thing is, I think he would have remembered this as a useful tactic, almost chess like in nature, ‘checking’ the warriors giving them little option but to either stay put or move away.
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Post by wild on Mar 25, 2021 18:02:32 GMT -6
You can suggest that Custer was considering taking hostages as his main objective but there is absolutely no evidence that he had set in motion any such plan. Neither the deployment of his units, his orders to his battalion commanders , his own movements and the final position of his defeated companies would support such a contention. Further the actual size of the village , numbers of warriors involved and terrain reduced the odds of success to zero. The high tide of Custers offensive came at Weir Point where he saw Reno at least holding his own , Benteen had been ordered forward at speed and he still had the element of surprise. Surely a passive tactic of taking hostages at this stage was far from his mind. Cheers Richard
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logan
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Post by logan on Mar 25, 2021 18:34:11 GMT -6
As this is the battle theories section, I’m kinda winging it here, but I see Reno as a decoy, aggressive noisy attack, Benteen’s column a hidden-behind-the-ridges interception manoeuvre, but in looking at Custer’s own movements, there isn’t I feel what you can call a passive attempt to capture the women and children, as I think this is the most aggressive part of all, to deliberately go after the non-combatants themselves, which was unlikely to mean the capturing of all of them, many most likely would killed in the pursuit, through being hit either by wild shots, or run down by the troopers’ mounts themselves. That is a truly brutal tactic, considering these Indians would likely be poorly armed or completely unarmed.
Would Custer be capable of this, yes, I think he was, he led this part of this strategy as he knew what was necessary to accomplish it, I don’t think he would have trusted or even expect Reno or Benteen to have accomplished this role, due to its ‘bad taste’, as I think if Custer really wanted to destroy and kill all he could in the camp, plus being the first to enter it, he would have charged from the main position he had delegated to Reno, as he would have drawn all the warriors to him, plus likely have continued right into the camp first, so why would he give the honours of such to Reno ?
Why would Custer almost subordinate himself to a secondary role, allowing Reno to get all the action, plus had Reno continued his charge would have entered the camp likely first, Custer entering from another location to in his mind catch the Indians from the rear, literally with their backs to him.
Custer and many others would view this as going against everything he had done in engagements up to that point, a job many might consider would have suited Reno instead.
Custer in my mind must have had another plan, the one as described, but it required him to do the capturing himself, as I really don’t think he considered the other two commanders capable or willing, fearing they would allow the Indians to scatter and not be contained and the warriors neutralised.
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Post by wild on Mar 31, 2021 2:58:52 GMT -6
Custer had no idea of the size of the camp, no idea of the local terrain, no idea of the numbers he faced. He detached more than half his force beyond his control and if that was not sufficent to doom any plan he might have had he placed a major obstacle between his forces and the enemy. The final position of his own companies suggest that he did not even have time to form a defence. So to suggest that he had a plan particulary as daft as rounding up the widely dispersed noncoms is the stuff of delusional fantasy.
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dgfred
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Post by dgfred on Mar 31, 2021 11:23:59 GMT -6
Old hammer and anvil strategy. The attack to the north to keep non-combatants from escaping. Didn't work out.
Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Mike Tyson
The attempted crossing at Ford(?) might have been when they/he got mouth punched.
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Post by herosrest on Apr 1, 2021 15:41:09 GMT -6
Many people had, have, and will develop, a gamut of responses towards what happened. If the village people........ hmmm....... hostile Indians, were afoot then they had problems. If their tipis were destroyed then likewise. To accomplish either meant neutralising enemy will to fight. The easiest way was rout or distract the defence and destroy the camp. In effect, take and circle the tipis... and destroy them. Ramming Reno in there was a good start . Empty the camps. Take, hold and destroy the property. Exit.
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logan
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Post by logan on Apr 2, 2021 6:34:39 GMT -6
It was an incomplete pincer movement, Benteen was too far and out of contact to complete an encirclement, plus I don’t think he truly knew what was expected of him, as in, the left wing to veer right at a given point to engage the Indians that may have fled away opposite to Reno, then seeing a Custer flee towards Benteen.
With Reno stopping and Benteen turning back, it became a cavalry pincer movement that had lost two of its essential parts, therefore leaving Custer the main focus being the only one continuing.
I don’t like Custer as a person, but it was clear to see Benteen didn’t fulfil his orders and Reno couldn’t hold his position, the role of a locomotive-type cavalry action, became a dismounted defence of two positions, both easily surrounded by fleet of foot and mounted warriors.
Cavalry horses in some instances were then designated part of the defences in Custer’s case, tragic end to noble beasts, as always when used in war.
I bought a poster recently relating to the Blue Cross Fund, created in the late 19th Century, for the treatment of injured war horses, the true casualties and sometime heroes of wars not of their own making.
How many horses were killed or injured in both the Indian Wars and the American Civil War I wonder, too many I reckon
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