What happened?

[Yan Taylor]

Hi Geir.

To me I cant see why Custer saw any reason to defend Battle ridge, he had already passed a couple of key ridges and fired off quite a few rounds too, ford B was found not to be his place to cross, even though he may have skirted it with E and F.

Wolftooth and Big Foot followed the column as it left N/C Ridge and harassed it in the process, so Custer knew that he was spotted and had openned fire quite a bit on elements around MTC.

The whole thing now was about movement, they wanted to get to the high ground (cemetery ridge and BRE) so to make a move to cross from the north.
The Cheyennes said that they saw the divisions (companies) coming into view past LSH and they waited for them around the benches.

So the Indians who followed them and the warriors who waited for them, never mentioned soldiers being left behind at all, only the Sioux speak of this and they arrived late after the valley fight.

Ian

[noggy]

Oct 15, 2022 13:56:12 GMT -5 Yan Taylor said:

So the Indians who followed them and the warriors who waited for them, never mentioned soldiers being left behind at all, only the Sioux speak of this and they arrived late after the valley fight.

Ian

Neither the Sioux or the Cheyenne operated as independent "amies". There were Sioux in the Northern part of BR, and there were Cheyenne fighting in the Valley. Wooden Leg was there, and when he turned around to return to the Cheyenne camps) he could already fighting going on around what I can only assume was the Calhoun Hill area. You have Runs the Enemy who took part in the Valley fight, and then participated in the first charge against Calhoun Hill which was repulsed with casualties and made the Indians regroup. He continued with his Two Kettle warriors along the East side of BR, reached the area around LSH/CR and drove off some the soldiers' horses, headed to the camp (if I recall correctly to drop off some of the said hgorses) tobefore going back to Calhoun Hill in time to see it bein overrun. This trip would, I assume, take 45-60 minutes? You also have White Bull who like RTE was in the valley, and at the failed first attack on Calhoun Hill. He too headed onwards and after that mounted a bravery run against troops on the Eastern side of BR (at least, that is where Michno placed it, and if correct it would be I Company). He described soldiers standing in 2 lines/rows, and he rode between them unharmed and returned. This was before the reral onslaught began here. These testmionies don't resemble fighting troopers on the run or even on the move. But that is my point: The soldiers did not have to be either 100% stationary or fleeing/moving with no option of anything inbetween happening at any point. There are so many things here which are hard/impossible for us to ever know or understand. The most important thing is that we treat testimonies with the same leve lof respect and scrutiny, and not for example cherrypick (the right word?) and so on.

I for one am very comfortable with knowing that I'll probably get to know everything

Geir

[Yan Taylor]

I agree Geir, both of them fought together at various locations that day.

I wish Mac was around as he has a better grasp on this than me, I forget a lot of the stuff we did, but what I do remember is having a stack on Indian accounts and each account had the Indians name a tribe. Most the accounts which state that the soldiers came down from the high ground and were stopped at the river were Cheyenne, most of the Sioux accounts said that the soldiers never reached the river.

I still think that a pause and detachment of three companies to stay on a ridge line is unrealistic, why would they do that, once you stop in view of the enemy, your momentum is lost, why would Custer want to do that.
Once that momentum is lost you will struggle to get it back again and any pause in a fluid battle gives the advantage to your enemy, Custer would have known this.

Ian

[noggy]

Just to be clear, I am not advocating any "side" or theory, just to keep an open mind including regarding stuff.


Geir

[Yan Taylor]

You have always made yourself perfectly clear on that Geir.

I added more stuff just to try and put my thoughts to the board as a whole.
I just can't buy the idea that GAC would do a thing like that, stopping and leaving men out of the fight, if he thought that the village was beyond him he would have kept the battalion together and moved back or even defended one of the ridges around MTC.
I would buy it if he sent Keogh with I, C & L to across ford B and GAC with F and E attacked over ford D, but apparently this was not the case.

Ian

[herosrest]

I bring news to the lost and misguided which of course no-one here would ever entertain pinned to their six.

Thelbha board put up fences. Register and login and all is as it was. Amongst comment passed (I used the 'a' version) over the wished for grave is what seems to me to be hatreds and my own experience over many years is this problem is widespread across all consideration of this battle where it is discussed. This was so way back on History.com before they did away with the discussion board. The self- righteous can be quite evil and there is today an exemplar example cowered down in his bunker under Moscow in simmering hatreds of freedom.

There is a litmus test of the Little Bighorn's Custer fight. It's quite straightforward and basic to any attempt to understand. The Custer battalion was attacked by the Indians who left Reno and Benteen. A large contingent of them rode from Reno at Weir's Peak and along the right bank of the river across Medicine Tail Coulee to attack Custer's command. This was completely looked into by N.A. Miles in 1878 and is a matter of record since then.

It is a matter of record authors and historiams have ignored ever since and continue to, today. This movement of hostile forces across MTC into Deep Coulee and along Battle Ridge explains what happened.

This simple fact of the thing a large force of Indians attacking the five companies and HQ along the bluffs and across MTC explains how the command was chopped up and destroyed in detail. As I said, this aspect of the fight is the litmus test of all and any further work to come. Certainly, as Kuhlman postulated but entirely misrepresented, when Weir arrived to see what could be seen then the few remaining men bolted to escape and evade. The field was by then strewn with dead and wounded being despatched by the host descended upon the field to scavenge for trophies and revenge.

It is remarkable that N.A. Miles is entirely ignored by brothers in arms but such is the cslibre of this battle's ires. Quite remarkable.

[herosrest]

^Ducemus

Here we are and lovely.

A very few, if any historians come authors of work on military story of the defeat suffered on the waters of the greasy grass have considered, let alone contemplated a horde of fanatical light cavalry cutting Keogh and Yates off from Benteen and French on the right bank of the river, despite this perfectly logical reality of the thing being balatantly obvious.

It didn't take long to dig up a likely candidate participant and (taps wand magically) 'Voils!'. Laxy White Bull..... the seven coups count type of lazy. He was a part of that attack by a battlegroup of Sioux and Cheyennes who closed and walloped the horse holders during the battle ridge fight.

From notes by Richard G. Hardorff on Lazy White Bull's Interview in 1930 by Walter S. Campbell. The interview resulted in nineteen letter-size pages of text, recorded in longhand by Campbell's stenographer, Dallas McCoid, Jr. The interpreter was Sam Eagle Chase, an educated Lakota.


From the transcript, please note

White Bull's count of only four companies seems to suggest that two of Custer's five troops may have moved together as one unit. White Bull's 1932 interview reveals: "Where we were standing on side of hill, we saw another troop moving from east to north where camp was moving, and we charged; it was Custer. We went down east side of the river and we rode straight to Custer. Was three miles from where we left Reno to Custer. Chased Custer indefinite distance. Could not see Custer as he was in company. But was about mile from Custer to hill. Still riding in a walking and trotting, still close together. Custer did not stop before they reached. They kept shooting as Custer kept moving."

Yee ha............ guess what........... there's a mpa. Had to be didn't there. When you can understand that map my son you will be a man.

Regards all. Check out N.A. Miles for his 1878 military intel on stage of the fighting.

CQC ^ minutes. Do watch, please. First 3 minutes - what happened. Last 3, how they got there!

[Yan Taylor]

You may have confused a few people there HR, they will be wondering why they have no helmets and shoulder pads plus no one passed the hall forward.

The new Zealand and Fiji game was also a tough encounter.

That's rugby league, a great game.

Ian

[herosrest]

^Ducemus

As the heavenly twins explained to me over shots in 'The Shanakee' after telling me "focus", it is a game played by men with oddly shaped balls". That got a laugh or two.

[Yan Taylor]

Not only men, its the women's rugby league world cup too, both events are being staged together along the wheel chair teams.

Rugby union has tried their best to keep league in the shadows, they even stopped us from playing league in schools, imagine a school in a rugby league town like mine being forced to play union , a game we didn't like.

I will sat that rugby league is the best kept secret in sport.

Ian

[herosrest]

^Ducemus

Both the women's RL and RU are playing World cups. The Roses are in a final for the union trophy in NZ against NZ. It's this Saturday.

Ealing are amongst the best union sides in England and we're sharing Valli's with London Broncos. I went to a couple of games and enjoyed it. Very little support down south but the traveling fans were in numbers and good heart.

I preferred to sit in and TV Tonga on Samoa while a mate did Twickers. It's the best place on Earth when England do well but the Pumas spoiled that party. It didn't surprise me. We are blessed at the moment with an avalanche of brilliant rugby. I'm looking forward to the Bills on Vikings this Sunday at Buffalo.

Regards.

[Yan Taylor]

Cant be doing with AF, one attacking team and one defencive team, they don't even break into a sweat with all the stoppages, your average RL player plays 80 minutes both attacking and defencive, some of them make fifty tackles a match and cover hundreds of yards attacking.

I didn't watch the Argentinian match, good job too as I hate being beat by them.

Ian