Custer Suicide?

[montaguemike]

It’s a debate which may never be found out for sure, but one that has always intrigued me. We know many facts that include; the fighting on Last Stand Hill was fierce and none of Custer’s men survived.
Custer ordered the horses killed to be used as defensive barriers, ammunition was running low, their single shot rifles were largely ineffective at close range against such massive and rapidly approaching enemy numbers with the battlefield quickly transforming to a “don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes” situation - at least for whatever ammunition remained. Which, for close range battle would have been small arms ammunition.
Custer and his men likely were very aware of the brutal hand to hand death the Cheyenne, Lakota, Crow and other warriors were known to inflict, quite possibly very painful death. It was a very desperate situation that probably lasted a matter of minutes at the very end, start to finish once Custer’s men were completely overwhelmed. Maybe even mere seconds for most of them. In any event, a very desperate situation. Many of Custer’s men may have even been out, or nearly out, of ammunition.
We know Custer’s death shot was to his left temple. Custer was right handed and many say because of this fact it would be unlikely that he would have shot himself in his left temple. Here’s my thoughts on this. We know Custer carried two revolvers. Was he capable of firing both of his revolvers simultaneously? If so, wouldn’t he likely start shouting with his right-hand and alternate shots going right, left, right, etc. until he was down to his last bullet? If so, his last bullet would be in his left pistol and in such a desperate situation he would have saved his last bullet for himself, which likely would have been to his left temple. Plus, wasn’t the caliber bullet determined to be .41 caliber, the same caliber of his personal pistol?
In any event, Custer knew none of his men, including himself, would be leaving that hill alive. He most likely would have tried to kill as many of his enemy as he could have in a very desperate attempt, but in the end he may have wanted to take away any warrior glory he could by ending his life himself, thereby avoiding “counting coup” and any inevitable horrendous pain?
These are just my thoughts on the subject, and probably not new thoughts since this debate had been going on for over 150 years and by a slew of scholars, on both sides.
Anyway, for me, I think it is more likely than not, that he took his own life at the very end.

[logan]

After hearing of such claims a few years back, I acquired the book - ‘Keep The Last Bullet For Yourself’ by Thomas B. Marquis, though still to be read. Around the same time in a way connected to this book I bought another called ‘They Died With Custer’ which was a study of the LBH troopers’ skulls and bones for any details of health condition before death, but also injuries minor and fatal during the battle itself including any evidence this did occur to any of them. In this case the ‘jury is still out’ in my thinking of such an event happening, though not specifically Custer himself, I can believe one or two there may have done this, unwilling to face the consequences of being alive and captured.

Marquis’ book cover if I recall had the statement - ‘The True Story Of Custer’s Last Stand’.

When I see such a claim on any book, I’m wary of the contents from the get-go, as it requires the readership to accept this on buying.

In my opinion, I immediately think is it going to be true or just a book selling trick, usually being the latter.

At the famous defence of Rorke’s Drift 1879, there appeared to be an account where a wounded soldier was asked by his friend that when things looked bleak, as in the likely immediate defeat, did the former want him to finish him, rather than being completely helpless when the Zulus reached where he lay. He didn’t.

So, even if instances of suicide are doubtful, it is also possible that the above happened instead, a fellow trooper killing his badly wounded friend by a bullet to the head.

[Jenny]

I think he was shot by a fellow trooper who fell immediately to his left-ish. GAC may have had enough juice to ask for this, or perhaps whoever shot him in the temple wanted to make sure the chest wound wouldn't let him linger long enough to be scalped alive or some such. Based on descriptions of GAC's appearance it seems his head wound was perhaps post- or "during" mortem as there was reportedly little blood around it. I doubt anyone could have made such a precise shot during all the mayhem on LSH, which is why I don't think it was a battle wound. It had to be someone standing/lying/sitting very close to GAC, who certainly was already in a prone position.

J

[logan]

Knowing the kind of man Custer was, I really don’t think he’d have shot himself or asked someone else to, as I’m sure he would never want it to be known, that at the end he couldn’t face the enemy in the final moments.

I don’t think ihe would have wanted to be remembered that way, as he spent too much time building the Custer legend, taking his own life, would be seen as a cop out, somewhat cowardly.

Unless someone else didn’t want him to be captured as a sort of trophy, proving Custer was just a man after all and they not only defeated him, but held him prisoner while the rest of his men were dead.

That would’ve been a fate worse than death for Custer

[herosrest]

^Ducemus

There were a number of detractions implicit to capture as for example, Maj. Reno alluded to. That being burnt at the stake.

If the Indians were really T'd off then dismemberment in front of the soldiers ranks took place whilst the victim survived. If there was counter firing then simple decapitation sufficed. Wounded would be used for target practice and left to whiles of women and children urinating and defacating, crushing skulls, removing body parts and I imagine, quite brutal physical punishments.

This was witnessed by countless survivors of Reno's battalion and men with Benteen and McDougall. It happened to Vincent Charlie during the retreat from Weir Peak, with a guidon staff rammed down his throat.

[logan]

In the Zulu War 1879, much focus was put on the treatment of the dead and wounded British by the Zulus, who split open the bodies to release the spirit of the dead, but curiously the treatment by the British of similar dead and wounded Zulus was left out.

I remember the defence of soldiers doing such, at the same time a photo was shown elsewhere of an officer standing at the opening of his tent, on the table inside was the skull of a likely Zulu warrior, used as an ornament/curiosity, not exactly civilised behaviour.

I wonder what the Indians would have thought of the seemingly civilised people’s use of burning at the stake of innocents termed witches, or other victims in history hung, drawn and quartered, or the guillotine, or the torture chambers of old in dungeons, using many of the cruelest and brutal means, including mechanical like the rack, to gain confessions, or I think during the Indian mutiny 1857, prisoners were tied to the front of cannons and blown apart

If that’s what the civilised world can do to their own, then by definition we can’t judge a native peoples treatment of a hostile enemy intent on their eradication or to be contained and controlled in reservations with the world they knew no longer existing.

[herosrest]

^Ducemus

This is a completely different discussion within the context of why, a trooper at LBH, might self terminate. The gamut of human behaviours in extremis are remarkable and prolific and quite horrendous when right thinking is abandoned or is ignorance. I seem to remember that evidences of Roman legionaires nailed to trees are still being discovered after Varus got lost in the Teutoberg Forrest.

Sitting Bull was grilled by 7th Cavalry (Edgerley) after the surrender in return to Standing Rock, and in amongst all the bits which tumbled out I believe that a reporter who was involved, got at the truth of it. Surely, what matters at all and simply, was and is, that he died. I was actually reading a Winner's of the West article yesterday from a couple of years after the wife's death which ran the theme, by third hand, that Custer survived and was alive in 1935 ashamed to go home. The atricle originated from Billings (I think) a few weeks before the annual re-union and anniversary of the battle (Go figure that out!)

[herosrest]

^Ducemus

There is here a reasonable battle simulation indicating the obvious with a notable flair for the theatricals (don't you just love a good show! ?) Spartan Supremacy. Do not press K - Operation Many Shields (Simulation) of a Spartan victory.

I prefer the prose - Picnic at 48.69° North, 6.657° East or 'When Armoured Offensives Collide'.

Acacia Nancy

[herosrest]

May 9, 2023 9:34:28 GMT -6 herosrest said:

^Ducemus

There is here a reasonable battle simulation indicating the obvious with a notable flair for the theatricals (don't you just love a good show! ?) Spartan Supremacy. Do not press K - Operation Many Shields (Simulation) of a Spartan victory.

I prefer the prose - Picnic at 48.69° North, 6.657° East or 'When Armoured Offensives Collide'.

Acacia Nancy

Shaking spears - An update into modern fire-fighing, as exampled in the Spartan simulation. SIG Spear - It's the ammo, dummy!

[logan]

Herosrest

I’m kinda at a loss with some links you add to your posts, am I missing something, not understanding humour or something ?

One was a clip from Terminator 2 I think, the scene ‘talk to the hand’

What is their meaning, as they aren’t connected to the topics

[dgfred]

May 8, 2023 10:25:55 GMT -6 Jenny said:

I think he was shot by a fellow trooper who fell immediately to his left-ish. GAC may have had enough juice to ask for this, or perhaps whoever shot him in the temple wanted to make sure the chest wound wouldn't let him linger long enough to be scalped alive or some such. Based on descriptions of GAC's appearance it seems his head wound was perhaps post- or "during" mortem as there was reportedly little blood around it. I doubt anyone could have made such a precise shot during all the mayhem on LSH, which is why I don't think it was a battle wound. It had to be someone standing/lying/sitting very close to GAC, who certainly was already in a prone position.

J

Hey Jenny. With bullets flying around everywhere it did not have to be a precise shot... might have just been a stray one. But your theory is reasonable too.

[herosrest]

^Ducemus

logan, sorry for that.