Benteens orders

[fred]

Jag,

First of all, let me say this... I appreciate your efforts and your attitude here, especially toward me and especially considering everything we have been through. You can be assured I will not put "words in your mouth" or drag what I believe to be your beliefs into this. You have told me the same and I respect you enough to do the same.

Next... you all must understand how I approach this. My experience in the military goes back a long way and my ideas about tactics were formed at the Infantry officers school at Fort Benning when I went through basic infantry officers training, the ranger school, then spent some 225 days in the field out of a 38-month tour in Germany. In addition, I served under one of the most brilliant officers in the army, a man who devised his own tactical concepts regarding movement, movement to contact, and basic infantry tactics, something he applied in Vietnam, as well. He was also the architect of our strategy in Vietnam, a strategy that was not allowed to work because of all the civilian interference and the restrictions placed upon what we could do.

From that training and experience, I have devised a set of principles I believe most, if not all battles, encompass. I have also done an inordinate amount of reading regarding this subject, all of which confirm my beliefs. Battles such as the LBH follow three principles: logic, simplicity, and flow. They are rapid, mobile, sharp, brutal. Men react in certain ways, certain patterns, especially with an element of training and in times of mortal danger. In actions like the LBH, the more simple things are, the better chance they will work.

When you have an element of the unknown, when you have diverse forces, space between elements, things must be kept simple and logic must prevail. Those elements make things flow in an even and smooth way, otherwise the diversions and digressions complicate matters too much and chaos intervenes.

To me, Custer ordered Benteen to return because Custer could see up the valley and he saw there was nothing there, thus obviating any further need for Benteen to continue. Benteen was not a reserve, though it seems in some ways he was. Godfrey made that abundantly clear... adamantly clear... and Custer ordered Benteen to him, not to Reno. So sayeth the note!

Next... Reno was an attack force, pure and simple. Forget feint, forget "advance guard," forget all the fancy terminology... keep it simple... Reno was sent in to attack the village. Period. The rest are dreams and speculations and what-ifs. Some writers and so-called "battle students" want to claim otherwise, but Reno was sent to attack the village. People forget-- because of everything that happened afterwards-- that the original plan was for Reno to attack, then be followed-up by Custer's attack. The word "support" was used by virtually every witness, and the understanding was "support" equalled the second force following through the first. Custer's turn to the right left Reno alone on the limb, but it didn't-- couldn't!-- change the original mission. Once Custer turned to the right, everything was winged and no one was kept informed. Even in the middle of the valley fighting, some officers-- French, for example-- still believed Custer was coming down the valley.

Everything George Custer did after entering Cedar Coulee was guesswork. He paid no attention to the terrain; he paid no attention to enemy forces; he paid no attention to supporting elements....

Best wishes,
Fred.

[Yan Taylor]

Hello Fred, so taking all this into account the three Battalions where in fact three battle groups, each one was in the attack mode and had no supporting role to play in the overall pattern, I suppose this could be an aggressive method of attack (it’s like a mini version of the three columns Gibbon, Terry and Crook, they acted as independent groups with no supporting role to play) with all three converging on to the same target and pitch in when contact is made.

Ian.

[wild]

Everything George Custer did after entering Cedar Coulee was guesswork.
I could not agree more not only with the above but with Fred's entire post.
Where I disagree is that guesswork will not take him to Ford D and that he pays the price in and around MTCF and not 2 miles and 2 hours later.
"Guesswork" takes the ford D theory out of the realm of probability and into the realm of possibility.
If we suggest guesswork as a management system there are no boundaries to what we can have Custer do.

Ian
No more than Martin's ride back to Benteen

[Yan Taylor]

Hi Richard, Martini rode off from a unit that was still intact and fully functioning, any man that rode out from Reno Hill would be from a half defeated unit and was riding into an area that was full of Indians.

Ian.

[mac]

Agreed Fred everything Custer did was guess work. I think based on his conviction that the enemy would attempt to hold him off but not actively attack him. This false assumption allowed him to feel that he could simply explore the situation, wait for more troops and be relatively safe with little need to consider the terrain other than how it related to his plans. I suspect now that it was probably quite late in the chain of events that he realised his true situation.
Cheers

[jag]

Thanks to all of you. It is much appreciated. I haven't commented on most remarks, and really wont here, its more of a clarification on my part more than anything. Just to let you know, I don't think it could be known with any certainty about Benteen's battalion being by order or design anything that could have been called a 'reserve'. And I wasn't trying to say that it was in that regard, might have been, but we just don't know. It was and did appear as though he and his men became a defacto reserve more from circumstances than any order would have made it. That once Custer and Reno's men advanced to the point where Custer sent Reno off, by that time, or nearly so, his battalion was in such a position, by happenstance to have the honor, not of the 'advance' Custer had sent him off with, but became a handy reserve for what could develope up ahead in a short while. I think most commanders know of those circumstances that happen not by design or by order, that just happen to fall into their lap. Call it, in some cases that 'oh s**t' moment when damn I shoulda... because now I'm going to have a bad hair day - or in other cases call it dumb luck, some luck, any luck at all, or in this case Custer's luck that it just fell that way and he tried to use it to his advantage.

Inching forward here a bit. There is some controversy over how far Benteen had gone on his mission before turning back. Not to open that can of worms any more than I need to. But there seemed to be a horrendous gap opening up between Custer's and Benteen's mileages from each other. Mileage does equal time no matter what we do. -- But to add time for Benteen to go down to near where Custer ordered Reno off to his attack, couldn't have taken any longer to there than what Reno's entire time in that valley was. -- If you add time to Benteen's return to that point, some claim 2 hours+ here, then you have to have Reno going to, fighting and then being seen by Benteen that two hours later. -- Just how much of a time/distance gap was there Between Custer and Benteen when Custer sent Reno off, this being near enough to where Benteen returned to some time later? Evidently Custer felt that gap needed closing and quickly by the Instruction Custer sent to him, "be quick". -- Incomplete thought here... Ahem... Would that gap have been the primary reason Custer ordered/instructed, take your pick, Benteen to 'be quick'?

[wild]

Hi Jag... Ahem... Would that gap have been the primary reason Custer ordered/instructed, take your pick, Benteen to 'be quick'? Look at it this way;Benteen was in the sin bin and the sooner he got back into play the better.

[wild]

Hi Ian
A judgement call;dangerous but there was a battle to be won.
Who dares wins.

[fred]

The distance from 3,411 to the morass is approximately 5 miles... travel miles, not straight line. In my work, Benteen would be arriving at the morass just as Custer was leaving 3,411.

Best wishes,
Fred.

[quincannon]

JAG: I will differ with you here but only very slightly, adding a factor into you equation

Time = Distance and Terrain. Therefore time is a result of both the distance to be covered, and the terrain you cover it on. A small point, but a significant factor.

Another general point, not related to this battle in particular, but combat in general. A reserve is something we must realize changes as the situation changes, or more properly said can change as the situation changes. Most commanders are reluctant to commit their designated reserve, and upon commitment make haste to reconstitute a reserve from anything available.

In this particular situation, I agree with Fred, Custer did not designate Benteen or anyone else as a reserve, but himself. His initial intention was to attack down the valley with Reno, following along with his own five companies with the intention of passing through or around Reno as the situation dictated. That makes Custer the reserve for Reno's attack. Once he went onto the bluffs, he took himself out of that role, and that most probably was the reason behind the note to Benteen, at least in part to reconstitute that reserve by drawing him off of his previous mission, if Benteen had not already done so.

One must also consider that a reserve is sometimes designated from the unit in the least amount of contact. That's not a very good method, but sometimes necessary.

[Yan Taylor]

Richard, I know that if either Reno or Benteen issued an order for a rider to go forth and find Custer then someone would have had to do it, no question.

But what I am trying to say is that any rider would be thinking along the lines that his chances are slim (especially if he had been with Reno on the death ride out of the timber and seeing what lay out there) so the difference is that Martini had some hope that six or seven Companies where back there and hoped to bump into one of them. So if we go to a rider leaving Reno Hill for example he would have an idea that his path is going to be full of Indians and that Custer could be anywhere.

And finally, I bet that most of the Troopers and Officers for that matter standing on Reno Hill thought that this battle was far from won, and some probably thought that it was already lost.

Hello Fred, so if the distance between Custer (Hill 3411) and Benteen (The Morass) was five miles as the crow flies, and Custer sends Martini at this point, what would be Custer position when Martini meets Benteen near the creek?

Ian.

[benteen]

Gentlemen,

Good discussion. I have my own view points on this.

1... For the reasons listed in my reply #94 I believe that Benteen felt Custer was having a victory and driving the warriors. But since he felt that way, he also had to feel that there was a clear path to Custer and should have sent a patrol as a messenger to let Custer know his ETA.

2.. However no such thing at Reno Hill. Benteen came across a beaten command. Reno had dead, dying, and wounded soldiers. He needed help. He inquired about Custer and nobody knew anything about him. I have said this before, but I believe we take our Officers and train them, and train them over and over again to be able to access and evaluate a situation since a battle can be fluid. An order given now may be totaly worthless 5 minutes from now. We want our Officers to be able to make dicisions. Benteen did this and I believe his decission saved the rest of the regiment. I dont believe that Capt Benteen or any other Officer or for that matter any soldier would have riden off and left Reno in that condition. It would have been unthinkable.

3... As to obeying orders. There are some that say Benten disobeyed orders I believe I explained why he had every reason to not follow through on them. However to be technical, Benteen did NOT disobey orders. Those that say he did only point out that Benteen was told to "Come on" "Be quick" true , but that was only half of the order. They leave out the other half which was "Bring Packs" That was said not once but twice. Those packs did not arrive for 45 minutes after Benteen got to Reno. Had Benteen riden off to Custer without the packs then he would have been disobeying Custers orders.

Be Well
Dan

[Yan Taylor]

Hi Dan, I don’t think anyone really disobeyed orders that afternoon, Reno did what he was ordered to do and got hit, Benteen was ordered to go left on a scout which he did, Custer himself was acting on the fly with no clear idea what he was going to do next until a situation developed and then he made changes accordingly, concerning that dam note, Come On’’ (yes Benteen moved his Battalion in the direction of the fight, ‘’be quick’’ (He couldn’t be quick with the pack train in tow) ‘’Bring Pack’’ again if you place all three together then it was impossible to do all three, and finally on reaching Reno Hill he gives support to a beleaguered Battalion that had just been through the mill.

Ian.

[quincannon]

Dan: I will differ with you only in one respect. We train ALL of our leaders over and over again to access and evaluate a situation since a battle is fluid, and to exercise good judgment based upon that evaluation. That goes as far down as the senior private, if circumstances dictate that he becomes a leader. There are vast differences in how soldiers are trained, between ourselves and those of some other armies. Initiative and judgment are the tools of our trade. Blind stupid obedience replacing initiative and judgment have no place in the military forces of the United States., and they never have.

[wild]

Ian
And finally, I bet that most of the Troopers and Officers for that matter standing on Reno Hill thought that this battle was far from won, and some probably thought that it was already lost.
The military is not a democratic institution.The CO calls the shots on such matters.

I don’t think anyone really disobeyed orders that afternoonOh yes they did.Check out the RCOI and for good measure the much lauded ApolloCuster documentary.
Of course we have not heard from Fred on this matter.Fred posted that Custer knew that Benteen was coming regardless of Reno's situation.

Hi Dan
Benteen did this and I believe his decission saved the rest of the regiment.
What action did Benteen take to aquaint himself with the situation so as to make the decision to halt his battalion.

QC
Blind stupid obedience replacing initiative and judgment have no place in the military forces of the United States., and they never have.No mention of commander's intention in the decision making process?