The panic run theory

[Dark Cloud]

E, I wasn't seriously offering Payne as a real alternative, only in the sense you have to eliminate all the alternative explanations for favored ones to take less than shallow root. I have no clue. But we do know there was all sorts of firing on the ground for years, with no records kept and despite Army wishes, no strict policing of shell cases if any. But this business of 'Unit A went here and fired before collapse after Unit C ran - proven by these three bullets and one case - from I Want My Mommy Ridge to Pass the Box of Attends Coulee is utterly bonkers and unproveable and highly unlikely to boot.

When you take the WCF map of LSH markers and arrange them to represent what actual testimony and year old photographs suggest was the arrangement of bodies as the 7th found them, it looks quite like a race away - or "charge" since Custer can't be seen to lead a retreat, just Reno - that fizzled at the hill. It's very hard to view it and mouth the words Last Stand.

And with all due respect - and not speaking Sioux or Crow or Arapahoe or sign language or Cheyenne myself - I'd really like to haul all the touching belief in the accuracy of Indian accounts, or rather our interpretations of them, down to earth. I won't repeat my complaints about not existent verbal tenses (because they don't have a verb "to be", I"m told) and translations and use of late arriving terms for geographical features and military terminology and phrasing. But unless someone who actually spoke or understood the language - and can be vetted and proven to have spoken and understood it - asked the questions and heard the answers absent a third party, it ain't 'testimony' and should be viewed with cancerous eye. NOT because Indians lie more than whites, but they do lie (being human) and exaggerate and modern folks have no clue if it is true, or an in-joke of irony, or a 'let's see if this flies....' exploration that has become fact by repetition.

As one example, what did the term "volley" men to a warrior in 1876? Because it appears as word with no distinction from how officers use it in their accounts.

[harpskiddie]

Darkcloud: I love the way you test people. This is a test, right?

Payne's testimony was relevant to his visit to the battlefield on "22nd day of last August,"which would be 1878, not "the next year." As to the firing, he had heard some of the men alluding to it while he was descending the hill into the valley: "I heard them talking about having fired guns over on the battlefield." Payne appeared to be confused by the Recorder's very simple questions, talking about where he heard about the firing, not where it was done. He doesn't testify to anything about "all those cartridges." In fact he does not mention cartridges at all.

What is your evidence that the cartridge casings I mentioned, which were in all sorts of places in the Blummer area, were "left the next year?"

Wherever it was that they conducted this test firing, or whatever it was, it was probably not in the area I mentioned above, since that was not considered part of the battlefield at the time [or now, by some], and nobody had any reason to believe Custer or any part of his command had been there. Payne stated that he heard the men saying "over on the battlefield."

Greene shows many other artifacts in the same area, related to cavalry troops. Don Weibert seems to me to be dispositive on the matter. This is all concrete evidence of the presence of cavalry troops, firing by cavalry troops and also Indians, and some fighting in the area.

Now, the only reason I raised the question was that noone else had appeared to sonsider that little bit of evidence when they were advancing the "Panic Run" from MTC theory. I wasn't intending to put out an alternative scenario, because I have yet to make up my mind about what transpired after Custer left the Weir Ridges area; but I am considering the evidence, and when it leads me somewhere, I'll be sure to let you know.

Gordie

[Dark Cloud]

No test, I was posting off the top of my head about Payne and got the time wrong. My point remains, that there is zero proof any cases found on the battlefield arrived where they did during the battle and significant reason to think it iffy to draw time and movement conclusions from their presence.

There is proof - officer testimony from Weir Point - that much firing into bodies by Indians occured in the related areas. There is much proof - the existence of cases manufactured after 1876 - that firing occured on the field years after the battle and/or the field was salted; and no alternative to those two possibilities. There is no possible proof and slimness of chance that such salting and or firing was limited to ammo made after 1876.

In aggregate with the complaints of the field being picked clean, children collecting and dropping cases in piles before returning to the train after the picnics, numerous military groups who could/might/likely did engage in firing on the field in salute or not along with the visits of Sioux and Cheyenne who cheerfully desecrated the dead of their enemies by injecting them with lead or blowing apart bones, unless all that can be counted in, the line dances of Custer's manuevers based on found cases are dubious in the extreme.

[harpskiddie]

Well, if you think children were getting off the train and going over to the Blummer area, or that somebody was firing salutes over dead comrades-in-arms, or desecrating enemies, whose bodies weren't anywhere close by, or salting an area so that it could be discovered 50 years later, be my guest.

Gordie

[Dark Cloud]

Again, I don't have to prove anything; only pointing out that if you claim those were fired during two hours on June 25, 1876, and by cavalry at Indians, you or someone has to prove it. There are competing scenarios that might explain it without stretching credulity. We simply don't know what happened on the field in the years after the battle, and the presence of detritus that could not have anything to do with the battle has to be explained, and explained so that battle-possible artifacts could not have appeared in the same way.

You could be utterly correct, but this is the Heidi Fleiss of battlefields.

[elisabeth]

Which is why one falls back on the Indian accounts (note, you've trained us out of saying "testimony" -- a victory) as one of the few clues, apart from bodies, that we've got. Flawed, yes; possibly mistranslated, prompted, misremembering, lying, any of the above. And of course to be treated with caution. Even so, liars who were there score a few points above all the subsequent liars who weren't -- the sole survivors et al.

An analogy might be trying to track a criminal via a photofit compiled from a single eye-witness's description. The eye-witness might be short-sighted, forgetful, unobservant, fantasising; the photofit might look nothing like the perpetrator. You wouldn't know. But if that's all the evidence you've got, you couldn't just throw it out; you'd have to use it, however distrustfully. Surely?

[AZ Ranger]

Testimony as DC has pointed applies only to statements in court and means witness evidence. What it does not mean is that it is any more truthful than a third hand translation of some Indian given to a interpreter then to a writer. Testimony and forensics are words used sometimes to elevate the veracity of the evidence beyond it real value. A translated Indian account may be more truthful than a sworn testimony given by packtrain member.

Witnesses statements can be expected to differ in content. They are all coming from different perceptions. It does not mean that the person is lying. Each juror or judge has the task of determining the veracity of a witness.

If you view what goes on this board it is quite similar to court. Both sides try to present their best evidence and challenge they others evidence still other act as jurors trying to assess the evidence presented. The major difference is that hearsay and a contaminated evidence location is allowed to be presented.

AZ Ranger

[Dark Cloud]

That's dead right, AZ, and I've tried never to imply otherwise, I hope. I don't doubt Indians; I doubt the procedures by which their stories have come down to us, patted into shape for the needs of various times. But yes: a fifth hand story translated by enthused Carlisle graduates could be a gazillion times more accurate than a tearful testimony by Lt. Col. St. Paul.

I wish someone would explain the non-battle artifacts, especially the cases (not cartridges or casings; I too learn, Elizabeth, albeit slowly and painfully after being walloped and 12-step recovery groups over the years), so that the seeping disarray to everyone's theories their existence provides can be appreciated.

I do think there are more than two sides here, representing three mutual exclusives myself alone.

The panic run theory (and again: my 'theories' are flimsy and not original and are attractive only by simplicity, compliance with the field as found on the 27th, and compliance with a consistent Custer to history and family-centered unit) is bolstered by three clear agents. First, the testimony of the various officers. Second, the actual positions of the bodies shorn of Reno's dead, in accordance with testimony and photo evidence of original burials. Third, the Indian accounts that don't sound like Thomas Carlisle on a bender or an interviewer giving witnesses multiple choice selections, all of which were wrong.

What argues against it is the emotional need for a Last Stand and attendant pieta moments, even though I find the literary templates too obvious to deny. Secondarily, but for no less religious and emotional reason, the necessity to justify the archaeological work with Breaking News and Now Revealed moments that reason states cannot possibly be at hand.

The actual archaeology is truly impressive, and it's not the scientists who draw the surety and more outrageous theoretic possibilities from the ground. I don't think Fox ever said 'unit A went here, did this, engaged in an existential game of whist, died between 1704.5 and 1708 hours' as some seem to claim with such surety. Instead, Fox and Scott et al say, in effect, here's a theory with which this evidence - if evidence it be - does not conflict. Being scientists and all that. If they've stepped beyond that due to the encouragement of their fans, I missed it.

[elisabeth]

DC, I think one of the things that bothers me slightly about the panic run theory is exactly what you pinpoint: that it seems to fulfil an emotional need. The reverse of that served by the Last Stand/pieta one, obviously.

When it surfaced in the wake of the archaeology (OK, re-surfaced, but after so long that it had been virtually forgotten) it became the New Big Story: "Shock! Horror! Icon overturned! Custer's men were crap fighters! Collapse of 'Fighting Seventh' myth!" There was a kind of glee, almost a sense of relief, that greeted it. I can't analyse it, quite; a mix of white guilt towards Native Americans, post-Vietnam scepticism about military "glory", post-Nixon distrust of propaganda, maybe a touch of anti-militarism in general, and just possibly a little unease over the national identity and its founding myths ... I'm sure you can parse it better than I can. This is an age in which the only feasible heroes are two-dimensional figures from comic books. No real person need apply. Perhaps it's the fear of being disillusioned yet again, of finding we've been suckered into worshipping yet another idol whose feet of clay will be revealed just after we've made fools of ourselves by declaring belief in him. I don't know. But it's the neatness with which the panic run theory fits into all this that makes me wonder.

Maybe it's right. It's just that it's become the unquestioned conventional wisdom. And it goes aganst the grain to leave conventional wisdom unquestioned.

Two points of vulnerability for the theory, even if we leave out all Indian accounts of a long slow slugging match at the start.
1) Whatever happened on the rest of the field, almost everyone seems to concede skirmish lines in the Calhoun area. That would speak against wholesale panic.
2) The behaviour of Reno's battalion. He had (as was established in a recent Research Review) a higher proportion of green recruits than Custer did. Yet until Reno initiated his retreat, at least, they showed no signs of panic. Firing too much, too fast, and with too little effect, that's true; but no breaking and running until ordered to do so. And having regrouped on the bluffs, they recovered themselves pretty quickly. Are we to believe that Custer's battalion, with far more old hands, had a sudden fit of the vapours at the first shot?

That's leaving aside the matter of the duration of the battle. Surviving officers had an interest in claiming it as half an hour (!) or at most an hour; other evidence -- Indians, OK, but also enlisted men -- indicates two hours or more.

I have no theory. Or rather, I have several dozen, as who does not. But of all of them, a panic run right from MTC -- which is all I'm questioning -- seems the least credible ...

[Dark Cloud]

Well, there is the problem of why Custer would willingly go where he ended, which was at the point of an arrowhead of dead men in the world's worst defensive position absent the interior of the Petersburg Crater.

And the general thesis - that Custer was pushed there, and despite several attempted delaying actions, picked up speed to the final blunting - isn't hurt. That Keogh's group was organized at first and fought separately doesn't hamper it either.

Indians give time measurement in terms of parts of an activity. A half day ride. Two sleeps. About the time it took to eat a meal, which somehow became twenty minutes. When they say a long time fight, in terms of what was it made, since they wouldn't give it in hours and minutes?

So. Explain the presence of cases not from the battle and why whatever reason that brought them there could not apply to those which could have been part of the battle.

Do the DC Photoshop Afternoon Activity and look at the dead as described by testimony and photo at LSH. What does it look like to you?

[AZ Ranger]

DC I believe you have always been skeptical of all evidence which is a good way to find the truth.

Part of the problem is that panic implies something gone wrong in the troopers minds causing them to panic. There well could have been but what if it were called the last dash for freedom or something similar would some complain as much then if some evidence points to that as a plausible theory of what happened.

[hammerhead]

Believe that Custer was was wounded not killed at the ford as he tried to get into the village from that point and this is where the Indians said that the soldiers halted.
I think if your co is down a definite halt would commence and this would not happen if it was a few troopers.
they would then reassess the situation and move the co to safety.
to-wards lsh i think the wound in his side came from the ford and the temple wound from lsh.
I may be wrong but i just feel that as he was at the front leading his men he took the volley from the Indians and was badly wounded there.i think that this wound was not mortal but incapacitating.
So that he was able to issue orders to his 2ic to regroup.
and it was his 2ic that made the decision to head for high ground lsh and in doing so lost a number of troopers in the vicinity hence deep ravine it wasn't at that point a rout on the seventh but i think they would not have waited around to be overrun down at the ford and this gave the Indians time to assess and act on what they saw as a rout hence the three pronged attack on Custer's men .
just my point of view thanks

[shan]

As someone who tends to hang around the Northern Plains Indian box, but can't resist dipping into what currently excites the folks in the other boxes, I've wondered why the discussions tend to dip and dive around what I would regard as the periphery activities surrounding the battle, Benteens scout to the left and the timing that surrounds all that,then there is the, was Reno a coward or a fool,or indeed what colour was Vic etc, rather than venturing opinions and theories as to what exactly unfolded after Custers force moved beyond the bluffs and out of sight of those on the valley floor.
Don't get me wrong, I realise that these things are interesting in themselves, but surly it is the battle, especially the mystery surrounding the Custer portion of it that is the meat on the bone that drew most people to this site, and yet it seems to me that over the last six months or so, this aspect of the battle has been conspicuously absent amongst the discussions.
The time between the last sighting of Custers men from the valley floor, around 3.25 by most counts, and Weirs viewing of the battlefield roughly 2 hours later is at the heart of the mystery, and yet it often seems to be the least discussed.
Of course I know there are valid reasons why this is so, all too often we are forced to hypothesize given that the evidence is thin almost to the point of being almost non-existent, and yet on the other hand, as several people, darkcloud and AZ ranger to mention but 2 posters, have pointed out, we do have some rough idea as to what the shape of the battle may have taken if we turn to the statements that were elicited from the Indians. Okay they may have been somewhat twisted and corrupted by some of the interpreters, and there was no doubt a deal of deliberate obscuration by the Indians themselves, whichever,..... they are at least the translated words of a number of witnesses who were actually there rather than the theories of those that saw the field after the event.
Personally I believe that what Weir was seeing was the after battle mutilation and looting of the bodies, okay I'll reluctantly conceded that there may have been some mopping up going on out of sight down at LSH, but in essence I believe the battle itself was over. There is one thing that has always puzzled me about what happened at Weir Point which is, given there were eventually quite a number of men present during what? nearly an hour or so, why was, or is, there so little anecdotal observation? Surely it can't have been some sort of mass collective guilt-brought on because they realized that their comrades were still fighting and yet they were doing nothing to help. Had that been the case one would have thought that in the years that followed, many men would have felt the need to unburden themselves either to their families or to others about what they saw, or didn't as the case maybe.
Sideways onto that, Darkcloud, I'd like to ask you a favour. Do you think you might help those of us who haven't yet got the book ' Where Custer fell,' to visualize the patterning of bodies you say have constructed within your computer, and how it differs from the one laid out in the battlefield today. It sounds fascinating and worthy of more discussion.
Finally. az ranger, I have to wholeheartedly agree with you about the power of words and the emotion the words panic and run can still evoke in people even after all this time. To say it was a dash for freedom would certainly go some way to placate those who feel panic run to be derogatory, but then we maybe trading a feel good factor for what may have been the sad truth of the matter. Elizabeth I know that you feel that there are those that use panic run and other such terms to describe events in the battle assome sort of club with which to beat the yesterdays heros about the head, and I'll admit that there is a deal of that around, and not only with this subject, but in the end, wouldn't we all prefer to unearth the truth, even be it warts an all?
Shan

[elisabeth]

Shan -- agree, we want warts and all. We just want to be sure they're real warts, not warts supplied by the make-up department.

[AZ Ranger]

Shan -- Warts and all is the goal. How to get there if at possible is the dilemma. There are strong emotions that effect persons perception of what happened or how they interpret information.

Panic somehow denotes cowardice in some perceptions. If the train is about to leave and you have to run to catch it, it doesn't mean you are a coward. There is a brief time before you jump on that you experience panic and think only of getting on the train. If someone wanted to trip you would probably not even know they were there because of tunnel vision.

One of the goals of the training we do is to break our officers from the mind lock and tunnel vision.

A theory of a panic run with trooper's sole objective to get out of a dangerous situation is a viable explanation. They weren't cowards just had a tunnel vision focus of getting out of there. Horses by nature are fight or flight preferring flight. Once this is set in motion the horses become willing participants.

If you observe this from the Indian perspective you would see the same behavior as buffalo another animal that has fight or flight mechanisms.

AZ Ranger