The panic run theory

[harpskiddie]

Steve:

A belated Happy Birthday. Sorry, but there won't be any present from me again this year. Just to keep up tradition.

All the best.

Gordie

[historynut1876]

I have not read this thread beginning to end, but here's my thought:

I have a problem assigning the "panic run theory" to this battle or any other theory, in toto. Certainly, there were some men who panicked and ran. Others fought bravely, others killed themselves. The warriors witnessed a little bit of everything, depending on their location and time they entered the battle. A logical retelling that sifts through all the evidence and sorts out all the points of contention in a way that makes everyone happy, still wouldn't make it definitively correct. Just logical.

[elisabeth]

AZ,

But "panic" surely implies something more than an adrenaline-fuelled response to a situation; it implies an abandonment or suspension of rationality. Not so much running to catch the train (rational, aimed at achieving your goal) as running around all over the station like a headless chicken (irrational, achieving nothing). The phrase that's used by many, from Benteen onwards, for the Custer battalion is "panic rout" -- which is definitely pejorative. It's intended to belittle the behaviour of those involved. As is the "buffalo hunt" comparison, buffalo being well known for mindlessly fleeing into danger (e.g. over a cliff) as readily as away from it.

The implications of the panic run theory are clear (I think). The idea is that all cohesion and discipline was lost; Custer and his officers were either powerless to do anything, or panicked equally themselves; that nothing remotely soldierly took place on any part of the field, and that all were (in Sitting Bull's words) "shot down like pigs". Now that's one hypothesis, and could be true. On the other hand, it serves the convenience of the Reno Hill Gang to suggest a) that it was all over in minutes, therefore they could have done nothing to help; and b) that Custer's lot were worthless scum in comparison to themselves, who heroically withstood a two-day siege (and let's hope no-one remembers their own initial panic run). On yet a third hand (!), it serves Terry and the army brass to construct a story of Custer's "gallant band" contesting every inch, fighting line by line, resisting to the last man etc., thus making an inspiring legend out of a disaster. So all the immediately post-battle interpretations of the field are potentially tainted one way or the other.

Reason says the chances are that the truth was somewhere between the two: some panicking, some not. The Indian accounts suggest much the same. What I'm trying to get at is whether there's any feasibility to the extreme version of the panic run theory -- the version that has panic setting in from MTC onwards. And if there isn't, why it's become so popular.



P.S. Happy birthday!

[George Mabry]

Well said Elisabeth. People who stubbornly stand at one end of the spectrum or the other generally have a private agenda. I do not believe you will ever find any fact or set of facts to prove yea or nay. As the for popularity of the panic/rout theory, that is more reflective of our society than of what transpired on that battlefield.

[AZ Ranger]

Thanks Gordie and Elizabeth

[AZ Ranger]

Elizabeth I don't believe you have to have the derogatory type panic rout to have the same effect of bodies and dead horses that was observed by Benteen. I believe there is an uncontrolled speed in a horse faster than its normal controlled gallop speed. Some untrained horses can get into this easily when scared and all horses can get into this when other horses are scared and the rider encourages it. This could be a panic speed and I would expect to see the fastest horses in the lead and the others following. I can not buy that Custer and all officers and troopers under him were killed because they were running around like chickens with their heads cut off out of fear. The panic I am talking about causes tunnel vision and only one goal is thought about. In this case leaving the area. I believe the Reno charge demonstrated my point. Indians could ride up next to the troopers. This panic requires training to maintain divided attention but it is not cowardice.

I think my analogy still holds with consequences different. If you panic in life or during training you may not get hurt but during battle the results can be quite severe. At some point after MTC someone realized the world is not safe. There is no military requirement to remain against overwhelming odds and a tactical disadvantage if you can withdraw and live to fight. If the goal of an all out run is to get out of an obviously deadly situation and regroup and remain in the fight it is not cowardice. That is my point. This theory is based upon the grave makers, officers with fastest horses closer to LSH and Indian descriptions of events. Can I say this happened within a legal certainty, No. It is theory only and plenty of those exist.

As far as a goal you mentioned it could have been as simple as we are running low on ammunition and have no shortage of Indians willing to fight. 60 rounds doesn't last very long in the heat of battle. Even today we teach our officers to run when they run out of ammunition the alternative is stay and be shot.

George I would also agree with you that there was displays of bravery all the way to other end with suicides and the Indians describe that also. No one here has said that every member of Custer's battalion died in a panic run. The Indians themselves don't say that either. If one is to sell his life dearly in a battle you would expect to find casualties among the enemy equal to or greater than you own. That would be 200 to 400 dead Indians.

[elisabeth]

I see your point, AZ. But the Reno analogy possibly also supports mine -- in that it was a true panic run, with no attempt at a rearguard or any kind of control. Did Custer do the same, every man for himself? Another "sauve qui peut movement", as someone in the Reno battalion described it? Or does the Calhoun site, if no other, suggest that even if it was an all-out run there was a rearguard set up?

[Dark Cloud]

You're talking about two different things. The supposed "panic run" theory is applied only to those assumed two or three companies that attemped whatever they attempted at MTC Ford. From there to LSH. It never applied to Keogh's group. From the getgo, everyone thought Calhoun's guys put up a solid fight, and the supposition was that Keogh's did as well. Not so at LSH.

AZ's suppositions are valid, I think. And, frankly, not adversely affected by the DCPSAA, which I strongly recommend because it looks rather exactly as AZ's theory would leave them. You have to do it yourself to watch the markers peel away.

[AZ Ranger]

Elizabeth I agree that it is hard to separate what leads to the run but whatever you call it undivided attention occurs focusing on getting your horse and yourself somewhere else. The saber, with Reno, could have caused the soldiers to have divided attention and saved some troopers but it wasn't available. My reason for this is that an Indian might not have chosen to ride up to 100 drawn sabers to find out if they had training with it. I am not as sure of the revolver. At point blank its effective but the troopers demonstrated they were willing to shoot at ranges beyond thier weapon and shoot too fast.

If Calhoun was set as a rear guard so the others could get out of there at full speed then it was not the chicken with it head off just a plan that didn't work. The Indians describe skirmish lines with the officer riding back and forth behind it. I believe this occurred more than once from descriptions of different horses and riders.

When I stood at last stand hill looking toward the village location area with the markers in between it was easy to visual that it at some point you have to at least try to get out of there. I believe that Custer if still alive and in charge would have taken longer than Reno to reach that conclusion. It is a hard decision to make because you must admit to yourself that you can not handle the immediate engagement.

We will never know what the thoughts or orders given the soldiers were since none lived to tell. The tainted scene and also what the appearance of every man for himself or a directed order to withdraw at a gallop would look the same. I just chose to believe the latter until evidence shows the contrary.

[elisabeth]

Agree, AZ -- "a plan that didn't work" is much more credible. To me, anyway.

DC, you may be right -- but are you sure about that? Some made exceptions of Calhoun and, to a lesser extent, Keogh, but others applied "a rout, a panic" to the whole battalion. Benteen being the most extreme example of that view, perhaps. At the time no-one had any reason to imagine a deployment by wing, and most read the field in the belief that the whole battalion had done whatever it did (fought bravely or panicked and run, according to choice) together.

Interesting that the modern variant of the panic run theory reverses those exceptions, with first Calhoun and then Keogh collapsing rapidly and rolled up in seconds, thus precipitating the doom of the rest. "Little resistance" is the favourite phrase applied to the Keogh area. Strange how things get turned inside-out over time, isn't it ...

[markland]

Interesting topic on which I may be able to get some info on tonight. I only found out last night (and damned near wrecked the truck reading the sign while driving past) that Douglas Scott will be at the Frontier Army Museum presenting a lecture on "The Little Bighorn Massacre." If you have any questions, PM or put them here before 1700 CDT.

And she who usually must be obeyed is letting me go! Yippee-ki-yay!

Billy

[Dark Cloud]

I'm sure of nothing, but by memory only I think even Benteen said resistence had been made here and there, and allowed Calhoun's to be one, but this based solely on cartridge case numbers, and possibly only Moylan's tale. Overall, a horror badly fought in his mind, though. I don't see signs of a coherent stand anywhere that couldn't be explained by shot in line or in movement, and that includes Calhoun's, but I've become fanatical about conforming body markers to photos and contemporary to the event description and trying to erase the current setup from my mind.

Even so, the 7th knew the batallion had two wings from the descriptions of the division at the divide. Godfrey and others seemed pretty coherent in describing Calhoun having made a fight and either collapsing and running to Keogh or vice versa.

[Diane Merkel]

Billy,

Doug Scott will also be at the LBHA Conference in North Platte next July, so I'm sure I can count on seeing you there, right?

Diane

[harpskiddie]

Diane:

When are you going to post details of next year's LBHA meeting? Or have you done so already?

Gordie

[shan]

having raised the subject of what was happening to Custer's force between 3.25 and 5.50 ish I began to mull it over myself. It's a fairly long period of time when you think that Reno's force was only engaged on the valley floor for 45 mins, time enough, certainly earlier on, for Custer to make a decisive move, and yet it seems that he didn't.
In previous decades there was a prevalent theory that he was waiting for Benteen's arrival, and I guess that there are some who still hold to this idea, but it seems a bit thin to me now. Although it seems likely that he knew from Boston that Benteen was back on the trail and not off to the left lost in the hills, and one assumes that Boston could give him a timeline that would put Benteen some 30 to 45 mins behind, an interval that proved to be fairly accurate, this was surely far to long for someone like Custer to sit around on the hills kicking his heels.
Even had he choose to do so, he must have become aware of several ominous developments that, if you added in the factor that the Indians seemed to be more than willing to stand and fight, boded ill. Those factors, the noise of Reno's fight retreating rather than advancing towards the village, the sight of a number of warriors coming from the direction of Weir Point, okay there may only have been a couple of dozen, nonetheless they shouldn't be there, and finally, the growing number of warriors coming back down river, not to flee as he might have hoped, but to get into a fight with him.
One presumes that all this was happening around 4.10 -4.15 so he had already been fairly uninvolved in the battle for the best part of 45 mins. This seems so unlike Custer, whatsmore, it goes against the common sense notion that you get down there and attack the camp by the back door while the warriors are off preoccupied with Reno. And yet he didn't do it, why?
I don't doubt that part of the force did go some way down towards MTF on this the Indian evidence seems strong and fairly cohesive. Yes they probably thought that they had beaten off the attack, and yes, { although I'm not quite so positive about this, } the troops probably choose to withdraw rather than being forced into it. But why no full scale attack.
There are those that argue that he decided that an attack on a ford further upriver would be more productive, in which case why not pursue that goal straight away?
The final question is in some ways the most perplexing of all. Why didn't he make a move to both give Reno a helping hand, and at the same time reunite the whole command when he could have done so, rather that move about the landscape allowing the Indians to take the inititive.
Shan