A couple puzzling points

[harpskiddie]

Steve:

Those photos are horrible, as is the one on page 58, which purports to have been taken in 1876 from the west side looking east [one cannot see the river at all]. My comment about the horses was based on them having to swim across. Obviously they made it, and likely the water was not as deep as supposed, so that they could get a purchase on the bottom.

The cut left by crossing or drinking buffalo greatly assisted the men getting out, especially as it crumbled and became larger.

As I mentioned somewhere, the river has changed course over the years - several times, and back again and etc.

Gordie

[Dark Cloud]

I don't understand how these opportunities for experienced soldiers to demonstrate superior leadership skills over an officer they have no hesitation condemning continually goes unfullfilled. Can nobody show how Reno could have executed his retreat/charge with less casualties? Show where covering fire and sequential events should have played out, using maps and photos? No?

And nobody can present the situation as Benteen found it when he met Reno, including how many horses Reno's men had available, how many of his guys were even physically okay or present to continue. Nor has anyone dared get specific about exactly how many men should be assigned to guard the pack train and wounded while Benteen goes north. And this, setting aside whether Benteen could do so after Reno's request/order. And nobody can explain, after 130 years, what - other than Victorian dramatic requirement - this so called obligation was to ride to the sound of firing (as Edgerly apparently first claimed) or assist Custer at all at risk to regiment and mission.

It's all so charming, especially when Custer never demonstrates any of the concerns everyone else is supposed to have for him (and his men, of course, although all that begins to remind of Mrs. Lovejoy's "won't someone think of the children???!!!" soon enough....) that a nonexistent military demand/tradition is used to assail officers whose record to this point is far above the average. It could all be true, but after years of requests nobody actually produces the evidence and chickens out every time.

So inspiring. I hope that when all the records are released about the Vietnam and middle East conflicts, we civvies, Bevo officers, and military clerks get to pick apart each action and call combat officers cowards and traitors with the same template currently applied to Reno and Benteen. Won't that be fun? I'll feel like such a man. There's nothing more invigorating - nay, ego inflating - than that.

[elisabeth]

DC, forgive me, but I really don't understand the big deal about covering Reno's retreat. It's not something made up by armchair generals on this forum; those present at the time thought it could and should have been done. Varnum tried, for one. Sergeant Ryan tried to get French to do it, for another. It's a non-issue, really.

As for "risk to regiment and mission": to paraphrase one of your favourite lines, at what point did the mission become Saving Major Reno And The Luggage? I'm not saying it wasn't a worthy thing to do, and possibly the right thing in the circumstances. But the actual mission, the mission on which they'd been sent, was to defeat the Indians.

[markland]

elisabeth said:

DC, forgive me, but I really don't understand the big deal about covering Reno's retreat. It's not something made up by armchair generals on this forum; those present at the time thought it could and should have been done. Varnum tried, for one. Sergeant Ryan tried to get French to do it, for another. It's a non-issue, really.

As for "risk to regiment and mission": to paraphrase one of your favourite lines, at what point did the mission become Saving Major Reno And The Luggage? I'm not saying it wasn't a worthy thing to do, and possibly the right thing in the circumstances. But the actual mission, the mission on which they'd been sent, was to defeat the Indians.

*snicker*

Elisabeth, you go girl!

Billy

[AZ Ranger]

Gordie- I don't disagree with you on those pictures but they were the only one's I could find. It was certainly not a smooth wide place to cross. I believe it would be hard to get up the bank because of the Indian pressure. It was narrowing points of egress on the bank that created the bottleneck. If you were one of the first to get to the cuts it would have been relatively easy to get out. I agree with you also that it would not take long for horses to tear a dirt bank and make it easier to get out. I am not sure about a uniform depth of water. Never looked at that part of the river and don't know conditions of 1876. It would not surprise me though that some could have walked across while others had to swim.

AZ Ranger

[AZ Ranger]

DC, forgive me, but I really don't understand the big deal about covering Reno's retreat. It's not something made up by armchair generals on this forum; those present at the time thought it could and should have been done. Varnum tried, for one. Sergeant Ryan tried to get French to do it, for another. It's a non-issue, really.

Elizabeth - I believe DC's point is that the action Reno took was as good as any to get across. With only three companies and 900 Indians coming after you from all directions and a river at least deep enough for some to have to swim across and 25 to 50 feet across(out of revolver range for support) how do you deploy effectively.

Apparently the Indians weren't afraid of the skirmish line shooters on that day. It was my impression that the Indians now were even among those crossing the river. In which direction do you deploy support to check the threat. They were appearing in all directions. I also believe until you commit to going into the river you are on a bench 5 to 6 feet above the river with timber behind you. I don't think you can deploy after you jump your horse into the river. Getting into the river was as hard as getting out I would think and would take full attention to get the horses to jump in. It appears to be a steep hill once you cross and might be hard to form up. Just because a sergeant thought something might be a good idea doesn't make it so. You have to let the officers decide that. If an officer doesn't feel his troops are in a mental condition to deploy it is a waste of time and/or lives. Varnum found this out. If it was such a good idea than any of the companies could have done it just like the retreat from Weir. It would not take Reno to make a decision to deploy to check the Indians advance. The difference is there was a defined direction the indians were coming from when the check was effective. If they are coming from all directions and among your fellow troopers it is a different situation.

The question is not could they have thrown out troopers to shoot at Indians. Of course. Would it have done any good. I don't think so not with the mindset of th Indians on that particular day. We only have to look down the river about 4 miles and a little while later and it becomes apparent the Indians weren't going to be stopped by deploying skirmishers.

Indians up on the hills have a much better chance of hitting something than a trooper sitting on his horse who is scared to death and waiting for the rider to act scared and trying to shoot his single shot carbine. The more you miss the stronger the Indians feel their power to win.

If the Indians are in close it is the individual soldiers obligation to take of himself. In the Marine Corps we were taught our body belonged to Uncle Sam for the duration of enlistment but our lives belonged to us.

I don't believe Reno's actions of leaving the timber are a non-issue. Effectiveness of other ways of making the crossing safer should be the focus not rather could you do this or that or did someone suggest a better way. We all know that if Reno failed to do something that was more effective and should have he could be negligent. That is the issue.

AZ Ranger

[AZ Ranger]

DC You need to increase Billy's pay and send him something to drink to ease his pain.

AZ Ranger

[elisabeth]

AZ, I take your point, but it's something of a chicken-and-egg thing, surely; the troopers weren't in a mental condition to deploy because nobody had done anything about covering the crossing? Varnum, let's remember, had started out towards the rear of the exodus; by the time he got to the front there'd been time for panic to set in. I may be wrong, but I don't think Indians had got in among the leading troopers ... so if Reno, or anyone else at the head of the retreat, had done a Godfrey immediately on reaching the river, it might have worked. Might have saved some lives at least.

French himself thought Ryan's suggestion was sound. He said "I'll try, I'll try".

Apologies, by the way, for being unclear. When I said it was a non-issue I didn't mean it was unimportant; only that people who were there freely admitted that it could have been done better.

[Dark Cloud]

It's not a non-issue, Elizabeth, however much you want it and the LBH to remain a subject that can only float off with questions that have no answers, or requiring furrowed brow correspondence and dramatic ellipses to suggest great depth and mystery.

There are few 'mysteries' at LBH and those that exist are pretty pedestrian. Harmless enough except the permission granted to slander and demean people who do not deserve it. Many posters have expressed confidence Reno should have done thus and so, generally in the nature of covering fire, and this because of all his casualties obtained after leaving the woods. So, if that was 'wrong' for him to do what he did and another way better, prove it. Show how it would be done with fewer casualties. When confronted, those who condemn Reno vanish. Inspiring, what?

If you don't know exactly the viable strength of the 7th on Reno Hill at Benteen's arrival, which was the subject here, you probably shouldn't damn Benteen for not disobeying Reno and riding north, either.

A lot of coulda/shoulda/woulda except for the coward Reno and Benteen's irresolution by those like French who actually ran (didn't he? doesn't matter, we're allowed to slander here.....), and Edgerly on the make in his own memory. The farrier tale puts the heroic Edgerly in proper light. He had opportunity and supposed inclination. He just didn't. Became Reno's fault, although the time Edgerly took to explain his initial retreat to the farrier might have been utilized to pull him aboard.

130 years after, supposed soldiers are afraid to put their criticism on paper so that other soldiers might comment on it, and this because they're afraid they're wrong and will be publicly criticized. Which is likely. God forbid they extend the same compassion to the guys on the ground who had to make the decisions on the fly, or risk having to admit that the guys on the ground did the best of all possible actions after all.

Your second paragraph is easy enough to answer. Saving the train was saving their lives on defense, and continuing the mission on offense; without it they were dead and the foes armed to come against them and others. Keeping the regiment in being kept the enemy attentive, which was consistent with the mission to drive the enemy to the rez or kill them if not. Keeping the 7th together was a pretty fair achievement given the danger a bad series of calls by the commander put them in. Had the 7th been wiped out in toto, which could easily have happened, the Army would have had to go on total defense for that summer, pulled back and tried again using state militias and worse along with the pros in the following months. Imagine the Chivingtons of the west back in charge.

For all the hysteria, the fact remains the campaign - messy as it was - had the intended effect and succeeded overall. The Sioux were divided and shot as a major foe thereafter, most returned to the rez.

Markland lives in Far East Colorado (Kansas, they call it....); his pain cannot be eased. However I have been disappointed in his toadyism of late, and I've reduced the size of the autographed photo I use as a Christmas card from poster size to thumbnail for next year. Word to the wise, although he rates a paragraph.

I'm now accepting applications for Cringing Toady. Apply through Merkel.

[elisabeth]

If you don't know exactly the viable strength of the 7th on Reno Hill at Benteen's arrival, which was the subject here, you probably shouldn't damn Benteen for not disobeying Reno and riding north, either.

Actually, I made a point of saying I didn't damn him.

Strange; there seem to be dramatic ellipses and rhetorical question-marks in the post above. But far be it from me to impugn the intentions behind them.

[Dark Cloud]

It's not strange. Used to be called "irony" from junior high on. Shake it off. Did you think I was calling Reno a coward as well?

[crzhrs]

The Sioux were always divided. It was only circumstances that brought them together for a short period of time. And it was Custer's Luck(?) to find them all together.

So . . . Custer's Luck was still good up until the morning of June 25, 1876.

I wonder what happened to change that . . . .

[harpskiddie]

There is in existence somewhere, a small book or pamphlet explaining in detail, with maps maybe no photos, explaining in military terms exactly how Reno should have covered his retreat from the bottoms. I have never seen it, else I would post it on the board, or offer it to anyone who wants a copy. I saw a reference to it about three weeks ago, and cannot for the life of me remember where it was, although I think it may have been among a lot of books I bid on on EBay, and didn't get.

Of course, being me, I got all in a snit and forgot everything about it, including the title [if one had been given] and the authour [if named]. I think it was only a brief description, you know the "A retired Major General shows how Reno......"

Gordie

PS Hey, Diane!! Has anybody got the Toady job yet? What are the qualifications? Could you send me an application form? Sounds like a rewarding endeavour, especially with a poster as part of the compensation!!!!!

[dcary]

One aspect of LBH I didn't expect to see questioned was the contention that Reno's retreat was not handled at all well. The mere fact that no provision was made to notify all troops, see that they had mounts and formulate and communicate some basic plan proves this, at least to me. The number of people who were left out of the 'charge' by the main body -- to fend for themselves -- and later escaped shows two things pretty plainly: that the maneuver was not organized properly, and that Indian pressure was not so great that there wasn't time to do it.

My own impression of Reno is not that he was especially a coward but that he had tendencies that way that became at least half-unglued and panicky when Bloody Knife's cranial matter was evidently shot onto him. His reaction temporarily drove from his mind what he knew about organizing things, and his search for Hodgson later seems an attempt to recover composure by finding something to do.

[Dark Cloud]

"One aspect of LBH I didn't expect to see questioned was the contention that Reno's retreat was not handled at all well." And you haven't yet. The Indian stories suggest that it was the surprise of the break that worked best for Reno, and I ascribe coincidence as much or more than intent. That isn't the issue. Was there a clearly more profitable alternative given the level of martial and horsemanship skills displayed before their commander moments earlier?

Procedure for the sake of procedure is pretty dim. They were surrounded, taking fire from the eastern bank and the ridges they later attained. They couldn't wait to run out of ammo at night when they were near enough to be handed a beer from the nearest lodges. I want to see how people explain that breaking from protection, than stopping to accord covering fire - mounted or not - would result in fewer casualties in the 75% of the run to the river itself, then cover the crossing. Look at the photos and read the accounts again. Newish accounts say there was a camp circle already on the eastern bank.

They stop, they die.

It's hard to see how anyone could not note 90% of the command mounting in such a small area even if they didn't hear the command, especially if the "Indian pressure was not so great...."

We've now come as close as a possible "small book or pamphlet explaining in detail, with maps maybe no photos, explaining in military terms exactly how Reno should have covered his retreat from the bottoms." Great. My experience with this sort of thing is that presenter will counter what was done and base his 'analysis' on an unstated assumption that no action of the foe will change, or that from myriad possibilities it will only play out one way, coincidently to his benefit. Use the photos in WCF to augment the maps when the booklet surfaces.