Today in History

Jayhawker

George Armstrong Custer and 267 Troopers and Scouts of the 7th U.S. Cavalry died at the Little Bighorn....

Big Chief

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc2UamEkRjk

Buford

To bad they couldn't have bought the tank with them.

early

I have a book by Colonel W A Graham specific to the battle and another about Edward Curtis by Timothy Egan. Both contain interviews of the surving Native American scouts, with an approximate time interval of fifteen years. I plan to compare the accounts for consistency, but keep putting it off.

CaliFFL

Jayhawker wrote: »

George Armstrong Custer and 267 Troopers and Scouts of the 7th U.S. Cavalry died at the Little Bighorn....

I walked the battlefield on the anniversary a few years ago. I highly recommend it.

horselips

I seethe with anger when I contemplate the Indian monument at the Little Big Horn, because of it, I will never, ever visit this battlefield. God bless George Custer, our Golden Cavalier, and our 7th Cavalry.

Custer's portrait hangs in my den's gallery of great Indian fighters, right between Hernando Cortez and Francisco Pizarro.

Jayhawker

Actually...Custer was a martinet and an all-around D ick ...entirely deserving of his end...his troopers on the other hand...not so much...

1965Jeff

I really want to visit this area to see how the troopers moved and fought on the hills. For Custers group the Indians pretty much just overwhelmed them as soon as contact was made , Reno barely was able to repulse the force he met.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Big Chief

Draw your own conclusions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Little_Bighorn

CaliFFL

horselips wrote: »

I seethe with anger when I contemplate the Indian monument at the Little Big Horn, because of it, I will never, ever visit this battlefield. God bless George Custer, our Golden Cavalier, and our 7th Cavalry.

Custer's portrait hangs in my den's gallery of great Indian fighters, right between Hernando Cortez and Francisco Pizarro.

If it makes you feel any better, Custer's memorial is bigger.

Antonio

Few years ago while renewing my gun licenses at the local "BATF" I was able to see a bunch of old, battered guns on top of a desk, getting catalogued for the seasonal melt-down program.
Asked to see them and found in the small pile a Colt SA revolver with the classic "US" stamp in the grips; other than rust and patina and a broken mainspring, gun was complete and matching, and to my amazement the S/N was in the range of those revolvers assigned to Custer's troopers before the battle, according to an online article (Can't recall the source....G&A maybe) I had casually read a couple days before.

Tried to find a way to spare it from the fire, but there was no use, and in fact the inspectors said that such gun had "no local historical relevance whatsoever" so eventually off tho the pot it went....SO sad!

Jayhawker

Wambli Ska wrote: »

Interesting bumper sticker I saw on a PU truck owned by a native American said "Custer had it coming...". Tough to forget he ordered an attack against seriously overwhelming numbers. A very poor decision in his part that can only be justified by perhaps arrogance?

He was also acting outside of his orders...he was supposed to be part of a three-pronged attack....

early

It was a collective calamity of errors.

Custer fell victim to believing his own hyperbole and is in all likelihood deserving of his fate.

tennmike

Visited the battlefield back in 1981. If there was a place to make a last stand and get beat like a drum, Custer picked a good one to do that. No cover and he didn't have the high ground. And he was outnumbered and outgunned.

CaliFFL

Big Chief wrote: »

Draw your own conclusions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Little_Bighorn

I just spent a few minutes reading the link.

Role of Indian noncombatants in Custer's strategy[edit]

Custer's field strategy was designed to engage noncombatants at the encampments on the Little Bighorn so as to capture women, children, and the elderly or disabled[21]:297 to serve as hostages and human shields. Custer's battalions were poised to "ride into the camp and secure noncombatant hostages"[22] and "forc[e] the warriors to surrender".[23] Author Evan S. Connell observed that if Custer could occupy the village before widespread resistance developed, the Sioux and Cheyenne warriors "would be obliged to surrender, because if they started to fight, they would be shooting their own families."[21]:312[24]

In Custer's book My Life on the Plains, published just two years before the Battle of the Little Bighorn, he asserted:
Indians contemplating a battle, either offensive or defensive, are always anxious to have their women and children removed from all danger…For this reason I decided to locate our [military] camp as close as convenient to [Chief Black Kettle's Cheyenne] village, knowing that the close proximity of their women and children, and their necessary exposure in case of conflict, would operate as a powerful argument in favor of peace, when the question of peace or war came to be discussed.[25]

On Custer's decision to advance up the bluffs and descend on the village from the east, Lt. Edward Godfrey of Company K surmised:
[Custer] expected to find the squaws and children fleeing to the bluffs on the north, for in no other way do I account for his wide detour. He must have counted upon Reno's success, and fully expected the "scatteration" of the non-combatants with the pony herds. The probable attack upon the families and capture of the herds were in that event counted upon to strike consternation in the hearts of the warriors, and were elements for success upon which General Custer fully counted.[26]:379

I can't believe he held hero status for as long as he did. I realize ROE was different back then, but damn.

Teach

early wrote: »

It was a collective calamity of errors.

Custer fell victim to believing his own hyperbole- - - - -

Custer was a Marine?
:uhm:
Jerry