U.S. 7th Cavalry takes a whipping in Montana from the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes.



June 25, 1876

There are so many interesting sides to this story and the multitude of sub-stories. About twenty five years ago, I spent a couple of years of my spare time researching everything I could find. Since then, forensic archeology has added even more layers to the plot. Wish I could get back into it, but the urge is just not there anymore...

Pot smoking, college indoctrinated, horse scared, gun ignorant archaeologists will most definitively add another dimension.

Actually Dr Doug Scott is heavy into Winchesters.

Custer was long overdue and had it coming.

All just a waste of time - everyone knows that Lee Harvey Osawld killed them all.

Someone who is capable of such things should post a version of "Gary Owen".

Shrapnel?

You gotta' love ignorance.

We are only a few months away from significant historical documentation of little known or investigated aspects of the battle and aftermath. It is amazing how much people that don't know anything, know so much...

These New Age historians will have their say but it won't change the fact that Custer was no coward.

Vine DeLorean's book does seem a little weak under further review...

Custer had a taste of what retirement was like. He was an arrogant fool that wanted to die in battle instead of a rocking chair. He knew this was his last battle going into it. He died with what glory he could on the battle field.

An Historical reference to this would help this comment. Custer had all the confidence that he could capture enough non-combatants to bring the Indians to their knees. It was done before and he could do it again.

If you do research Indians and Indian wars, you will understand more of the tactics of the Battle. References to the traditional hearsay of the Washita campaign without studying, much less understanding what went on, people continue to use that as an attack on Custer, yet they don't even know why or how it happened.

It would be better to learn more of Custer and the Civil War as well as his Indian campaigns on the plains before commenting about him being foolish, stupid and many other borrowed comments...

Here's a short 2-minute version. Vocals for first minute only, drums & fifes follow.
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Just for fun:
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[video:youtube]xWGAdzn5_KU[/video]
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--Bob

Custer did a lot of things, but what he didn't do was ride willy-nilly into that battle.

Is it true a horse mia from the battle showed up in a livery stable in Kansas City on its own?

Always an interesting topic to me.
There is quite a bit of info out there written by people who were there or knew people who witnessed it to get the picture.
Custer's biggest fear was that the Indians would "skedaddle" before he could get to them.
Just got done reading a documentation on Sitting Bull after he surrendered. "Sitting Bull, Prisoner of War", by Dennis Pope, published by the South Dakota State Historical Society Press.
He wouldn't say much about his battles with white men, but what he did say was the number of warriors at LBH was greatly exaggerated. 2000 at most.
Sitting Bull did not want to fight, quoted here.

"...I never stood in the white man's country. I never committed any depredations in the white man's country. I never made the white man's heart bleed. The white man came on my land and followed me. The white man made me fight for my hunting grounds. The white man made me kill him or he would kill my friends, my women, my children."

The book is documentation, not speculation, about his time as a prisoner at Ft Randall. I read things and saw a few pictures I hadn't seen or heard before.

Sitting Bull repeatedly said all he wanted was to be left alone in his own country to hunt and roam at will, and to trade with the white man.

After the first day of fighting at LBH many were sick of killing, he told the warriors enough people had been killed. He said they could have killed the remaining troops on the bluff (Reno), but knew other soldiers were coming and needed to get the women and children to safety so the whole camp was moved to the southwest to the mountains, then south along the foothills east of the Bighorns for some distance. Then circling counter-clockwise all the way up to what is now northwest SD to the slim buttes country at the headwaters of the Grand River. That fall they moved back to the Powder River country and spent the winter at the headwaters of the Powder.

Sitting Bull was quite the celebrity while prisoner, he even sold his autograph for one silver dollar a crack.

shrap, can you expand on this, please?

Actually, that's exactly what he did. Custer was not a strategist or tactician. His favored tactic was a headlong charge into the enemy. He was a brave man but was last or nearly so in his class at West Point. As Shrapnel said, this tactic served him well at the Washita and he hoped to re-create that success at the Little Bighorn. Before the Washita, Chivington had used it successfully at Sand Creek in Colorado during the war. The US Army specifically targeted the hostile's families and commissary.

I was their yesterday and it was pretty neat place to visit. Just seeing it and seeing what those troopers had to go through was something else.

Custer over-looked one proven axiom of warfare!

"Never under-estimate your enemy!"

Shrapnel, I'm with you; but discussing the battle with most of the guys on here is a lost cause because they won't read more than one history book (if any). Like a lot of people, they just regurgitate some questionable information they got from "someplace".

The current "someplace" is probably the new mini-series on the AMC Channel about legends of the American West (or something like that). Don't watch it: You'll risk breaking your jaw when it hits the floor!

Still, it's not too bad. You should see the discussion on the same topic on some other forums.

I was anxious to watch the series "Legends Of The West" and I thought Bill O'Reilly was better informed and needless to say was quite disappointed in the same "regurgitated" drivel that has shadowed Custer for the past century.

Custer died a hero's death and all these years later is considered a fool by revisionists that apply PC theology to a battle, historical figure and the circumstances that don't fit with today's way of thinking.

What a complete joke this has become and so many uneducated people keep piling it on, yet they don't have a clue to what it is that they pile on...

There were several survivors, Comanche being the most famous:

https://biodiversity.ku.edu/visit/exhibits/comanche

http://billingsgazette.com/news/sta...3d1fac8-9a61-593f-b67b-dbed3de6220f.html

Who do you think would be a more fearful adversary? Jeb Stuart with thousands of troops at his command or 2,000 Indian warriors on the open plains...

I have a reprinted book, Indian Fights And Fighters by Cyrus Townsend Brady, © 1904, Introduction by James T. King, University of Nebraska press, © 1971. The book goes into depth with survivors of the Custer campaign that led to the disaster at the Little Big Horn. Brady actually interviewed a number of the soldiers and officers who were survivors of Reno's and Benteen's commands during the fight.

Brady, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, after discharge, moved to Omaha, Nebraska, in 1886, where he had access to retired soldiers, documents, etc. In his book he details the after-battle arguments and disagreements of participants, and whether or not Custer disobeyed an order from General Terry, the night before the battle, as witnessed by two officers at that meeting.

Brady also interviewed at length a number of Indian survivors who fought against Custer... at least those who would agree to talk about the battle and what they did and saw.

The book also details the court martial of Major Reno. Reno had a very serious problem with alcohol and it caused his dismissal in disgrace from the Army.

Lots of interesting information in the book .... if you can find a copy.

L.W.

At Gettysburg, Custer unraveled Lee's (JEB Stuart's) assault on the east flank. Lee put all of his cavalry one one side of his army to over run the union. It was a bold move, and thwarted by Custard. Cutting off the Baltimore pike would have given the South a negotiate peace. I'll be there this weekend for the battle anniversary, and a birthday party.

Custer wore an Arrow shirt.

OK

Gettysburg is talked about more than any other battle of the Civil War and yet few even know of Custer's involvement. He did it with 500 troops. One of the most revered Civil War generals was sent running by Custer and a far inferior number of Michigan Wolverines.

Not long afterward, Stuart was killed at Yellow Tavern, again at the hands of Custer. Lee was first given the opportunity for unconditional surrender at the end of the Civil War by Custer and subsequently did sign conditions for surrender to Grant at Appomattox.

There is a lot of the Civil War people don't know anything about, but everyone knows Custer graduated at the bottom of his class at West Point. Then at the age of 23 he became a General in the Union Army, something that no other top graduate of West Point has ever done.

Still people take the time to criticize Custer, not knowing anything about him other than what they heard from some other unsubstantiated source..