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7th Cav at LBH..was forced to fight on foot.

The horses they had were of poor quality and not cav trained for horseback shooting.
So Custer ordered that should a fight ensue they dismount and fight on foot.
Ever tried to hold a scared plunging horse and shoot a trapdoor at the same time?
I imagine some soldiers held multiple mounts while their riders fired but still cuts your forces firepower.

The Indians had a huge advantage there.

The plunging fire from the Indian arrows was actually a fair advantage when you look at it.
They lacked in repeaters but many carried single shots of all sorts.

The Indians were constantly harassing the Cav horses thereby making matters even worse for the soldiers.

For that matter a fair majority of his troops were very poor. Largely untrained and many of them old by military standards.

The pack trains caused them constant headaches as they moved excruciatingly slow.

The plains Indians were very derisive of the Cavs fighting abilities particularly their shooting.
But the soldiers did have some spirit and guts.

So Custers force was a liability...

Up against the best the plains Indians could muster at the time.
Prolly the best light Cavalry in the world!
Also way too many of them for the Cav force to fight.

Small wonder they were massacred...
Sad ending for some very brave and unlucky soldiers.

So why were there so many Indians gathered together at one place at the same time?

That is a book in and of itself. The expansion of the white culture and settling the vast prairies and mountain West, was finishing the encroachment that was started decades before in the East.

Tribal/nomadic lifestyles of most of the American Indians, didn't fit the development that was certain with the European lifestyles and progression.

Plains Indians were forced to Reservations and the reservations weren't all that inhabitable. The Indians that wouldn't accept a forced "Welfare State" rebelled and stayed outside the constraints of the U.S. government set aside reservations.

Custer was one of many tools the Army used to bring the Indians into submission over the decades of Indian wars during the 19th century. The assembled tribes of Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho and other sub tribes of those, were all together sharing the safety of numbers at the Little Bighorn River. The Crow were natural enemies to the Sioux and Cheyenne and helped scout for Custer to assist in the destruction of their enemies.

There had never been such a large gathering of Indians before and due to the circumstances of the western migration and treaties, made and broken, the Indians had come together, knowing their way of life was threatened, but they were not giving up without a fight...

After the Little Bighorn battle was Sitting Bull's group the only Indians to eventually seek refuge in Canada?

Lakota Noon is a good book that gives the Indians narrative of the battle. The author uses interviews given by Indian's testimony of the actual details of the battles and has put them into the time sequence of the entire battle. It can be a hard read at times though with the timeline of the different accounts.

A little more than a year later, in 1877, Nez Perce Indians fleeing Oregon and Idaho made a fighting retreat almost to Canada, where many eventually surrendered. Some Nez Perce did break away, chose not to surrender, and joined Sitting Bulls group in Canada.

Things were happening really fast by that point, not ten years earlier the Lakotas had actually obliged the US to backtrack, and close down forts along the Bozeman Trail.

By 1876 though they were fugitives where less than a decade earlier they had been free to roam. Even though the reservation back then was big, if they left it they had been served notice that they were subject to attack.

Again all this was recent, and would have been tough enough to swallow even if they weren't both aggressive and nomadic by custom.

It shouldn't be assumed that they were unanimous though, IIRC about half of each of the tribes present were still back wherever the home reservations were, these "hang around the forts" fully as brave and resentful, just not agreeing with that course of action for whatever reason. Also, there was a great deal of travel between the reservation crowd and the holdouts, as to be expected, since most had family in both groups.

IIRC the actual catalyst for this particular gathering was the Lakota Sun Dance, which had always been a major occasion drawing folks together. This particular one was of likely of even greater significance given the perilous uncertainty of the time.

Two years earlier in 1874, the Kiowas and Comanches had put on a sun dance, which was not one of their prior customs. Again who attended it were primarily the more disaffected half of the tribes, by that time many Comanches especially had been settled down for some years. The sense of it is is that this sun dance was put on out of desperation, by some of the younger men in the tribes, at a time when the old social orders were breaking down under pressure of cultural changes and the increasing prevalence of White Americans.

They dispersed from that sun dance to go and raid, and to war on buffalo hunters, which resulted in the fight and Billy Dixon shot at Adobe Walls.

But... like with the Sioux, even while raiding they were still fugitives in what had not so long before been uncontestedly theirs.

Birdwatcher

What was REALLY happening is that the country was filling up, "Whites like rising flood waters" as Mari Sandoz put it.

While to our eyes the country would still look empty, 1876 was a whole different ballgame than 1868 when Red Cloud's boys had actually turned back the tide for a while. The final nail in the coffin for the Indians was the discovery of Gold in the Black Hills in 1874.

Basically the main reasons the Lakotas and Northern Cheyennes were still a force to be reckoned with in 1876 was first of all they had largely escaped the devastating Northern Plains smallpox epidemics of 1837, which effectively removed the Mandans, Hidatsas and Arikaras, nearly wiped out the Blackfeet and hammered the Pawnee. The Lakotas filled in the power vacuum, prospering and multiplying over the next few decades as well as being joined by more of their Santee kinsmen from Minnesota.

The BIG reason tho is that they were simply out of the way of mainstream White settlement until close to the end of the Frontier period. When the deluge finally turned their way they were promptly overwhelmed, pretty much like all the other tribes before them.

After the close of the 1870's all that was left was the Apaches in the as-yet sparsely settled desert Southwest, but even they were living on borrowed time by that point.

Birdwatcher

U.S. Army doctrine had been for cavalry to be used as mounted infantry for several decades by 1876. The mounted charge was used to inflict surprise and shock, the cavalry "melee" was little used even during the War of the Rebellion.

Rapid fire weaponry had made the mounted charge a much less effective tactic.

Every fourth cavalryman was designated as a horse holder, the horses headgear included a "link strap" for the purpose of connecting the four. Yes, a 25% reduction in fighting force.

Airmobile infantry continues the doctrine and uses helicopters much the same way, to deliver troops rapidly to the battlefield, and then provide mobility upon the battlefield.

The quality of cavalry mounts was good, it is the condition of those horses during a long campaign that was limiting. The 7th had marched from Ft. Lincoln, and then made an arduous forced march to arrive at the Little Big Horn. Cavalry horses required grain and could not subsist on poor grazing while being marched. This required wagons or a pack train. It should be noted that Gen. Crook made his pack trains a priority and was very successful.

The horses were very well trained and often responded to bugle calls without their riders.

Ever see a wild horse, or a picture of a mounted Indian? Their horses were pony sized and while being well adapted to the plains environment required that a rider have multiple mounts, hence the idea of wealth being a large pony herd.

Refer to the books by Fox and you will find that the 7th was well represented with a mix of veterans and recruits. Age was not a factor. No question that the training was inadequate as a result of budget reductions by Congress. During the 1870s' an officer often had to purchase ammunition for his troops target practice.

"Plains Indians best light cavalry in the world?" Not hardly. Ever hear of the Cossacks? Plains Indians were more guerilla fighters, hit and run raids. Fixed battles were rare and usually resulted in defeats with the Rosebud and Little Big Horn being the exceptions.

The Little Big Horn fight and Custers' 7th is a fascinating subject but wrapped with much myth and misinformation. The book Lakota Noon is one of the best and uses the archaeology as well as oral accounts to provide a very credible scenario.

One of the bloodiest actions against Indians on the Plains occurred on October of 1840 Col. John H. Moore led a force of some two hundred men deep into what was then Comancheria and, guided by Lipan Apache allies, surrounded and surprised a Comanche Camp on the Red Fork of the Colorado. Best estimates are around 180 indians killed. Loss on the Texian side was negligible

This slaughter is notable for three things....

1) It is all but forgotten nowadays.

2) Most everybody was using flintlocks, one guy did have a Colt's repeating carbine and noted the slaughter he was able to inflict with it. Moore hisself by that time may have had a revolver or two, but they were way-expensive back then.

3) For their supply train they brung an actual herd of cattle and so were limited on the way in by the slow pace these beasts could travel. That one could propose to sneak up on a Comanche village while driving a herd of cattle is remarkable, and says a lot about how empty the Plains must have been back then.



IIRC, feats of warriors riding 100 miles in a day were not uncommon when pressed, for which of course multiple mounts were needed. I dunno horseflesh that well, are you suggesting fewer mounts would have been needed for those sorts of ordeals if they had bigger horses?

Interesting to relate, I'm recalling Mongol mounts weren't that impressive either but that they conquered most of the Old World on 'em.

Birdwatcher

Thanks for the info on the 1840 fight, I'll have to look that one up.


It's not uncommon to use more than one mount during a hard days work with cows in the mountains, and these are big, strong, and well conditioned horses.

We make several long pack trips each summer and fall which include some 10k' passes. We usually limit our travel to 15 miles a day, and on longer trips sometimes throw in a day for rest. Our horses and mules graze when grass is available, during hunting season we usually pack in and cache hay prior to the season.

The frontier cavalry was limited to one horse per rider because of the requirement to bring feed. A cavalryman would carry some feed on his horse but only several days worth, as well as arms and personal requirements. A larger and stronger horse was a requirement as well as a logistics tail to support the mounts.

Plains Indians traveled light and were not limited in the requirement for feed, their mounts were well adapted to grazing, and smaller as an evolutionary result. On a long and fast retreat they would use as many and whatever horses as they had available. Run em' til' they drop.

Think of it this way. An NFL lineman and a marathon runner are both well conditioned. Over a distance the marathoner will beat the lineman every time, unless you make them both carry 90 pound packs.

Different horses, used in different ways.

Great topic and some good discussion.

AJ

Rooster Cogburn to Ranger LaBoef in "True Grit" ..."How long have you Texicans been mounted on sheep?"

Cavalry mounts were not bought from just any provider. Custer was also a very good judge of horseflesh and would have diferent companies riding different colored horses. Forced marches were not only hard on the soldiers, horses had to be good too. In those days they hung horse thieves, horses were your link to survival...

If you practice a bit, it is not too hard to have a second arrow on the way before the first one hits.
Some of us used to fool around with this at the Fort Dodge, Iowa Horse Archery rendezvous.
We did it standing on our hind legs and the distance had to be long enough to have enough time.
More impressive were the better horse archers winning their events with 3, 4, or 5 arrows on 3 targets in a few seconds from the back of a galloping horse. That is not easy.

Just shooting almost straight up, I think the record is eleven or better before the first arrow hits the ground.