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Post by Herb on Jun 18, 2010 5:00:18 GMT -5
One final thought. I am and always have been troubled by the Deep Ravine story at the very end of the fight. I know it is a painting but look at Von Schmitd and tell me if you were trying to save your life if you would deliberately run with fifteen or twenty of your nearest and dearest into that cut of land immediately to the left of Custer's personal guidon bearer, with hope of reaching the timber along the river and supposed safety, which by the way is right across a fifty foot wide rather shallow river from one hell of a lot of Indians (I hate run on sentances as you can see) ?? I think the reason that no bodies were found or at least marked there is because they were not there. People have been confusing Cemetery Ravine and Deep Ravine for years, possibly since 27 June 76. Interesting thought, I, too have always been troubled by this - just doesn't make sense for even panicked men. Also, liked your comments about a LAST STAND. Nobody, should ever expect a last stand to be disciplined lines standing firm following the field manuel to the letter, instead they should picture desperate, scared men doing the best that they can, while displaying the gamut of human emotion.
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Post by Paul Sylvain on Jun 18, 2010 5:25:51 GMT -5
Also, liked your comments about a LAST STAND. Nobody, should ever expect a last stand to be disciplined lines standing firm following the field manual to the letter, instead they should picture desperate, scared men doing the best that they can, while displaying the gamut of human emotion. I believe you have hit the proverbial nail on the head. It was so at the Alamo and it was so at LBH. Paul
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Post by Allen Wiener on Jun 18, 2010 7:51:45 GMT -5
Also, liked your comments about a LAST STAND. Nobody, should ever expect a last stand to be disciplined lines standing firm following the field manual to the letter, instead they should picture desperate, scared men doing the best that they can, while displaying the gamut of human emotion. I believe you have hit the proverbial nail on the head. It was so at the Alamo and it was so at LBH. Paul I agree; I can't think of a better way to put it! Allen
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Post by Chuck T on Jun 18, 2010 11:19:43 GMT -5
Thanks for your comments guys. I was begining to think that I was a voice crying in the wilderness about these two aspects of the Custer fight. I think Herb is correct that people faced with situations such as these do predictable things, that seem to the observer as unpredictable and irrational. It all comes down to fight or flight. If you take away the possibility of flight they will fight. The reverse is also true. Not all in either case, but most.
Most of what happens on the battlefield is a matter of leadership, training, and dicipline.
Company F, 7th Marines held Toktong Pass the back door for the 1st Marine Division at Chosin against incredible odds. They never moved, they endured , and they won. Task Force Smith a much larger unit was driven off their position at Osan in a matter of a few hours.
Company F faced very long odds of more than a division of Chinese troops. Task Force Smith was outnumbered on the order of 3 or 4 to one. Company F was very well trained and experienced and led by Captain William Barber who was awarded the MOH for this action. Task Force Smith was a scratch force of a partial battalion that litterly took in fillers on the fly. They had been occupation troops in Japan until the day before. They were not trained and while some of the officers and NCO had seen service in WWII the majority were green kids.
Custer's force was much like Task Force Smith. "Of Garryowen in Glory" has an interesting table as an appendix that shows how Custer had to reshuffel the deck for the campaign,as far as his officers were concerned. It takes time to get to know the strengths and weaknesses of your unit. Who to trust, who not to trust matters. Over half of the troopers present at LBH had less than a year of service, most of that half, much less. Absolutely no field training had been conducted in preparation for the campaign. The NCO corps was not particularly strong with some notable exceptions. The command climate in the regiment stunk, as we have discussed many times before. To tell you the truth it is a wonder that Custer did as well as he did.
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Post by Herb on Jun 18, 2010 13:21:15 GMT -5
Chuck, doubtless you've read if not met Harry Summers, I can't quite remember if he was with TF Smith or with the immediate follow on forces, but he told us in detail his experiences at an Armor Conference breakfast back in the 90s, the same time Gen Sullivan was emphasizing no more TF Smiths. Quite a man.
Sorry for the interruption!
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Post by Chuck T on Jun 18, 2010 15:38:06 GMT -5
Herb: I never met but certainly have read Summers. He was I believe Honorary Colonel of the 21st Infantry, and it was the 1st Battalion (-), 21st Infantry that formed the core of TF Smith, so he very well could have been there or with the other battalion of the 21st that followed them into Korea.
It is to bad that Brad Smith got his name forever tagged with this fiasco. From what I understand he was quite a good and certainly well respected officer.
As I think about it there are so many similarities between Osan and LBH it's scarry. Weapons and ammo that did not work, units put together with no training, out of shape soldiers, and the list goes on.
I remember Sullivan's no more Task Force Smith campaign. I thought it was hypocrisy then as I do now. The problem was not with the so called "hollow units". The problem was with the Army leadership that made them that way.
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Post by Paul Sylvain on Jun 18, 2010 18:38:39 GMT -5
Man, this thread has taken on a life of its own ... and I'm loving it. Isn't it funny how so many people drawn to the Alamo saga, also are immersed in Custer and LBH? No mere coincidence, methinks. Both major events share certain aspects, among which is the fact that we will never know with certainty how the events of those two days actually played out.
Keep it coming. I may not agree with everything here, but my mind is open to anything and everything LBH and (like with my take on the Alamo over the years) often will discover something that makes me rethink and shift my position on some aspect of the battle.
Paul
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Post by Chuck T on Jun 18, 2010 19:50:46 GMT -5
Paul: The reason is simple. It is the unanswered and perhaps the unanswerable questions that draw us to these two subjects.
I just finished a book on Dien Bien Phu. It is a story with Alamo implications. While this subject has facinated readers around the world because of the battle's international ramifications, it does not excite the Alamo/LBH genetic imbalance that We Few, We Happy Few seem to share. Why? Again a simple answer. The written record is so very extensive, that everything that is to be known, is known. There is no mystery
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Post by Chuck T on Jun 18, 2010 20:33:26 GMT -5
Paul: Here is what I refer to when I say unanswered and unanswerable:
Does anyone know for certain that Company C attacked toward Greasy Grass Ridge? We think we know because of accounts and evidence. What if this "attack" was really a movement of a portion of the rear guard to a position covering the flank of Company L, an extension of the lines. Could this movement have been ordered by Custer before he moved north? Was it ordered by Keogh as part of the deployment of his rear guard? Has anyone found it strange that in the story that most accept the rear guard deploys one company (L) while keeping two (C&I) in reserve? Rear guard doctrine is slightly different if you are stationary, rather than on the move. When you are stationary you are in fact in a hasty defense, and a few different considerations apply.
Probably going to take some incoming fire on this one so I will hunker down and await your reply.
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Post by Paul Sylvain on Jun 20, 2010 7:12:30 GMT -5
Well, no "incoming" fire from me at this point. What this discussion has done is to point me to a book I was unaware of ... and yesterday, I bought it (and two more older "Alamo" books, for my library). So, let me sit back with a cup (or four) of my favorite morning brew and begin my reading of "A Terrible Glory" by James Donovan.
Stay tuned ...
Paul
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Post by Allen Wiener on Jun 20, 2010 10:32:01 GMT -5
It's well worth reading, Paul. Let us know what you think.
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Post by Paul Sylvain on Jun 21, 2010 19:25:15 GMT -5
Some of y'all might find this link interesting: www.friendslittlebighorn.com/7th%20Cav%20Muster%20Rolls.htmGo down to the bottom of that page and click on the "List of soldiers, officers, and civilians at the Little Bighorn" bar/link and it will open a .pdf file with the entire 7th Cavalry muster from June 25, 1876. Those who survived, those detailed and not present, and those who died. Of particular interest is where these folks were from. Soldiers died from New Hampshire, Massachusetts and other places you wouldn't think of. Enjoy. BTW, I am about a third of the way through Donovan's "A Terrible Glory". Can't seem to put this one down. The description of the Washita attack was pretty good. I visited the site two years ago. The only thing I would debate with Donovan is the notion that Black Kettle's Cheyenne was camped quite some distance from the main body of other camps further down the Washita because of Black Kettle's previous experience at the Sand Creek Massacre. I've read and believe that Black Kettle was not allowed to make his camp with the others wintering on the Washita because of the other tribes' scorn for Black Kettle's signing of some treaties in the past. He was still a proponent for peace with the wasichus -- the whites -- and his camp was generally considered to be a peaceful camp. Black Kettle had just returned from a trip to one of the forts asking for protection against the soldiers and a rumored winter campaign against them. He was denied that protection. Upon his return, there was a meeting of camp leaders and Black Kettle's wife urged her husband to move the camp that night down river closer to the other lodges and tribes. It was late, and bitterly cold, and Black Kettle decided to wait until morning. As fate would have it, his camp was attacked by Custer at first light. Paul
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Post by Allen Wiener on Jun 24, 2010 23:11:01 GMT -5
I think I've finished with my LBH reading in preparation for my trip. I finished up with Fox's archeology book on the battlefield. I think that is a valuable book and gives a good understanding of the layout of the battlefield and where the fighting took place, where the men likely died, etc. However, I have to agree that Fox badly overstates his claim that all of the archeological evidence dashes the "last stand myth" and proves that Custer's battalion "disintegrated" at all points. I have to agree, once again, with Philbrick, who calls this a matter of semantics. Fox equates the last moments in the soldiers' lives with a breakdown in discipline, says it reflects the lack of training in the 7th, and (repetitiously) claims that it disproves the "last stand myth" by showing that, rather than a unified, solid stand to the last man, ala Hollywood, men scattered, ran, threw down weapons, didn't bother fighting, etc. However, he himself shows contrary examples (Tom Custer, for one) of men who fought tenaciously to the end. I think Fox is confusing the realities of a battle like this with Hollywood imagery. What he describes seems like the natural outcome of a battle that turned ferocious quite suddenly, in which the soldiers quickly found themselves increasingly outnumbered, their comrades dropping rapidly, no hope of saving themselves, all behaving in different ways that reacted to that. It's unreasonable and unrealistic to expect otherwise or to state as strongly as Fox does that this finale might have been different had other factors been different, such as better training of the troops or a greater number of more experienced troops, or fewer troops who had been with the 7th a relatively short time. How much would that have mattered if the entire regiment had somehow regrouped on Reno Hill, or if Benteen and a portion of Reno's force had been able to join Custer? That's all hypothetical, too, and no more conclusive.
Moreover, Fox lists many factors that might have played a role in Custer's end, including weaponry, terrain, poor intelligence, quick decisions by Custer that turned out bad, as well as training, cohesion and the command culture (which was pretty rotten).
I hate to compare Fox's book to Tucker's "Exodus from the Alamo," because Fox is well worth reading and I'd recommend it to anyone seriously interested in the LBH battle. But there is one similarity and that is in the way Fox overemphasizes this alleged "last stand myth" as a strawman and then repeatedly knocks it down, as if he's the first person who accurately dissected the battle and explained it. I doubt any serious student of the LBH has believed the "last stand myth" for a very long time, if ever. Like Tucker, Fox makes the assumption that it is the only or predominant picture of Custer's end in the public's consciousness. It may be Hollywood's impression, but not really history's.
Regardless of that misgiving, I thought the book was very helpful and I was able to really begin understanding the picto-map of the battlefield much more clearly than I had previously. I now understand why Chuck places such emphasis on that map and I plan to take it with me to LBH. It is the only one I've seen that includes all of the important location place names, notes on the markers, human remains, and artifact locations, and notations for the roadside markers that are in place along Battle Road, which is what we'll be following.
Allen
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Post by Paul Sylvain on Jun 25, 2010 4:29:00 GMT -5
I finished my read of Donovan's "A Terrible Glory" last night. After reading it, and getting a sense of how the battle progressed, clearly, the entire engagement took some period of time to unfold. Donovan's research and story-telling makes that painfully clear. It was not the quick, maybe 30-minute fight I long believed it was. I can't recommend this book highly enough.
Allen, I expect to read a full account of your visit when you are back from LBH. It is one thing I must do before I pass on. Just beware of the rattlers. Safe trip.
Oh, and today is June 25th, isn't it?
Paul
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Post by Del Groves on Jun 25, 2010 7:27:15 GMT -5
Thought all might be interested in this: I just heard on my local NPR station that today at an auction in New York (City?) a flag flown at the Little Big Horn will be auctioned and is expected to fetch as much as $5 million. That's all that was said and there was no description. However, I googled it and appears the flag is owned by the Detroit Institute of Art. www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=auction+flag+little+big+horn"A single swallowtail flag was found days later under the body of a fallen soldier. Since 1895, the silk American flag, called a guidon, has been the property of the Detroit Institute of Arts, which has decided to sell it and use the proceeds to build its collection. The guidon, discovered by Sgt. Ferdinand Culbertson while on a burial detail of the battlefield, has been valued at $2 million to $5 million and will be auctioned in October, Sotheby's auction house announced on Friday, the 134th anniversary of the battle."
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