Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument

Lots of flags, reputations, promotions, medals, and glory to be had during those last few days. Prime time for the Custers

IMHO, I don't think these add to the high standards for the medal of honor.
Dually noted and completely wrong , I think every Historian would agree that Custer had his faults but bravery was not one of them.

It does not matter if the CSA was on its last legs or are you of the opinion then that all MoH winners should be questioned including those won in the last weeks of the WWII?.

No? I thought not.
 
I remember the painting of last stand hill put out by Budweiser many years ago. It was in many bars and clubs such as Moose lodge, V.F.W ect ect.... Very famous at the time. I was a child when I first saw it and it was fascinating to me. I think that put me on the road to being interested in American history, especially the Indian wars and the Civil war. Wish I could find a print of it.
 
I remember the painting of last stand hill put out by Budweiser many years ago. It was in many bars and clubs such as Moose lodge, V.F.W ect ect.... Very famous at the time. I was a child when I first saw it and it was fascinating to me. I think that put me on the road to being interested in American history, especially the Indian wars and the Civil war. Wish I could find a print of it.

Check E-Bay....

20210626_061142.jpg
 
The Little Bighorn battlefield park is far away from most of us but given a chance to visit, it's a "no brainer!" My wife and I were there in the summer of 2019, a day before we drove into Yellowstone. And the day before, we were in Bismarck, ND and visited Ft. Abraham Lincoln, where Custer and his men were stationed. Walk into the barracks where the men slept, look at each bed and read the biography of each soldier, note when he died, it's really eerie and cool. George Armstrong Custer, the overly arrogant cavalryman, the soldier who wouldn't wait for help and wanted all the glory, totally got what he had coming at the Little Bighorn.
 
The Little Bighorn battlefield park is far away from most of us but given a chance to visit, it's a "no brainer!" My wife and I were there in the summer of 2019, a day before we drove into Yellowstone. And the day before, we were in Bismarck, ND and visited Ft. Abraham Lincoln, where Custer and his men were stationed. Walk into the barracks where the men slept, look at each bed and read the biography of each soldier, note when he died, it's really eerie and cool. George Armstrong Custer, the overly arrogant cavalryman, the soldier who wouldn't wait for help and wanted all the glory, totally got what he had coming at the Little Bighorn.

I am glad the Custer Battlefield National Monument was changed on December 10, 1991 to the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. This battlefield is a memorial to the U.S. Army soldiers and Native Americans which perished on June 25, 26, 1876. This venue should not in any way, shape or form honor George Armstrong Custer and his arrogance as a military commander. Just my .02 cents.....

Bill
 
I am glad the Custer Battlefield National Monument was changed on December 10, 1991 to the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. This battlefield is a memorial to the U.S. Army soldiers and Native Americans which perished on June 25, 26, 1876. This venue should not in any way, shape or form honor George Armstrong Custer and his arrogance as a military commander. Just my .02 cents.....

Bill
I agree with you, Bill. I am pretty sure you will agree, however, that the ordinary soldiers who had to follow their arrogant leader into a foolhardy expedition deserve to be honored, as do the natives who died fighting them.
 
I agree with you, Bill. I am pretty sure you will agree, however, that the ordinary soldiers who had to follow their arrogant leader into a foolhardy expedition deserve to be honored, as do the natives who died fighting them.

This is why I included the U.S. Army soldiers and Native American warriors in my above post. My point in my above post was directed towards them and not to glorify Custer.

Bill
 
Dually noted and completely wrong , I think every Historian would agree that Custer had his faults but bravery was not one of them.

It does not matter if the CSA was on its last legs or are you of the opinion then that all MoH winners should be questioned including those won in the last weeks of the WWII?.

No? I thought not.
Not sure of your point beyond disagreement.

My singular point was that the Custer "heroics" described seemed more to do with low hanging fruit and not particularly of MOH caliber.

Your other examples were not part of my critique.
 
... Lots of flags, reputations, promotions, medals, and glory to be had during those last few days. Prime time for the Custers

IMHO, I don't think these add to the high standards for the medal of honor.
At the time the MOH was the ONLY medal available, so it was somewhat routinely awarded and not only for deeds involving "high standards". One of these automatic presentations was for the "capture" of enemy colors or flags, which might involve nothing more than picking them up off the ground after their bearers fell, as happened after Pickett's Charge. Tom Custer's actions were certainly more impressive than that, and it's more likely he actually deserved his, especially after being shot while in the process. It wasn't until around the time of the Spanish-American War that the rules were clarified making the MOH an award strictly for gallantry and the roles purged of some of the more egregiously spurious ones like to surgeon and crank Mary Walker and the members of the 27th Maine who did nothing more than agree to stick around during the Gettysburg Campaign a few days after their enlistments expired - and they were nowhere near the battlefield!
 
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I remember the painting of last stand hill put out by Budweiser many years ago. It was in many bars and clubs such as Moose lodge, V.F.W ect ect.... Very famous at the time. I was a child when I first saw it and it was fascinating to me. I think that put me on the road to being interested in American history, especially the Indian wars and the Civil war. Wish I could find a print of it.
Bill, that looks like smaller one; I had the large one at home hanging over my bed throughout my high school & college years! My father had gotten it, plus a smaller one of a stagecoach being attacked by Indians, for me from a local beer distributor. It was later destroyed by TERMITES that tunneled up from beneath the cement pad that my first-floor apartment closet stood upon. I had it stored in there and hadn't looked at it for a long time; when I did, I discovered a HUGE nest of the little b*st*rds who had incorporated one whole side of the print into it.
 
At the time the MOH was the ONLY medal available, so it was somewhat routinely awarded and not only for deeds involving "high standards". One of these automatic presentations was for the "capture" of enemy colors or flags, which might involve nothing more than picking them up off the ground after their bearers fell, as happened after Pickett's Charge. Tom Custer's actions were certainly more impressive than that, and it's more likely he actually deserved his, especially after being shot while in the process. It wasn't until around the time of the Spanish-American War that the rules were clarified making the MOH an award strictly for gallantry and the roles purged of some of the more egregiously spurious ones like to surgeon and crank Mary Walker and the members of the 27th Maine who did nothing more than agree to stick around during the Gettysburg Campaign a few days after their enlistments expired - and they were nowhere near the battlefield!
Thanks for that James. That is the basis for my post, with the added egotism of the Custer
 
This is why I included the U.S. Army soldiers and Native American warriors in my above post. My point in my above post was directed towards them and not to glorify Custer.

Bill
I too don't have a problem with the name change to the Battlefield so as to honor both the U.S. soldiers' and Native Americans, Were they both not Americans?

I've been fortunate to have visited the battlefield twice, both times as a side trip after fishing the Big Horn River, (big fish stacked like cord wood).
The second time was just before they began building the Indian memorial . They had a small model of what the new monument was going to look like in the visitor's center, and I'd like to go back to see to see if the real Indian Memorial looks as impressive as I thought the model was. While I was looking at the model, I noticed two other groups in the center, and they kept looking at each other and I could feel some tension in the air. It turned out one group was from the Crow tribe, and the other Sioux, traditional enemies for generations, before and after the battle.
 
I love the Little Bighorn Battlefield. It´s a very moving place, and a great field to study. The driving tour is excellent, and if you´re there on a hot day in the summer, it´s easy to put yourself in the shoes or moccasins of those who were there. I ran around the walking trail inside Reno´s position, sucking on a pebble to get a feeling for what it was like to be there without water supply. (In fact some of the MoH awarded for that battle were to men who went down to the river to fill canteens.)
Custer is problematic. I firmly believe he was one of the best, if not the best, cavalrymen the United States Army ever produced. He understood the speed, firepower and shock effect of cavalry as an offensive arm. He was also a victim of his own experience. He felt Natives wouldn´t stand against determined cavalry - after all, they didn´t at the Washita when he commanded there. He was also a boy in grown-up clothes. He was very, very young, and acted the way young lieutenants and captains acted. I would have hated to have served under him because I don´t think I would have been one of his favorites and martinets drove me insane when I was a combat arms officer. But I must respect his ability: he knew his way around cavalry.
 
I have a question, perhaps slightly off topic regarding the Medal of Honor since it has been discussed above.

Books and articles I've read are consistently inconsistent about the name by which we should refer to the medal.

Congress created the medal and there is a Congressional Medal of Honor Society founded in 1958 to support medal recipients.

Congress does not award this medal; one is presented by the executive branch of the United States government.

Is the correct way to refer to this medal as "Medal of Honor" or "Congressional Medal of Honor"?
 
I recently read a pretty good book on the battle; "A Damned Big Fight" by John G Roberts.
The author did a pretty good job of interpreting the Native American oral history of the battle and combining that with what was known from the soldier survivors.
I don't think it would be the first book one should read about the battle, but after one has an understanding of the battle, it fills in some gaps.
 
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