Custer That Man, Custer!

[James N.]

Of course it was his fault. He didn't listen to the scouts and he didn't understand or want to believe what his own eyes told him. It was a stunning defeat and he was in charge on the ground.

His eyes didn't tell him anything - by the time he reached the Crow's Nest haze had made the view so cloudy he couldn't see anything, even by using his field glasses; he obviously still should've listened to the scouts, but we now only know that through hindsight.

 

[dlofting]

So let me get this straight.He split his command Benteen with the pack train Reno with his force Audie takes a roundabout route after telling Reno he'd have support when he attacked. Charges one of the biggest encampments ever gets massacared 'the forces on the redoubt were basically under siege for at least 36 hours and all this after scouts Told him there were more Indias than he could shake a stick at bTerry told him too?and it's not his fault?

Benteen was sent to scout the area south of the LBH encampment. Custer wanted to make sure that he wasn't going to be attacked from that direction.

McDougall with B Company was escorting the pack train.....Mathey was in charge of it.

The meaning of the "we'll support you" assurance given to Reno by Custer through Cooke has been debated for years......it's most likely that Custer originally intended to attack the village at Medicine Tail Coulee Ford but circumstances changed his thinking.

Custer thought the 7th could handle any number of Lakota/Cheyenne.....had he been at the Rosebud a few days earlier he would have known that was wrong. No one had made any arrangements for Crook's force to communicate with Terry/Gibbon/Custer except through Sheridan at his headquarters.

Was Custer responsible for the defeat......sure, he was the commanding officer.

 

[FZ11]

Of course it was his fault. He didn't listen to the scouts and he didn't understand or want to believe what his own eyes told him. It was a stunning defeat and he was in charge on the ground.

You are just repeating "the Myth". There were 2 conversations with the Scouts. You are repeating the first reported conversation with the Scouts upon initial discovery of the village. Subsequently,Indians are discovered opening a ration box that fell off the one of the pack train mules on the back trail. Some of the Scouts then urge Custer to,immediately, attack because of the feared loss of "surprise". The Scouts urge the attack because "the Deal" with Custer is that the Scouts get to keep all of the village ponies they can capture. The Scouts didn't want the ponies to "get away" just like Custer didn't want the Indians to "get away." So those are the facts.

 

[FZ11]

So let me get this straight.He split his command Benteen with the pack train Reno with his force Audie takes a roundabout route after telling Reno he'd have support when he attacked. Charges one of the biggest encampments ever gets massacared 'the forces on the redoubt were basically under siege for at least 36 hours and all this after scouts Told him there were more Indias than he could shake a stick at bTerry told him too?and it's not his fault?

O.K. I'll help you "get it straight." Custer's orders from Terry include the caveat not to let the Indians escape to the South. Benteen is detailed West,by Custer,to fulfill Terry's order. Reno/Benteen are not "on the redoubt". There is no "redoubt", just some hastily thrown up earth,saddles,etc. to hide behind. Got it?

 

[ole]

At the time. the tribes would simply pack up and move when US troopers were in the area. Oooops!

Reno assailed them from one end and barely escaped. Custer assailed them from the other end and got hisself killed. When Terry arrived the next day, there was no village.

 

[Specster]

I think much of Custer's popularity, and unpopularity, rises and falls with the whims of the people who writes the stories, who in turn, at least in part, tell people what they want to hear. After his death he was considered a tragic hero on 2 counts, the ACW and LBH. That lasted quite a while. Gettysburg alone, if the cavalry battle had gone differently - if Custer was not there (even though he was acting under orders, who wasn't?), he still led from the front in the face of supoerior numbers, and stopped the Reb cavalery charge. Had they reached their target the battle, and war, would have been very different. In the PC era he is being sniped, perhaps rightfully so but, you men out there, had u ever been in love with a woman to where it ached? Him taking off to find his wife is certainly a violation, but I can see it after spending enough time on the Plains. We nit pick these historical figures to death when it suits us and others are given carte blanc.

I saw recent documentaries which claimed he was not all that wreckless, and that the indians were very well armed, having better repeating wepaons than much of the USC they were fighting, and that he was not initially going after woman and children, and that issue in complicated. There are so many versions of the battle of LBH. One soldier escaped, indian versions, forensic then and now. I dont know that we will ever be accurate or fair to Custer. It has been in vogue to denigate him. I am sure that will change AGAIN, with time.

 

[Dave Wilma]

The battle and the commander that never stop giving to historians.

 

[dlofting]

The battle and the commander that never stop giving to historians.

Definitely......I guess a lot of it is because we really don't know what Custer did after he left Medicine Tail Coulee. History is great, but history with mystery is fun !!!

 

[Dave Wilma]

IMHO Custer had the choice not to attack IF he had reconned the objective and seen the true size of the village. He also had a choice to inform Benteen and Reno what his plans were.

 

[dlofting]

IMHO Custer had the choice not to attack IF he had reconned the objective and seen the true size of the village. He also had a choice to inform Benteen and Reno what his plans were.

I've often wondered if he did make his plans known, but Reno and Benteen kept quiet about it after the battle and, more importantly, at the Reno Court of Inquiry. The other officers who might have known, battalion commanders Keogh and Yates and Adjutants Cooke and Hodgson, were dead. No way of course, to prove this one way or the other, so it's entirely conjecture on my part.

 

[Dave Wilma]

Reno and Benteen kept quiet about it after the battle and, more importantly, at the Reno Court of Inquiry.

That would be quite a conspiracy for the two of them to keep Custer's plans to themselves after the fact particularly with witnesses in their own commands in the event.

 

[dlofting]

That would be quite a conspiracy for the two of them to keep Custer's plans to themselves after the fact particularly with witnesses in their own commands in the event.

Definitely.....so not likely, but still something I wonder about.

 

[FZ11]

Definitely.....so not likely, but still something I wonder about.

Benteen and Reno knew that Custer was going to attack. Benteen was detailed to scout West to prevent the Indians from escaping South and to return to Custer's trail if no Indians were discovered while Custer and Reno proceeded North to launch the attack on the Village. Custer directed Reno to attack the Village and Custer "would support him with the whole outfit". Subsequent to Reno's launch,Custer decides he will support Reno with a flank attack and proceeds down the valley to do so. Custer sends an order to bring the pack train up and a separate order to Benteen to cut the ammunition pack animals loose if necessary to bring them forward and to "be quick". Benteen and Reno later lied saying they could not hear Custer's firing near the village. Other troopers clearly heard Custer's firing. I agree it's one of Histories Mysteries.

 

[James N.]

It's important to remember that Custer divided his command along lines that had already divided them - that is, the 3 troops that went with Benteen were the same 3 Benteen had as garrison at the outpost where he was stationed (Ft. Rice) prior to the campaign; most of these men were relative strangers to Custer and most of the officers were hostile to him because of Benteen's influence over them. Reno was relatively new to command also and so was something of an unknown quantity. Custer had with him the 5 troops that formed the garrison of Ft. Abraham Lincoln and the officers with whom he was most familiar and therefore trusted, including his brother and brother-in-law. Of the survivors, only Capt. Weir was really a Custer partisan, though Capt. Myles Moylan owed Custer his promotion to company command. Unfortunately, Capt. Weir managed to drink himself to death before he could testify at Reno's inquiry and all the rest hewed to the line of testimony begun by Reno and Benteen and favored by Sherman and Sheridan.

 

[Joe Meyer]

In answer to the questions of my questions at the end of my original post, I meant to ask:

Did Stanley, in his timely letters to his wife, have a pretty fair and accurate opinion of the man who would eventually and shortly lead his own regiment to destruction along the Little Big Horn River? Did Stanley get it right?

It seems that most of you have answered this question one way or another, depending upon your own knowledge of Custer and the events of his life and death.

Thank you for all of that input!