The Battle of the Little Big Horn in 6 minutes

This is quite interesting. Merry Andrew is quite interested in Custer and I brought this up hoping he will see it. He wrote a book called Yellow Leg, which is what the indians called Custer. The reference was to the yellow stripes on the uniform pants.

Thanks

Looks like pure propaganda, and poorly reenacted to boot. I wouldn't swallow it as a straight chalk board presentation. Is it supposed to be more believable because it's on the internet?

Don't know. Just thought it was an interesting perspective.

Personally I thought that Custer was an effete incompetent.

Custer wasn't incompetent, but he may well have been hoping to run for President in 1876. In those days, the campaign did not begin until the conventions had chosen candidates. The Seventh Cavalry were also eating canned goods which had been sealed with lead solder. It is entirely possible that they (Custer included) were suffering from low-grade chronic lead poisoning. Some of the remains of soldiers were dug up at the Greasy Grass a few years ago, and showed the traces of chronic low-grade lead poisoning in the skeletons.

Like the Franklin expedition, they may simply has lost all sense of proportion. Custer's last written communication, to Captain Benteen, shows that he had absolutely no understanding of what he was getting into.

But you don't rule out hubris as the major contributer to his unit's slaughter, right?

I like custard. I dint think it came in any other colour but yellow.

I don't see that that has any bearing on it. If it appeared in the Sunday paper or on TV, it would still have to pass the test of believability.

That video is a crock of sh*t. Major Reno was no drunkard, and the charge that he was intoxicated only came up after it was widely known that Custer had been killed, and people started looking for a scapegoat. There were literally thousands of Indian braves, not 1500. The joker who came up with that tripe (and i even wonder if he is a native speaker of English, the text is so poor) is attempting to suggest that the roughly 500 men of the Seventh Cavalry could easily have dealt with the "braves," had not Benteen played the coward, and had not Reno been a drunkard.

Reno's testimony, and that of Benteen and the other officers who survived with Reno's command, was that he attempted to rejoin Custer, but was unable to do so because of the vast press of thousands of Indian fighters (not 1500, but more like 3- to 5000). Modern battlefield archaeology has found the remains of cavalrymen killed and left on the battlefield exactly along the path that Reno testitfied he took after he retreated to the knoll, unable to rejoin Custer.

Benteen passed Reno's position in attempting to rejoin Custer. It is no secret that Benteen despised Custer, but there is absolutely no reason to suggest that Benteen were insubordinate or disobeyed orders. By the time Reno and Benteen had formed a defensive position on the knoll (which they held for three days), Custer and his command were probably already dead. It is certain that they would have committed suicide to have attempted to rejoin Custer.

The clown who made that video is making a saint of Custer, and a hatchet job on Benteen and Reno.

Now that's the kind of input I was hoping for. I have never made an in depth study of Custer, and much of what I know has been distorted through a lifetime of popular press and media.

In other words, it's one person's bare faced assertation, unsupported by anything.

Since the question was I will rephrase my answer to "No." There, now. You've got the type of input you were asking for - regardless of what you were hoping for.

I was after the truth of the matter. I did not try to steer the discussion, but to monitor it.

I don't however, like cold custard. custard with alcohol is Ok as far as i'm concerned.

Custer was a Nidiot...

Of the preening kind.

(that took less than ten seconds...)










Nidiot is Mame's word, but I thought it worked here....


:wink:

If you were to go to Monroe, Michigan (between Toledo, Ohio and Detroit), it would be even worse. There, the local airport is named for Custer, and they have a "Custer week" every year.

Basically, it was easier to make a martyr and a hero of Custer than it was to explain what had really happened, and to admit that the U.S. Army had been decisively defeated by those whom the general population had been schooled to regard as ignorant savages.

Long before the Indian Wars, before the Civil War, in the Oregon territory, an officer of the Fourth Infantry, Philip Sheridan, told a newspaper man that "The only good Indian I ever saw was dead." It was printed at that time, and Sheridan did not deny it. Long, long afterward, when the Indian Wars were being fought, and Sheridan was in command, it was dredged up, and Sheridan vociferously denied it. However, at no time did Sheridan ever attempt to bring suit against anyone, including those in Oregon in the 1870s who said they had read it at the time, and that Sheridan had boasted about it.

This was the man, who, having legitimately become a hero in the Civil War, command the United States Army in the early phases of the Indian Wars, in the 1870s.

One of the first clues that the video was going to be bullshit was when the claim was made that there were 1500 Indian fighters, and that it was a reasonable expectation that Custer's cavalry regiment could deal with such a force. That was my first tip-off that this was going to be a whitewash of Custer, and that scapegoats were going to be dredged up, and i was not surprised when they came up with the bullshit claim that Reno was drunk, and that Benteen disobeyed orders.

Custer had been a member of the class of 1862 at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, when the Civil War broke out. THe class of 1862 was graduated early, in August 1861. Custer had been a staff officer for George "Little Mac" McClellan, which was actually not a wise career move. But the governor of Michigan wanted to raise a cavalry regiment, and Custer got command of that. He served competently, although not brilliantly--and he got regular promotions, but most of the were brevets. A brevet promotion was what officers were given in those days rather than medals. So Custer finished the war a Lieutenant Colonel, but with the brevet rank of Major General. It went to his head. Whenever actually on service in time of war, he was entitled to at least the courtesy rank of Major General--although the Indian Wars were not a declared war. Custer thought he should have been given command of the expeditionary force, and when he was scouting ahead of Terry's infantry column, he was supposed simply to observe the enemy, and report back to Terry. He made the decision to attack on his own, without consulting Terry--and it can reasonably be said not only to have been a stupid decision, but an insubordinate decision, as well.

I shed no tears for Custer, although i do pity the 250 or more troopers who had to needlessly die for his stupidity, his vainglory, and his political ambitions.

I haven't admired or even liked Custer since I was a teenager. But, I admit, my perception only changed with the times. The popular culture went from Erroll Flynn as the heroic Custer, in, "They Died With Their Boots On," to Dustin Hoffman's film of "Little Big Man." I sort of figured the truth to be somewhere in between. I am grateful you have taken time to fill in some of the gaps.