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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
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Anonymous Poster8169
Brigadier General
Status: offline |
 Posted - June 08 2004 : 10:22:07 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by wILD I
I made the point about Cooke carrying the message because generally this was the practice in most armies.Young officers were attached to HQ and were well aquainted with the situation and the wishes of the commanding officer.
Benteen would not as easely have dismissed an officer as he did Martin.
Regards
It wasn't really the practice in frontier armies. Officers were too important to be used as errand boys, especially when they had several competent people available around them. Sergeant Major Sharrow, Chief Trumpeter Voss, Trumpeter Martin, Sergeant Kanipe, Private McIlhargey, and Private Mitchell were all used as messengers by the various commands during and shortly before the battle. All, with the exception of Martin, were experienced soldiers. All, with the exception of Martin, were given oral orders to relay.
Martin is the anomaly here, and the things that make him anomalous suggest that his message might very well have been considered, at the time, the least important of the day. If Custer was anxious that Benteen be "well acquainted" with the situation he might just as well have sent Sharrow, who probably had nothing better to do, but he did not.
R. Larsen
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lorenzo G.
Captain
Italy
Status: offline |
Posted - June 08 2004 : 10:34:53 AM
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Well, it means really that we don't understand each other. Attack was not an option. Where and when attack could have been an option. From all the circumstances explained right up in the last post, Custer was compelled to attack; from the orders, what they expected from him, from the circumstances.
Of course, I don't pretend to have the truth, this is my own opinion. |
If it is to be my lot to fall in the service of my country and my country's rights I will have no regrets.
Custer |
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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
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lorenzo G.
Captain
Italy
Status: offline |
Posted - June 08 2004 : 10:45:13 AM
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| what I told right up here? |
If it is to be my lot to fall in the service of my country and my country's rights I will have no regrets.
Custer |
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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - June 08 2004 : 11:07:48 AM
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| If I understand you, you're incorrect. Custer had several options. He was neither compelled nor ordered to attack but to use his head. He chose to attack of his own free will; he was not channelled into it by circumstances beyond his control. |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
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lorenzo G.
Captain
Italy
Status: offline |
Posted - June 08 2004 : 11:56:07 AM
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| That's your opinion that don't agree with mine. I agree with Hutton version instead, that show how Custer was compelled etc. as I explained in my previous posts. But of course I respect your opinion. |
If it is to be my lot to fall in the service of my country and my country's rights I will have no regrets.
Custer |
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joseph wiggs
Brigadier General
Status: offline |
Posted - June 08 2004 : 10:12:55 PM
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"At least Lorenzo, you have provided a fine illustrative example of how Martini probably confused and misled everyone by thinking his english was better than it was, and that he thought he said things he had not or hadn't said things he had."
Lorenzo, you are quite correct. The entire mission was planned, developed, and enacted for the sole purpose of punishing the Indians who were viewed as recalcitrant. Punishment of Indians, during his era, did not consist of a spanking or being sent to ones room.
To equate ones knowledge with his ability to speak a foreign language is reprehensible and crass. On behalf of the majority of the members of this forum, let me be the first to apolgize. |
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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - June 08 2004 : 10:40:17 PM
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Of course, Wiggs, nobody equated his knowledge with his language skills. He isn't and hasn't said what he thinks he has, and this ought to be called to his attention, because he sometimes makes no sense whatever.
In your haste to position yourself as a PC hero of the first rank, you are hampered again by not understanding what has been written here, including your own stuff.
Further, it was not designed as a putdown, but meant seriously. If Martini talked as Lorenzo writes, much is explained. After all, he says his English wasn't too good at Reno's Inquiry, which led to confusion on the record (regarding whether he'd gone to the train after Benteen) so it must have been really BBC/Etonian debate quality at the LBH three years earlier when exhausted, scared, and being shot at. God only knows what Martin thought he overheard or what the orders were in addition to his note.
It's an unexciting aspect, but look what Martin is the sole source for. It's potentially quite important, insofar as anything is. |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
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lorenzo G.
Captain
Italy
Status: offline |
Posted - June 09 2004 : 08:49:25 AM
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I have a lot of correspondence at the foreign. Lot of friends in the States that never misunderstood a word of what I write.
What I write it's so simple and simple is the sense. Other people understood, you don't.
There is an old adagio here in my country: "There is no greatest dumb of the one which do not want to hear". |
If it is to be my lot to fall in the service of my country and my country's rights I will have no regrets.
Custer |
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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - June 09 2004 : 11:38:05 AM
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How in the world would you know they understand?
Not to put too fine a point on it, Lorenzo, but you use 'foreign' as a noun. It's an adjective. I can assume what you mean, but in aggregate, this is a burden to decipher, and to be held responsible if I mistake what you're trying to say is annoying when you don't understand your error or how it prompted the response it did.
That's my point about Benteen and Martin, and why Martin's alleged assurance that the Indians were running - when he'd seen no such thing - aggravates. At the end of it all, I can well imagine why Benteen was furious at him, knowing he was in a lose/lose situation with the public if he's seen as blaming a recent immigrant who tried hard and is so sympathetic. His buddies might understand him and get tired of correcting him, and Martin assumes he's got it down cold, pretty much.
Even in the twenties, Martin's descriptions followed by his conclusions suggest his English STILL isn't very good, because he doesn't seem to connect them and see any inconsistency. This might be attributed to age, but it's apparently the same story he's mostly told all along.
An adage is what you meant to say, adagio is a music piece. Strictly speaking, the quote makes no sense, grammatical or otherwise. I assume you mean to say 'no one is as stupid as he who refuses to hear.' Correct?
You think it's simple, Lorenzo, but you're not exchanging platitudes with friends whose meanings can be safely assumed by key word identification. Much of the LBH controversy is over interpretation of orders and who said what to whom when. Very specific stuff.
I consider your resolute participation a great asset, and I hope your English continues to improve, but you have to make allowances as we do and entertain the possibility your English isn't as good as you think it currently is. |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
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lorenzo G.
Captain
Italy
Status: offline |
Posted - June 09 2004 : 12:52:40 PM
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I don't think at all that my english is good. Never told this. But I simply think that can be understandable. The adage don't concern stupidity, just the will to hear someone other opinion: Someone that don't want to listen is more dumb then a real dumb, cause there's no way to make him hear.
I will stay on the field. |
If it is to be my lot to fall in the service of my country and my country's rights I will have no regrets.
Custer |
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joseph wiggs
Brigadier General
Status: offline |
Posted - June 09 2004 : 10:10:11 PM
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| Lorenzo, Please continue to express your viewpoint on this forum. Do not be dicouraged. Your comments are of great importance. Your statement, "There is no greatest dumb of the one which do not want to hear", is reminiscent of another adage, "None are so blind as they who refuse to see." |
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lorenzo G.
Captain
Italy
Status: offline |
Posted - June 10 2004 : 04:29:35 AM
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Thank you Joseph: I will follow the call of duty  |
If it is to be my lot to fall in the service of my country and my country's rights I will have no regrets.
Custer |
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joseph wiggs
Brigadier General
Status: offline |
Posted - June 18 2004 : 9:39:26 PM
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| Lorenzo, I do not speak Italian. However, I fully understand each and every post you have submitted to this forum, thus far. You are here because you care and, you have something of importance to say. You have been consistant in stating that you feel General Custer has been, unduly, labelled an incompetent fool who got his men killed needlessly. You have, consistently asked us to see the other side of the picture,to be open in our thougts for other possibilities. You have consistently asked us to act like gentlemen and deal with each other respectfully. It is for these reasons that I ask you to continue to submit your posts, we need more "Martinis." |
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Was Custer To Blame?
