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Rocky76
Corporal
USA
Status: offline |
 Posted - February 03 2004 : 12:28:22 AM
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A Bridge Too Far: are you associateing the evidence of NCR with Curley? This is a mistake, as I think you are saying...NCR was a real episode.. Curley was real also, but his story has not been told yet, it will, but not by me..
Anonymous: the separation of the command was an illusion, as described by the few warriors that noted it... Luce was right on this one, but it surprises me, and he may have the Company wrong, mebbe, mebbe not. |
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Rocky76
Corporal
USA
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Posted - February 03 2004 : 12:36:04 AM
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| 1908 found Camp, Knipe, and Curley together alone (if that makes sense?). Camp was a good reporter and made few mistakes (some, but not many), and I would doubt that he recorded much of what Curley said in 1908 (the times that they were without interpreters) that was not double checked in other and later interviews. I can tell you that not everything Camp noted is in the collections, unfortunately! |
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Anonymous Poster8169
Brigadier General
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Posted - February 04 2004 : 4:36:57 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by ABridgeTooFar
Curley's accounts are consistent enough that I don't find it very plausible he was telling tales. The inconsistencies between them are of the sort that can more reasonably be attributed to spotty memory, or mistranslation, or both. Inconsistencies like that appear in all accounts, and don't mean much; at least not what you're taking them to mean. Inconsistency is the devil's stamp on history.
As for the theory of the divided command, it would exist with or without Curley; there's no real evidence for a united command attacking at Ford B. As the crow flies.
R. Larsen
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Edited by - Anonymous Poster8169 on February 04 2004 5:17:46 PM |
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Anonymous Poster8169
Brigadier General
Status: offline |
Posted - February 04 2004 : 5:05:51 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Rocky76
Anonymous: the separation of the command was an illusion, as described by the few warriors that noted it... Luce was right on this one, but it surprises me, and he may have the Company wrong, mebbe, mebbe not.
I don't understand you.
R. Larsen
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ABridgeTooFar
Private
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Posted - February 04 2004 : 10:37:05 PM
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The theory that Custer divided up his column in Medicine Tail Coulee did not even exist until 1992. In that year John Shapley Gray came out with his book "Custer's Last Campaign", in which he said that Curley was not the liar that everyone thought him to be. Based on a Curley account of the battle mentioned in two letters by Russell White Bear, Gray theorized that Custer had sent two companies under Captain Yates to Ford B, and three companies under Captain Keogh to Luce ridge. Subsequently other writers, such as Fox, Skelnar and Michno incorporated Gray's theory into their own works. And the whole theory of a divided command stands or falls with Curley's credibility.
For if we discard Curley entirely, what evidence of a divided command are we left with? White Shield saw the Gray Horse Troop at the ford with another troop. Does he know whether the other three companies are nearby or far away? No. The Brule Two Eagles saw the main body of Custer's column at Ford B, and a few troopers off in the hills. And what of it? Perhaps Custer sent a small detachment off somewhere for some reason, or perhaps there were a few stragglers from Custer's column who lagged behind.
There can be no theory of Custer dividing his command unless Curley is a credible witness, and Curley is anything but credible. The New York Herald Tribune of July 26, 1876 quotes Curley as saying that Custer was the last man to die. John Finerty of the Chicago Times quoted Curley as saying thaty Custer recieved a mortal wound an hour before the end of the battle at sunset. Yet in the Camp interviews, Curley never even mentions seeing Custer die, and in the 1908 interview he says the battle ended a half hour after he left! In the 1913 interview, Curley said he was at the summit of Lookout Point until sundown watching the Reno battle, contradicting his earlier statement that he was with Custer's men until sunset.
Curley's three Crow companions did not back up his story at all. They said that Curley left before Custer's battle even took place.
As Shakespeare would put it, Curley's story is "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." |
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Anonymous Poster8169
Brigadier General
Status: offline |
Posted - February 05 2004 : 9:18:18 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by ABridgeTooFar
The theory that Custer divided up his column in Medicine Tail Coulee did not even exist until 1992.
You don't know what you're talking about. The theory is at least as old as Jerry Greene's pamphlet "Evidence and the Custer Enigma," published 1973, perhaps older --- I don't remember everything ever written about the battle. A lot of new thinking on the battle was spurred by the gradual release of the Camp manuscripts.
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And the whole theory of a divided command stands or falls with Curley's credibility.
It doesn't.
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For if we discard Curley entirely, what evidence of a divided command are we left with?
Plenty, in fact. But what evidence is there of a united command? Nothing really, so far as I can see. You certainly haven't mustered anything.
The choice is simple: it was either a united command at the ford, or a divided one. The evidence clearly tilts toward the latter.
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There can be no theory of Custer dividing his command unless Curley is a credible witness,
You're erecting a straw man.
R. Larsen
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El Crab
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - February 05 2004 : 11:56:34 PM
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You have to remember also that there's a lot of theories that weren't really talked about or offered up for debate until recently. A lot has changed in the thinking and investigation of the battle. And Gray wasn't the only person to suddenly decide Indian accounts were just too confusing and contradictory to use.
If you're going to base likelihood of events solely on what was believed before Gray, then you might as well just not read anything from 1970 on. Many theories that no one really thought about have recently been written. |
I came. I saw. I took 300 pictures. |
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El Crab
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - February 05 2004 : 11:59:15 PM
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You have to remember also that there's a lot of theories that weren't really talked about or offered up for debate until recently. A lot has changed in the thinking and investigation of the battle. And Gray wasn't the only person to suddenly decide Indian accounts were just too confusing and contradictory to use.
If you're going to base likelihood of events solely on what was believed before Gray, then you might as well just not read anything from 1970 on. Many theories that no one really thought about have recently been written. |
I came. I saw. I took 300 pictures. |
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ABridgeTooFar
Private
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Posted - February 06 2004 : 12:12:11 AM
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The "straw man" Curley ought certainly to be torn down. He was just the first of many hoaxers claiming to be the sole survivor of Custer's Last Stand.
The debate is no so much over whether Custer's men were divided or unified, but over the size of the division, and its significance to the battle. Studies archeological such as those of Greene may note a trail of artifacts from Ford B and from Luce ridge converging upon the ridge of Nye-Cartwright, and may speculate about whether this showed proof of a "divided command". But if such a divided command actually existed on the battlefield, surely someone would have seen it.
And the only credible account of such a divided command is that of Two Eagles, and he relates that the "main body" of Custer's men were at Ford B and in the hills but a few. And for the main body of the cavalry column to be at the ford suggests all-out efforts to cross the river, to attack the village of the Sioux and Cheyenne, and to support thus the force commanded by Major Reno.
There is ample evidence that Custer's column was divided, but no evidence that this division had any real significance.
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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - February 06 2004 : 12:51:27 AM
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I seriously doubt there is anything recent that wasn't offered up a hundred years ago in one form or another; I'm not aware of a totally new theory, excluding the Elvis/UFO types. Didn't Kuhlman also suggest a divided command? What theory wasn't talked about till recently?
Gray says he thinks Curley is truthful; Crab ascribes to Gray the exact opposite of his position. He did think Curley's translators were sometimes wrong and tried to implant their own theories in his mouth, and he catches some of them at it. He may have implanted some of his own, but he owns up to that possibility by emphasizing his are conjectures.
Curley never claimed to have survived the last stand, but may have said he was the only survivor of Custer's battalion, which he was absent the couriers. (And yes, the horses and maybe a dog...) Whether Boyeur 'released' him because he was too young is his story, but in any case he wasn't required to be there at all by anyone. We don't know what he said, only what others said he said.
Bridge, how is 'credible' defined? Because he agrees with your theory doesn't make him credible, per se. And a possible problem with the translation here is that, of the soldiers he saw (or maybe only heard about), most were at Ford B. Terms like "main body" might have appeared out of 'most.' I think Custer would have attacked down the ravine with all five as well, but there's no proof one way or the other. |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
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ABridgeTooFar
Private
Status: offline |
Posted - February 06 2004 : 01:10:54 AM
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What I'm refering to is Custer's Phantom Battalion on Luce ridge.
If it was real, why didn't any of the Sioux or Cheyenne see it? A Brule named Two Eagles did spot it, but said it consisted only of a few men. |
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Anonymous Poster8169
Brigadier General
Status: offline |
Posted - February 06 2004 : 4:01:39 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by ABridgeTooFar
The "straw man" Curley ought certainly to be torn down. He was just the first of many hoaxers claiming to be the sole survivor of Custer's Last Stand.
The straw man is your silly claim that without Curley, there is no evidence for a divided command. It's a debate term, and it is applied when someone misrepresents an opponent's case, when they think that doing so will make it easier to respond to.
As for Curley himself, your case for him being a hoax is so far lazily assembled. 19th century newspaper reports, which you seem to place so much weight on, are near worthless to a historian, due to the heavily fictionalizing bent of the reporters. That problem continues well on into the 20th century, as anyone can see by examining some of the 1912 newspapers on the Titanic disaster, which are a farce of accurate (if not honest) reporting. The Jessica Lynch saga, as reported last year, suggests that this strain of reporting hasn't entirely disappeared from the bloodstream. The personal animosity that later developed between Curley and his former friends renders their claims about each other questionable (he claimed they deserted, they claimed he deserted); however, shortly after their departure, they were (according to Red Star) reporting Curley's death, which is far more consistent with the idea that when they left, they left Curley with Custer, than that Curley left them with the five companies. Curley's accounts have enough basic consistency, and agree well enough with others (i.e. the Indians), that it's not likely he was hoaxing, and you have not demonstrated the opposite.
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The debate is no so much over whether Custer's men were divided or unified, but over the size of the division, and its significance to the battle.
I saw the debate as being about whether Custer went to the ford in full force, or with only a squadron. Apparently you're now conceding that Custer did divide his force; so I guess the question now is which division went there. The evidence, as I've explained in earlier posts, is strongest on the side of George Yates's battalion of E and F troops.
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And the only credible account of such a divided command is that of Two Eagles, and he relates that the "main body" of Custer's men were at Ford B and in the hills but a few.
You apparently have an eccentric definition of "credible"..... Anyway, what Two Eagles (or his translater) [or his transcriber] precisely meant by "main body" and "a few" is not known; I certainly don't know what he meant, in terms of manpower. You don't either. Other accounts out there strongly suggest E Company's presence at the ford, and more vaguely, that of another company, which would seem to have been F. There is no evidence to speak of for three, four, or five companies at the ford, or whatever you're arguing now; you seem to have changed your position, without precisely explaining what your new position is.
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And for the main body of the cavalry column to be at the ford suggests all-out efforts to cross the river, to attack the village of the Sioux and Cheyenne, and to support thus the force commanded by Major Reno.
The accounts of what the soldiers actually did doesn't suggest an "all-out effort" to cross the river.
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There is ample evidence that Custer's column was divided, but no evidence that this division had any real significance.
I don't know what you mean by "real significance"; or what relevance you intend it to have for how much of Custer's force was at B. The division of Custer's command is significant in that Custer's two squadrons apparently operated independently (Yates's fighting in the north, Keogh's in the south), and it is consistent with the distribution of identified bodies on the battlefield.
R. Larsen
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Edited by - Anonymous Poster8169 on February 06 2004 4:29:52 PM |
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Wrangler
Lieutenant
Status: offline |
Posted - February 06 2004 : 11:22:32 PM
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| Nice strawman Larsen. Cuts both ways doesn't it? |
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Anonymous Poster8169
Brigadier General
Status: offline |
Posted - February 07 2004 : 11:15:42 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Wrangler
Nice strawman Larsen. Cuts both ways doesn't it?
I wouldn't know ---- I can't read the minds of drive-by posters.
R. Larsen
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Wrangler
Lieutenant
Status: offline |
Posted - February 07 2004 : 7:31:50 PM
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| That's surprising. You don't seem to have any problem with mind-reading when it comes to Indian testimony. |
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Anonymous Poster8169
Brigadier General
Status: offline |
Posted - February 08 2004 : 12:41:04 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Wrangler
That's surprising. You don't seem to have any problem with mind-reading when it comes to Indian testimony.
Wrangler, if you've got something to say, come out and say it.
I still don't know what you're talking about, nor do I understand this strange aversion you have about explaining yourself.
R. Larsen
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ABridgeTooFar
Private
Status: offline |
Posted - February 09 2004 : 9:16:32 PM
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I'm willing to conceed that Anonymous Poster 8169 has proven that Custer's column was not totally unified when at Ford B, that there were a few troopers off in the ridges over a mile away.
But the only source who can indicate these few of Custer's men in the ridges approached battalion-size is a man who is the most dubious and questionable eyewitness of the Little Bighorn fight, the Crow Scout Curley.
The theory that Custer's two battalions operated apart and independently is, in reality, nothing more than an embellished Curley story.
In the 19th century Custer's biographer Whittaker wrote an embellished Curley story, one in which the Boy General disdainfully refused Curley's offer of a Sioux blanket which would enable him to escape the battlefield. This story became very popular, and helped to perpetuate the image of Custer as a mythical, legendary figure.
The story that Custer had two battalions which operated apart and independently is popular today because it allows us to perpetuate the myth that Custer was constantly on the offensive throughout the Last Stand battle. The sad reality is that right from the battle's onset at Ford B, Custer lost the initiative and never regained it.
To say this in no way diminishes the heroism of Custer and his men, who faced great odds as they engaged in a desperate struggle. It simply shows us that they were mortal men who lost all power to control events as the course of the battle was dictated to them by their numerically-superior foes.
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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - February 10 2004 : 11:05:49 AM
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| I agree. This all stems from a desire to explain/excuse the lack of an attack in a timely fashion across MTC. There apparently wasn't much resistence to one, so in order to retain the heroic last stand motif, which requires him to choose high ground for a stand, Custer has to be recomposed for the event. That this allows the onus to fall on others for failing to rescue him is merely an attractive byproduct. |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
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Anonymous Poster8169
Brigadier General
Status: offline |
Posted - February 13 2004 : 9:02:52 PM
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Not even I would claim to have "proved" Custer operated in two divisions. I think that that is the most probable and reasonable reading of the evidence, but "proof" for anything that happened at that battle doesn't really exist. I don't think it can be "proven" that Custer died at the battle, for instance. Proof is just far too absolute a term to have much applicability to this battle.
To call Curley "the most dubious and questionable eyewitness of the Little Bighorn" is patently silly, and (I'd guess) as lazily made as your claim that John Gray invented the division theory 10 years ago; his accounts are pretty consistent with what we get from other, independent sources, and your reversal on him seems more dictated by the needs of your theories than by an open reading of the evidence. I certainly don't yet see the basis for concluding he was a liar, though he may have been for all I know. But shoddy 19th century reporting and the personal bickerings of some Crows don't add up to much.
That Custer had two battalions which operated independently is simply the most defensible reading of the evidence. The corpses were certainly arranged as such; you have nen from C, I, and L being killed in the south, and men from E and F dropping in the north. We have both Indian and military witnesses who said that Custer had divided his five companies into two groups, and the Indian testimony indicates only one or two companies being present at Ford B. Two Moons recalled seeing soldiers cresting a hill to the east of the village who were "formed into three branches with a little ways between," and the Indians and soldiers' descriptions of two battalions makes the best sense of those warriors who only mentioned Custer going to the ford, and those Indians like Hollow Horn Bear who insisted he never got near the river at all, but remained on the ridges.
I don't know that Custer was on the offensive at Ford B, and I know of no one who thinks he was on the attack "throughout" the Last Stand. That's just a Bridge-invented myth.
The heroism or cowardice of Custer's men has nothing to do with whether they operated in two divisions, and it's not clear to me what you think the relevance is. I couldn't care less if they all went down crying like babies. Two separate battalions is simply the best reading of the evidence.
What Custer was thinking or intending is a seperate issue, and can only be inferred from what the evidence suggests he and his men did. His actions --- or, at least, the actions of his men --- could suggest a lot of things, and have.
R. Larsen
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ABridgeTooFar
Private
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Posted - February 18 2004 : 11:45:03 PM
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Michno's "Lakota Noon", which El Crab has been urging everyone to read, contains the account of a Cheyenne Indian named Wolf Tooth, originally published in "Cheyenne Memories" and in Powell's "Sacred Mountain".
Wolf Tooth's account tells of a band of fity or so warriors who were roaming outside the village and who came upon Custer's soldiers coming up Medicine Tail Coulee. The story tells of how Wolf Tooth and the other braves battled some of Custer's soldiers as they moved down a high ridge and crossed the coulee. It explains how Custer's column came to be divided, although it does not settle the arguement as to how many soldiers were in each division.
White Bull's account of the battle (Lakota Recollections pp. 111-112)contains the following statement:
"The women and children were about half a mile (away), and Custer stopped about straight across from the camp. There were four companies. Custer was in the 2nd from the north."
The case against Curley's veracity includes quite a lot more than the internal bickering among Crows and sensationalist reporting by yellow journalists.
Red Star reported that Black Fox had told him that he and Curley were at Ford A (where Reno crossed the river earlier) while the Custer fight was going on.
In a statement made shortly after the battle Curley said, in a statement translated by LeForge, "I did nothing heroic. I was not in the battle."
Col. Sheridan concluded that Curley's statements were untrustworthy and that he had ran away before the fighting had started.
The Hunkpapa war chief Gall called Curley a liar to his face. He sarcastically asked Curley where his wings were, since only a bird could have escaped from Custer's surrounded column.
In his first Camp interview, Curley said that a Sioux warrior had made off with his pony with a lariat, and that he escaped by riding away on the pony of another Sioux shot by a trooper. In his second Camp interview, Curley changed his story, saying that his horse had not been stolen after all, and that the escaped by donning a cape which he had sewn together and which was tied to his saddle. This amazing disguise somehow enabled Curley to ride right through the Sioux warriors without being noticed. In the third Camp interview, Curley changed his story yet again. He now said that the Indians did indeed notice him, and set off in pursuit, but that his steed was too fast for them and he got away.
Curley said he escaped from a battle in which all his companions were killed and yet he himself had not so much as a scratch on his entire body. Not one witness supported his claim to have been present at the battle.
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pgb3
Private
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Posted - February 21 2004 : 01:29:05 AM
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Now, I read that to say E & F came down to the Ford, in columns of two, and that would place GAC at the head of F Co. See, you can certainly interpret this stuff in various ways, and they all seem logical—well, some do.
PB
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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - February 21 2004 : 11:18:05 AM
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Most people here have read Michno. Far fewer have read Gray.
I've read both, and Lakota Noon is merely the updated Custer Buff's current excuse for why no attack was made across MTC with all five companies. The offered template, shared across several recent volumes, is that Custer was trying to save Reno by the feint an hour too late followed by the usual crisp manuevers to no end other than waiting for Benteen and the train.
It's deeply beloved because the Buffs get to argue about which company went where, and when. It has fussy detail, and its own chart like form with Indian icons with testimony hooked to time, and it seems to allow both the Indians to be a smaller village, which the NA's like, and Reno and Benteen to been hesitant if not derelict and Custer to have been this engine of offense till the end which the Buffs adore.
Michno concludes any artifact on the field was used in the battle.
He doesn't consider the uncontestable fact that there are no first hand Indian reports of the battle, and that most were third hand at best, and that nobody knows if the translators were any good or had an agenda. But this, to Michno, is the Indian 'in his own words.' Black Elk was translated by a third party and then edited by two relatives before it was handed to the white guys. But this is testimony...... He finds solace in that it seems to hang together, but this information was obtained over the decades whuke agreed upon stories formed.
Curley's story was probably true at the beginning, having no reason to lie, but as he was constantly badgered he changed his story to accomodate what the whites wanted to hear and then everyone turned on him. Ten years later at the reunion is when Gall and Curley supposedly had their discussion, translated by who again? And this during the time Gall was being pushed by the whites as the anti-Tatanka.
Sheridan's brother, who couldn't communicate with the Indians directly in their languages, has no basis for an opinion one way or another.
If you read Michno, go to the actual quotes supposedly made by the Indians and subtract out words they didn't have ("company") and names for geologic features they didn't use, then realize that they had to answer questions that often had false assumptions in them. They called 'grey' horses 'white' which seems trivial until you wonder what word they actually used, and what other convenient assumptions have been made on their behalf by translators. Michno claims to weigh all that, but doesn't, really.
Then, tabulate how long after the battle 'testimony' was taken and by who and what the chances are for memories changing through the years while hearing others recall events that didn't quite happen like they say.
What we do know is Custer. We have much detail on how he fought battles big and small. There is consistency, there is logic, there is energy in his commands. But we are to believe that he fought LBH totally different from his other battles, that he didn't take the quickest way into the village and/or to the potential civilian hostages, and that he chose to fight on bad ground a defensive battle while waiting for help, discarding other options that would unite his command, and that he did this out of concern for Reno's plight. |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
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pgb3
Private
Status: offline |
Posted - February 21 2004 : 5:17:21 PM
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| And when he gets there (village) and finds there are no women and children left...what does he do next? He goes looking for 'em. |
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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - February 22 2004 : 3:25:07 PM
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Do you? Tad late, don't you think? Besides, if there were as few warriors as currently proposed, and many were with Reno, why not take the crossing at MTC and fight on cavalry ground? As an added benefit, it's the quickest way to the civilians anyway, wherever they are, if that's your actual goal.
A slowly evolving and visible sweep? Give away surprise, give away the advantage of cavalry, subtract 25% of your firepower to holding reins, head away from your objective and wait for help? None of that is Custer. |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
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BJMarkland
Colonel
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - March 04 2004 : 01:06:02 AM
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Testing!
Gee, no one has replied to anything!
Billy |
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Curley and Ford B
