| Author |
 Topic  |
|
AZ Ranger
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
 Posted - December 14 2005 : 09:19:40 AM
|
quote:
Go to any cowboy mounted shooting event today and you will see earplugs used -- they didn't have earplugs in the old days.
Yes and so does the mounted shooters wear earplugs. You will also notice that there is horses standing around without them. Those horses are not reacting to the gunfire. I also wear electronic earphones while training. Earplugs are not practical for patrol work so at the Arizona Mounted Police School we trained our horses to accept loud noises and the waving of a multitude of items, and other stress inducing situations. For example we did a night exercise with flashing lights, siren, flares, smoke, and fireworks in barrel. Most of the horses made it and those that didn't were identified before be used for patrol. |
“ An officer's first duty is to his horses.”
SEMPER FI |
  |
|
|
Vern Humphrey
Captain
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - December 14 2005 : 1:05:53 PM
|
quote:
Yes and so does the mounted shooters wear earplugs. You will also notice that there is horses standing around without them. Those horses are not reacting to the gunfire.
Yes -- a little distance attenuates the sound. But firing a pistol very close to the ears will have a permanent effect, on both man and horse. If you experience some "temporary" deafness as a result of shooting, you have permanent hearing damage -- even though you "recover" your hearing.
quote:
I also wear electronic earphones while training. Earplugs are not practical for patrol work so at the Arizona Mounted Police School we trained our horses to accept loud noises
Yes -- the old timers did it by firing right over the horses' ears.
quote:
and the waving of a multitude of items, and other stress inducing situations. For example we did a night exercise with flashing lights, siren, flares, smoke, and fireworks in barrel. Most of the horses made it and those that didn't were identified before be used for patrol.
That's standard -- going right back to Xenophon's time. |
|
|
|
Vern Humphrey
Captain
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - December 14 2005 : 1:14:13 PM
|
quote:
Vern are you saying all the horses were deaf? I would like to see the source.
Given that they practiced and ran mounted pistol courses on those horses without any protection for them, it's hard to imagine that the horses suffered no hearing loss.
And, as I said, old cavalrymen sought out deaf horses to run the mounted pistol course. |
|
|
|
wILD I
Brigadier General
Ireland
Status: offline |
Posted - December 14 2005 : 3:30:29 PM
|
No, it wasn't a civvie fabrication,
And
but the Army did not say the 7th fell apart but fought heroically in lock step with elements of the 7th and Mrs. Custer.A cursory comparison of army communications and the Bismark Tribune should disabuse you of such notions DC.
The Tribune describes the action as being fought by companies with each officer in place and doing his duty valiantly to the end.It even suggests Custer was the last to fall.Now I don't think that the Tribune was the Garryowen inhouse magazine. The army communications of the time are devoid of this sentimentality.They place the blame squarely on Custer's sholdiers.
You will also be aware that this prissey civvy sentimentality was selective and did not extend to Reno.The 1870s was show time,wild west show time and what better way to bring the crowds in than a last stand? It was an age when the main attraction was an injun or a dead outlaw.Civvys [you know them as Custerphiles] took Custer to their heart.An awful pity he did not sing he would have outsold the King himself. |
Edited by - wILD I on December 14 2005 3:35:52 PM |
|
|
|
wILD I
Brigadier General
Ireland
Status: offline |
Posted - December 14 2005 : 3:41:32 PM
|
| But look at these Fouche photos and you can see that the vast majority of wooden stakes - assuming they were actually placed - were gone a year later. Like I say, where there is now a sea of marble there are maybe ten stakes in that first photo on LSH in 1877.I imagine that the stakes were really unnessary.The "burials" were burials in name only.Probably the markers were placed where bones were located. |
|
|
|
Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - December 14 2005 : 3:50:05 PM
|
Your evidence supports me. The Tribune and all of Montana were totally dependent upon the Army, had lost a correspondent at this battle, and made up stuff supporting it, and if not actually in-house, certainly more than good friends. The Army, as I said, blamed Custer right off. But the last stand image emerged from the soldiers as well as from everyone else, because they partly believed it and partly because it's what 'should' have happened. You could think Custer blundered but there was still a heroic last stand, and most did. There's no conflict.
The turn against Reno was mostly within the Army, at first, partly because so many boilerplate presentations had been exposed as garbage (which always suggests coverup) which was causing publicity trouble AND because Mrs. Custer needed a martyr to live off of AND because it fit the martyr literary motif: a Judas. It was easier to understand if everybody had a role to play in the public mind. |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
|
|
|
Vern Humphrey
Captain
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - December 14 2005 : 5:28:55 PM
|
quote:
But look at these Fouche photos and you can see that the vast majority of wooden stakes - assuming they were actually placed - were gone a year later. Like I say, where there is now a sea of marble there are maybe ten stakes in that first photo on LSH in 1877.I imagine that the stakes were really unnessary.The "burials" were burials in name only.Probably the markers were placed where bones were located.
Fox did sample excavations around some of the markers. His major finding was that there were double markers -- in the original burials, dirt was apparently scooped up to heap on the corpse in its shallow grave, and this appeared later as if two men fell and had been buried close together. He cites excavation of 10 such pairs, and finding bones from a single corpse in 9, and nothing in the 10th.
Where markers are paired, simply eliminating one of each pair cleans up the numbers nicely -- and doesn't change the pattern. |
|
|
|
wILD I
Brigadier General
Ireland
Status: offline |
Posted - December 14 2005 : 5:37:27 PM
|
Your evidence supports me. The Tribune and all of Montana were totally dependent upon the Army, had lost a correspondent at this battle, and made up stuff supporting it, and if not actually in-house, certainly more than good friends.
So where does the responsibility for all this "last stand" baloney lie? With friends of the army?Well then lets adjust a line you posted.I think this sort of thinking permeating Friends of the army.
But the last stand image emerged from the soldiers as well as from everyone else, because they partly believed it and partly because it's what 'should' have happened.
What soldiers?Surely you don't mean Reno's troops?
The turn against Reno was mostly within the Army, at first, partly because so many boilerplate presentations had been exposed as garbage (which always suggests coverup) which was causing publicity trouble AND because Mrs. Custer needed a martyr to live off of AND because it fit the martyr literary motif: a Judas.
And here I was thinking they wanted Reno promoted.Judas or new Co of the 7th what extremes? |
|
|
|
Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - December 14 2005 : 6:53:43 PM
|
Mr. Humphrey, you've added to my quote your response. That's confusing.
(UPDATE TO THE ABOVE ERROR, just noticed you were quoting Wild. We'll pretend that didn't happen......)
There were, by coincidence, an exact number of doubles for the extra markers? I'll look in Fox. In any case, Sweet doesn't say he did this. It's plausible, but not a given. In any case, if there were two bodies at a site, if they removed all of one Fox wouldn't know, would he? They apparently got all of at least one 'double' grave.
Further, if you acknowledge the admitted lack of burial, then I'd think we'd have to believe that anything like meat would not surivive a Montana winter with wolves and coyotes which, coupled with many stakes gone the next year, replaced by who knows what sense of obligation and when, would render the location of bodies as a correlation to their death site rather iffy at best or at all. As WCF says, there is some difference between where Sweet put the marble and where the original markers were. And even though it was early acknowledged that Custer fell atop the hill with others, only a decade later - after his marker with Custer Fell Here on it had been set, stolen, reset, replaced - that people started to refer to that as the place he fell. Repeated error became fact, and that's just within the Army.
How many times were the wooden markers moved or replaced? We don't know, really. And given the vanishings and movement of markers, nobody seems to have really cared till too late.
Despite WCF's excitement that there has been so little movement between 1890 and today among the marble, that's irrelevant. What matters is where the original markers were, insofar as even they could claim to be on the right spot of death, and what few photos we have - I again direct you to that early Fouche photo of Custer Hill - aren't encouraging.
We have rather overwhelming testimony there were 27 bodies in a coulee (13% of Custer's men), and no markers there. In the gully, they were seen as running away. Atop the gully, they're seen as a skirmish line. That's why it's important to retain cancerous eye. We have testimony they were buried in the coulee. This doesn't reflect a huge sense of need for accuracy by Sweet and the Army in general.
It may be true that taking out the spurious markers doesn't materially change the field, even with known errors factored in. I don't concede that, but it's arguable and has been. Whether the marble markers are to be trusted much is another thing altogether. Taking merely the known problems, I've pretty much come to agree with whoever said the markers' placement is more like the work of an interpretive artist than anything.
Wild, I've already expressed my thoughts on that. A Last Stand was a literary template, and people saw things back then within the confines of Roland, and Arthur and all that. There was reasonable evidence, and it could be true. But the evidence can be used for other scenarios; it depends what you've been inculcated to believe and think like.
Yes, of course I mean Reno's troops. Who do you think testified at the Inquest? His officers, for the most part.
Reno was a divisive image. Yes, he could be viewed as a coward vs. I'm alive because of what he did or didn't do. It would have been interesting to poll the enlisted men vs. the officers about Reno. There are several "theys" which you choose to view as a Janus faced one. |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
Edited by - Dark Cloud on December 14 2005 7:03:28 PM |
|
|
|
Vern Humphrey
Captain
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - December 14 2005 : 8:02:41 PM
|
quote:
There were, by coincidence, an exact number of doubles for the extra markers? I'll look in Fox. In any case, Sweet doesn't say he did this. It's plausible, but not a given. In any case, if there were two bodies at a site, if they removed all of one Fox wouldn't know, would he? They apparently got all of at least one 'double' grave.
Fox makes the point that human bones were found -- not whole skeletons. This would be expected -- the dead were not buried in coffins, and when they were re-interred, not all the bones recovered.
For a long time, the double markers were considered significant by some -- two men who died fighting back-to-back at each such site. But Fox makes a good case that the markers were placed on what looked like graves, but in actually were scrapes where additional earth was scooped up to put over the bodies. |
|
|
|
wILD I
Brigadier General
Ireland
Status: offline |
Posted - December 15 2005 : 10:24:59 AM
|
Just bits and pieces.
I have seen early photos of the battle field showing what appears to be piles of bones.They seem to be horse bones but protruding from this pile is one with a boot attached.Now that boot turns up in another photo so I think a little doctoring has been carried out by the photographer.
The regimental seargant major Sharrow was promoted to that position from private.[unusual]
Lts Reily and Crittenden had only one years service completed at the time of the battle.Neither had attended military college and Reily could just about ride a horse.
Pte Hiley of E coy whose real name was John Stuart Stuart Forbes was the son of a English Baronet and had an uncle who fought at Waterloo with the Coldstream Guards.
I note from old photos that the markers have concrete foundations.Sweet must have made some attempt at placing the markers in authentic positions.Why else haul concrete and markers all over the field?
|
|
|
|
Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - December 15 2005 : 11:05:33 AM
|
Wild, stay away from your Big Books of Historic Horror.
In every photo I've seen, the boot is on a grave stake, not a horse bone. The photos are bad enough, but in cheap books at long remove from the original, they're hard to see. That's why I enjoy this WCF book, good quality photos sometimes made from the plate. There aren't many photos of the early field, and were taken in three batches, Fouche, Morrow, and whoever was there when the horse monument was built. Since all the horse bones were swept up and put in the monument after only a few years, the photos showing that boot bottom were probably taken the same day.
Sweet was following orders, and the markers fit into a base so they wouldn't fall over each seasonal ground heave. I have no doubt attempts were made to place them accurately till markers ran out, but after that, hard to say. Given that they had previously cheerfully moved the sacred, holy spot of Custer's ascension to heaven down thirty or forty feet to make room for a monument of horse bones, I think we can conclude that putting up the markers was a gesture more than a real attempt at historical accuracy(a theory born out by zero markers in the coulee), which back then nobody gave a flying fungo bat about nor could remotely imagine millions of people getting indignant about. The point was to counteract the slaughter pen stories of unburied bodies and show the passing VIP that the Army was diligent and worth budget consideration. There were nowhere near enough stakes, and apparently lush growth and utter guesswork aided the project.
On Custer Hill, where Fouche shows few or no markers, we have a sea of them. Where he shows them spread south a bit to what is now the road heading south, there are none. If you take out the spurious markers by whatever percentage you like, and then spread the remainder over the summit and down the way, it doesn't look like a bunched Last Stand so much as a disorganized slaughter. Contrarywise, with lots of dead horses, you couldn't bury people where they lay, so who knows what relevance to truth the first graves had?
Also of note. Those who claim there couldn't have been an attack or much of one at MTC ford use as proof the relative lack of bodies. These tend to be the same ones who claim Custer was north and west of Custer Hill going for the civvies and forming a firing line when called back to protect Keogh.......although leaving no dead there. But this theory keeps Custer heroic, sacrifing a sure win to save others and it's all due to: Benteen and Reno. |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
|
|
|
Benteen
Lt. Colonel
Status: offline |
Posted - December 15 2005 : 11:16:10 AM
|
DC:
quote:
And even though it was early acknowledged that Custer fell atop the hill with others, only a decade later - after his marker with Custer Fell Here on it had been set, stolen, reset, replaced - that people started to refer to that as the place he fell. Repeated error became fact, and that's just within the Army.
The warriors stated that Custer and some of his men were atop LSH. When on questioning them facts arose that the reason Custer and his men were found downhill from this position was.... That they were forced there. |
|
|
|
Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - December 15 2005 : 1:37:50 PM
|
Which Indian knew Custer and said this?
Reno's and Terry's men said Custer's body was atop the hill with others and Fouche's picture supports it. Where the general was buried was, apparently, due to the fact a soldier burying a friend's body had hit softer ground and had a good dig going when officers usurped it for Custer and, supposedly, TWC. Of course, no bones of Custer dug up was wrapped in anything the burying party described, and was no longer complete, so who knows? We don't, anyway.
But where he was found doesn't mean he fell there, either. Indians desecrated enemy dead by dragging them around. If, say, Custer's body had been found, as someone did say, with Keogh's guys and east of the mass alone, they'd know that THAT can't be the story because his body was probably dragged there but some - like the press - might find profit in year long debates about whether he was running away, or the 7th deserted him, or whatever. So, he'd be moved to the highest point as was appropriate, and nobody would find fault with that. They knew, whatever his faults, he'd never have run and they were doing a good thing. They'd tell the select group and try to get the story straight.
I am not, in any way, claiming this happened, but although nobody else seems to buy the possibility, I would have no trouble believing that bodies were moved to places of prominence, or stories told to suggest it, because that was not uncommon. (Even though TR talked about Davy Crockett being captured and shot, the story got changed during the first half of the 20th century to dying on the ramparts atop a mountain of Santa Anna's finest.) I have no proof, but the conflicting stories about Custer's wounds, shroud, location and condition suggest to me conflicting but established motifs at variance with each other and, for those years, Enquirer honesty.
All I'm saying is that trying to divine much definite from the markers is iffy at best. You can make them say lots of different things. Saying the markers today are in the same spot, for the most part, as they were in 1890 has nothing to do with where wooden stakes were, which in turn, as Custers body removal to lower ground suggests, may have nothing to do where people fell. |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
Edited by - Dark Cloud on December 15 2005 1:57:14 PM |
|
|
|
Vern Humphrey
Captain
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - December 15 2005 : 2:09:39 PM
|
quote:
Which Indian knew Custer and said this?
The Cheyenne knew Custer -- he had taken a Cheyenne mistress (Pretty Walker) from among the prisoners after the Battle of the Wa****a. In Cheyenne tradition, Cheyenne women would not allow his body to be desecrated because he was "family" but they ran awls into his ears so he could hear better in the hereafter. |
|
|
|
Benteen
Lt. Colonel
Status: offline |
Posted - December 15 2005 : 6:13:12 PM
|
| Very perceptive of you Vern. Your right it was a Cheyenne. ;) |
|
|
|
Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - December 15 2005 : 6:47:20 PM
|
There are no "the" Cheyenne. There were two tribes, the northern and southern. Wa****a was against the southern, LBH against the northern.
There is a story that some Cheyenne women from the south visiting relatives saw his body after the battle, recognized him, popped a hole in his ear, etc. etc. Could be true, although this tale appeared safely late, in conflict with stories that said they thought it Crook redux. That Cheyenne women were close enough to see him driven back over the top is problematical at best, given the dust and their unlikely presence that early if at all. Different stories say a finger was taken, but then Custer's divine corpse didn't bloat or revolt like a mere mortal, either.
A "mistress" connotes willingness on her part. Menatoseh (?) was a comfort woman, and there's little but rumor to attach her to Custer himself, although certainly possible.
But, which Indian said Custer was driven off the top of the hill, was the question. And asked by who? Rain knew him, and some others, in that they'd seen him years previous, but he claims he didn't know they'd fought Custer till later. |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
Edited by - Dark Cloud on December 15 2005 6:52:02 PM |
|
|
|
AZ Ranger
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - December 15 2005 : 7:35:07 PM
|
quote:
The Cheyenne knew Custer -- he had taken a Cheyenne mistress (Pretty Walker) from among the prisoners after the Battle of the Wa****a. In Cheyenne tradition, Cheyenne women would not allow his body to be desecrated because he was "family" but they ran awls into his ears so he could hear better in the hereafter.
Pretty Walker was the daughter of Little Wolf
quote:
Little Wolf's Cheyennes did not take part in the battle against George Armstrong Custer's troops at the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876....
|
“ An officer's first duty is to his horses.”
SEMPER FI |
|
|
|
prolar
Major
Status: offline |
Posted - December 15 2005 : 9:07:03 PM
|
| AZ, I think the girl in question was supposed to be the daughter of Little Rock. I don't think there is much proof for any of this story anyway. |
|
|
|
Vern Humphrey
Captain
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - December 16 2005 : 09:53:00 AM
|
quote:
There is a story that some Cheyenne women from the south visiting relatives saw his body after the battle, recognized him, popped a hole in his ear, etc. etc. Could be true, although this tale appeared safely late, in conflict with stories that said they thought it Crook redux. That Cheyenne women were close enough to see him driven back over the top is problematical at best, given the dust and their unlikely presence that early if at all. Different stories say a finger was taken, but then Custer's divine corpse didn't bloat or revolt like a mere mortal, either.
The point being, the Cheyenne knew him -- even if they saw him later, in death. |
|
|
|
AZ Ranger
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - December 16 2005 : 09:59:35 AM
|
quote:
AZ, I think the girl in question was supposed to be the daughter of Little Rock. I don't think there is much proof for any of this story anyway.
prolar- I think that the girl in question is usually a Southern Cheyenne as DC stated.
quote:
Menatoseh (?) was a comfort woman, and there's little but rumor to attach her to Custer himself, although certainly possible.
In the post by Vern he states Pretty Walker whom I found the information that I posted. She was the daughter of Little Wolf and his Tribe was the Northern Cheyenne. The source stated "Little Wolf's Cheyennes did not take part in the battle against George Armstrong Custer's troops at the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876".
quote:
The Cheyenne knew Custer -- he had taken a Cheyenne mistress (Pretty Walker) from among the prisoners after the Battle of the Wa****a. In Cheyenne tradition, Cheyenne women would not allow his body to be desecrated because he was "family" but they ran awls into his ears so he could hear better in the hereafter.
|
“ An officer's first duty is to his horses.”
SEMPER FI |
|
|
|
AZ Ranger
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - December 16 2005 : 10:05:37 AM
|
quote:
The point being, the Cheyenne knew him -- even if they saw him later, in death.
Vern - I agree with you. I think when the Indians state they didn't know it was Custer they mean during the battle. They certainly had plenty of time to identify that it was the 7th and Custer after the battle. |
“ An officer's first duty is to his horses.”
SEMPER FI |
|
|
|
Vern Humphrey
Captain
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - December 16 2005 : 10:20:26 AM
|
According to their stories, the women and children were in a ravine on the other side of the river during the battle. They could not see the action.
However, it's not unreasonable to suggest that after the battle women and children may well have gone over the field. There were probably plenty of pickings the warriors had left. |
|
|
|
prolar
Major
Status: offline |
Posted - December 16 2005 : 11:32:40 AM
|
| Its not unreasonable, but there are accounts by Indians who were there that they didn't recognize Custer. Kate Bighead who told the story about the Cheyenne women and Custer's body said in the same account that no one knew who they had defeated until they learned it from agency Indians. The girl that Custer was rumoured to have had the affair with was Monosetah, the daughter of Little Rock, a Southern Cheyenne chief who was killed at Wichita. |
|
|
|
Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - December 16 2005 : 11:39:20 AM
|
My question was "Which Indian knew Custer and said this?" The issue is not that there were Indians who had met and known Custer - there were - but who knew him and said he'd been driven back over the lip of LSH to where he fell? I'd never heard that.
I'm not aware Custer had fought the northern Cheyenne as he had the Sioux previous to this battle. Had he?
The only rumored Cheyenne sex slave of Custer's I've read about was the already pregnant 16 year old obtained at the Wa****a, a high caste daughter of a chief with the Southern Cheyenne, of which Black Kettle's band was part. Menotoseh or something like. Later on, she was rumored to have also birthed a white-ish kid called Yellow Bird or something that was supposed to be Custer's child. There is zero proof it was his kid (could have been, maybe)or that he actually existed at all. These stories reached various zeniths with Menotoseh and Yellow Bird somehow being at the battle and easing Custer's death in a burnished Pieta/Arthur-Modred-Morganna LaFey tableau. |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
|
|
|
Topic |
|
|
|
Springfield Carbine
