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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
 Posted - September 24 2004 : 10:13:58 PM
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Actually, Wiggs, it was I from whom you got the quote. So it makes little sense to pretend Larsen wrote it and excoriate him for it. Rather makes you look very foolish. Sorta like you cannot read. Again.
Wiggs, you can't erase what's on the boards. Whether fabricating, pretending you wrote that which you did not, falsely quoting others (including me several times), or not understanding what has been written (as here, thinking Larsen wrote the quote)or what you yourself have written, it's all here on the board and several hard drives. Even if someone types or proofs your stuff, the basic, jaw-dropping errors are on the page....forever, solely owned by you. You can't ever deny it. You could apologize for it.
In any case, 'common knowledge' is often if not always wrong. At one time it was common knowledge Custer was running for President, had a sword, was betrayed, died the last man, wasn't mutilated because of his courage. It was common knowledge that Sitting Bull led the warriors, that Crazy Horse led the warriors, that Two Moon led the Cheyenne, that Rain killed Custer. That the earth was flat. That booze makes you smarter and braver.
As to the quote you misattributed, given the number of impossibilities within Flying Hawk's story (the train already on the hill, the distances he'd have to have travelled, et al), and the sixty years between battle and having his story written down, translated - who knows what else - it has to be viewed with a cancerous eye. It does sound like an old man fluffing his pillow a bit. I don't claim it as a fact, I just say it sounds like that. It does. |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - September 24 2004 : 10:28:14 PM
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Actually, Larsen, I have to take small issue with "popular history abhors ambiguity and disputes over interpretation, and loves the newspaper reporter's pretence to omnipotence, what were speculations in a more scholarly book tend to become "facts" in theirs" because that doesn't apply, for example, to Tuchman's works, and she was certainly popular as well as a terrific writer. The conflicts and ambiguities are there, I think. Some people can tell a story well while being a hands on researcher. Tuchman is one of the few of the last century never accused of plaigiarism, either.
Ambrose is just the pits, and I thought he was a mediocre writer as well. He was closer to Mitchner than a real historian. |
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 - September 24 2004 : 11:49:50 PM
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Wiggs-
I never said what you claim I said, though I give you credit for not faking the quote entirely ---- in view of your past history, that shows admirable restraint on your part.
You still need to produce the sources for your statements about Crazy Horse in the valley. If they exist, as you claim, that shouldn't be hard.
R. Larsen
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Anonymous Poster8169
Brigadier General
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Posted - September 25 2004 : 12:12:35 AM
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I never really thought of Tuchman as a "popular historian"; like David Hackett Fischer and Samuel Eliot Morison, she's a good historian who writes well and whose research is strong. By virtue of that, they may make money, but when I say "popular history" I'm really thinking of the quasi-journalistic narratives that have been put out in imitation of Walter Lord over the past 50 years. The kind that invents characters' feelings, pumps up drama, "reads like a novel...," etc. Ambrose springs from that tradition, I think, in a way that Tuchman does not; or maybe he just picks up more of its flaws.
Lord himself was a fairly good historian, all in all, though his research methods were lazy. I've read that when conducting interviews he never took notes or recordings, only writing the substance down from memory after he had gotten all he thought needed. That's a rotten way to do it. His sourcing is spotty, and his books sometimes include errors that never should have been made: a few people whose accounts he used in "A Night to Remember," for example, were never on the Titanic, and it's bizarre Lord was fooled, since crew & passenger lists for the ship were available and could be cross-checked. Since Lord's style depended so strongly on chance dialogue and anecdotes, he sometimes had to play fast & loose with his sources in order to produce something "Lordian". His Alamo book, "A Time to Stand" --- and I'm sorry to say this --- just fakes things here and there.
Lord's vices tend to be magnified by his disciples and offshoots. Ambrose, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Dan Kurzman....... the writings of these people and others are shockingly terrible.
R. Larsen
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Anonymous Poster8169
Brigadier General
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Posted - September 25 2004 : 12:28:45 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Dark Cloud
As to the quote you misattributed, given the number of impossibilities within Flying Hawk's story (the train already on the hill, the distances he'd have to have travelled, et al), and the sixty years between battle and having his story written down, translated - who knows what else - it has to be viewed with a cancerous eye. It does sound like an old man fluffing his pillow a bit. I don't claim it as a fact, I just say it sounds like that. It does.
The impossibilities aren't out of line with anything else we see in the 1930s. There's another interview with Flying Hawk from 1907, which gives substantially the same story; this one lacks errors such as the train's presence. His account is about as good as any other Indian's we have, which I realize isn't saying all that much, but there it is.
R. Larsen
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Ignorant Brit
Recruit
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Posted - September 25 2004 : 06:07:56 AM
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Diverging a bit from this ... may I go back several pages to El Crab's point about the sabres?
This has always puzzled me too. Contemporaries insist that no sabres were carried; that it was standard practice to leave them behind; and that the reason was noise. Yet the 7th was hardly travelling in demure silence. True, no bugle calls. But:
1) Plenty of rattling and clanking from troopers' tin cups. Benteen attests that in the night crossing of Muddy Creek, it was only by following that noise that he could find his way.
2) The mule-train could not be driven without plenty of shouting and cursing. (One anti-swearing commander, can't remember who, tried it once and soon discovered it was impossible.) So there's another source of noise.
3) Custer had at least a contingent of his notoriously uncontrollable dogs with him. Quite apart from the impossibility of keeping horses and mules quiet.
So, for a comparatively small decrease in noise, Custer's chosen to sacrifice one-third of his weaponry. And, as El Crab says, a weapon the Indians particularly feared. Leaving aside the wisdom of relying solely on firearms, then separating himself so far from his ammunition supplies -- what must this have done to the morale of his troops? It would be surprising if it didn't make them a bit edgy even before the fighting started, especially when coupled with exhaustion. And especially given their lousy marksmanship, as discussed elsewhere on this forum. Once Custer's five companies were under attack, with ammunition running low, and NO other weapon to fall back on ... well, you have to wonder what part this played in creating the scenes of panic that the Indians describe.
It does look as if the older hands weren't especially keen to go into battle without their sabres. DeRudio and Mathey (both dubious characters in their different ways, it's true, but both experienced soldiers) tried to smuggle theirs along with them; Custer had to confiscate them further on the march. Maybe others were more successful. The Sioux clearly describe the 'bravest man' as using a sabre. I suppose it's just possible he might have taken it from an Indian, who might in turn have taken it at the Rosebud, but that seems a bit of a stretch. It's easier to imagine a long-serving cavalry officer, used to using his sabre to good effect, deciding he'd rather face the wrath of Custer than go into battle without it ...? How he'd have hidden it is another matter (any ideas, anyone?) but I'm sure a canny old soldier could find a way.
That's one puzzle. The other is the ferocity of everyone's insistence that 'there were NO sabres'. Not just among modern-day historians, but from commentators at the time. It's as if there's some really significant issue there which escapes us (or me, anyway). Can anyone throw any light on this?
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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - September 25 2004 : 12:06:24 PM
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"...you have to wonder what part this played in creating the scenes of panic that the Indians describe." No, you don't. Probably zero, in any case.
There are probably several issues.
Swords are worse than useless in the hands of those untrained. The 7th barely trained its men in riding and marksmanship. The vast majority of US soldiers close enough to Cheyenne warriors to use their swords were dead meat. Further, those who thought they were good with their swords (fighting someone trained the same way) were dead meat more often than not.
Custer's men were never out of ammo or close to it. Indians claimed they got lots off the men and horses. There are SOME Indian descriptions of all the men panicking, there are others that say some panicked, and there are others that say they fought as gods to the end. If Indians are shooting at you from fifty feet away, I can't imagine wishing I had a sword, for goodness' sake.
But mostly, I suspect it was weight vs. utility, not the noise issue. Mules render that moot, anyway.
In any case, cavalry stopped and on the defensive are gone. What are you imagining happening if the 7th had swords? Deflecting arrows and bullets? Empowering them to do what? Charge? Running towards warriors with rifles and bows? |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
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Ignorant Brit
Recruit
Status: offline |
Posted - September 26 2004 : 03:46:58 AM
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Sorry, I didn't mean I was visualising Basil Rathbone-style fencing displays. Only that a) there's a 'shock and awe' effect to a charge with sabres, which might have turned an Indian attack; and b) there was a lot of hand-to-hand fighting (Gall with his axe, for example).
Ammunition: yes and no, surely? Depends where on the field you were. On Custer Hill, with dead horses for breastworks, they had the reserve ammunition from their saddles. In Keogh's area, once the horseholders were attacked and the horses driven off, they had only what they were carrying. But yes, they were all overwhelmed so fast that it's a moot question. Just too many Indians.
'There are SOME Indian descriptions of all the men panicking, there are others that say some panicked, and there are others that say they fought as gods to the end' -- I'm sure you've hit the nail on the head. Exactly how it was. Every Indian reporting what HE saw. Some panicking, some fighting as gods. Some panicking and THEN fighting as gods, even. No single answer.
Which is what makes it so fascinating.
Weight vs. utility: thanks for that. It makes so much more sense than the 'noise' theory.
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joseph wiggs
Brigadier General
Status: offline |
 Posted - September 26 2004 : 9:08:34 PM
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Members of the 7th. Cavalry were as well versed in the use of sabres as they were in their ability to use other weaponry assigned to them. The quality of training is, of course, debatable. However, to suggest that the the swords were not included, due to ill training, would imply that side arms, rifles, and mounts should be left behind also, as the "untrained" would be ineffective while using them. This notion is, of course, without merit.
The sabres were simply to cumbersome for the long marches that were required in this particular battle.   |
Edited by - joseph wiggs on September 26 2004 9:11:34 PM |
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joseph wiggs
Brigadier General
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Posted - September 27 2004 : 4:43:20 PM
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"The order was a written one, and according to my understanding of English, it was left to Custer's discretion as to whether or not he should attack should he encounter them, and I think he did the logical thing, as well as obeying Terry's order, in attacking them without waiting for Terry and Gibbon to come up."
Walter Mason Camp |
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Anonymous Poster8169
Brigadier General
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Posted - September 27 2004 : 6:13:30 PM
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Having no personal experience in either, I'd wager it's harder to learn to use a sword adequately than it is to use a rifle, and while learning to ride a horse is probably harder than both, it's much more sensible and cost-effective to spend what little time you have training the soldiers to ride (a skill they must have) than to teach them to sword-fight (a skill they'd probably never need).
Sabers just weren't practical for fighting Indians, and they'd been on their way out since the end of the Civil War. Most Indian fighting was done at long distance. Hand-to-hand fighting, when it happened, usually resulted in the soldiers getting kicked royally. How many times in the 1870s had an Indian been killed by a sword?
R. Larsen
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joseph wiggs
Brigadier General
Status: offline |
Posted - September 27 2004 : 10:14:27 PM
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| I agree with you. I can not imagine my being proficient in sword play regardless of the amount of training I received. Sabres were not practical for the gorilla type warfare the troopers encountered at the LBH. My point was that training was not the only issue regarding the usage or non-usage of specific weapons during this battle. Practicality was the common denominator. |
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joseph wiggs
Brigadier General
Status: offline |
Posted - September 27 2004 : 10:26:19 PM
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Dark Cloud, I am perfectly aware that the term "Purple Prose" came from you. Your accusation that I falsely accused Larsen is as ridiculous as so many other comments you have forced upon us.
In my post, I thanked the vast majority of posters on this forum who share valuable information while refraining from immature, personal attacks. The ability to agree to disagree is a sign of maturity, hence your inability to do so. Besides, Larsen does not need you to defend him. He's a big boy
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Edited by - joseph wiggs on September 27 2004 10:31:42 PM |
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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - September 27 2004 : 11:06:15 PM
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Glad you're aware of it. What are you talking about? Nothing on this page. Good reading, Wiggs. Apparently the plantlife has been encouraging you for their entertainment, like your fictional children on their schoolbus having conversations between themselves directed at others. Like bodden does here.
Agreed, Larsen (what happened to Largent?) doesn't need my help against you, and I don't see where he got any. Nobody, in fact, does, given your mutually exclusive goals of trying to sound educated and be clever doing it.
Again, you're the one who has lied (fact: still here on the forum), even lied about that, and constantly uses words and sentences that mean the reverse of what you think they do. Emoticons - a favorite tinker of children and illiterates - now rather nicely frame your posts. |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
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movingrobewoman
Lt. Colonel
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - September 28 2004 : 12:44:48 AM
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DarkCloud--
I would have to agree with your appraisal of the "sabre" question. Hadn't thought of it that way--mebbe I was seduced by the scene in "Son of the Morning Star" where the members of the Seventh (in a moment of over-wrought foreshadowing) placed their swords in casket-like boxes ... but per Tom Heski's lecture at the CBH&MA meeting in June, there was plenty of noise to go around on the way to LBH ... rattle, rattle, clunk, clang ...
I should like to be given specific examples of Wiggs' "lying" in this example. If it is too much, email me. We ALL tend to have rather passionate feelings towards LBH--shouldn't a Sioux be granted some forgiveness? I speak as a descendant of a Lakota translator ... is passion such a bad thing?
Regards and Hokahey!
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movingrobe |
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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - September 28 2004 : 01:33:47 AM
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Certainly. Just follow the Benteen's Order thread from the beginning. Larsen carves it out within the first few pages.
Why should - alleged - blood mean anything? I'm of Scot descent; does this mean I have some magical insight to Culloden Moor or the poetry of Robert Burns? Because Wiggs says he's a Sioux (he also made reference to having been a cop, which makes his attitude towards fact unsettling....)we're supposed to.....what? Consider him the channel to Crazy Horse's mind? Smart? Informed? What?
Passion? Passion means nothing. Drunks and the insane have passion. Even so, I don't know if I'd dignify his posts with 'passion' except to elevate himself on others' work and words. For world class incoherence, read the From the Indians View thread. He makes up stuff, he denies what's in print under his name, he fakes quotes, he plagiarizes. Doing this, he says unjustifiable things about the deceased. That's contemptible. |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
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BJMarkland
Colonel
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - September 28 2004 : 05:24:32 AM
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While trying to cross-reference something I spotted today in the Ft. McPherson Post Returns, I found this entry in Michno's Encyclopedia of Indian Wars, Western Battles and Skirmishes 1859-1890 that has me curious.
"1 June 1870
NORTH FORK OF THE SOLOMON RIVER (North-central Kansas)
Shortly after Lt. Charles C. DeRudio and Company K, 7th Cavalry, had escorted a train of settlers to the plains along the North Solomon River, about 75 Indians, probably Cheyenne, stole the emigrants' cattle. DeRudio and his men, camping downstream, rode after the raiders, wounding four Indians and recovering much of the stock. Later, at Ellsworth, Kansas, the thankful citizens presented DeRudio with a gold-mounted saber. Six years later, DeRudio would carry the saber into battle at the Little Bighorn. 566"
[italics are mine-BJM]
Reference 566 states: "Burkey, 93; Thrapp, Encyclopedia' 395; Chandler, 426."
The Bibliography has the following:
Burkey, Blaine Custer, Come at Once! Hays, KS; Thomas More Prep, 1976.
Chandler, Melbourne C. Of Garryowen in Glory: A History of the Seventh U.S. Cavalry Regiment Annandale, VA; Turnpike Press, 1960.
Thrapp, Dan L. Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography in Three Volumes Lincoln, NE; University of Nebraska Press, 1991.
To cut to the chase, did DeRudio actually manage to smuggle his saber along? From Michno's words he did but not having either of the three references he uses as sources I was hoping someone who does have them (or access to them) could clarify.
Best of wishes,
Billy
P.S. I heartily recommend Michno's Encyclopedia if you don't already have it.
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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - September 28 2004 : 2:23:35 PM
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Really? Michno's Encyclopedia? The one where he states on page 296: "Custer, meanwhile, approached from the northeast, aiming for the Cheyenne lodges, then moved downstream to await support from Reno and Benteen. The support never came. Custer's scattered companies were picked off in detail...." Rarely do Custerphiles so blatantly dispense such questionable theory as fact.
With great amusement, I read Gregory F. Michno’s Encyclopedia of Indian Wars, a listing of most or all encounters between 1850 and 1890, when the Frontier was declared closed. In conjunction with the tabloid-like and increasingly sensationalistic (and bozo) presentations on The History Channel, Discover Channel, and other assumed conveyers of Truth - done in dramatic templates of recorded ‘conversations’ and discussions that are clearly carefully rehearsed for the camera - Michno’s book is agenda driven and flies off the map of logic.
Michno is offended that ‘revisionist’ historians downplay the violence and drama of the ‘wild’ West. He feels they are essentially saying that most transients could cross the plains and not hear a shot fired in anger or see an Indian. The only historian mentioned in this context, revisionist or otherwise, is fellow Coloradan Dr. Patricia Limerick, who reigns at the University of Colorado, while Mr. Michno with his mere Masters Degree ruminates and mumbles in Longmont, Boulder’s far less prestigious neighbor. I frame the combatants thus because I believe that is how Michno sees it: a heroic truth teller taking on the effeminate revisionist establishment of Western History, a blue collar scholar taking on the namby pambies.
I am not immune to this attitude myself, and enjoy nothing so much as famous hagiographers employed as historians having new evidence blow their theories - traditional or revisionist or, now, post-revisionist - apart. (Especially if they pointlessly use three or more names.) Patricia Limerick, though, while thinking well of herself, has retained few airs from her ascent into academic ionosphere. And her ‘revision’ of history is actually more correctly described as a less hysterical boosterism of macho myth. I’m not sure she has an agenda other than a wider net of inclusion for historical veneration. You know, like perhaps mentioning the other gender outside of its normal function of being in peril or axing open liquor kegs.
Michno assembles with the fastidiousness and energy of a baseball card collector the minutiae of incident and battle, and his book is quite valuable for that, if true. His conclusions are not supported by his own book, though, and reveal much of the frustration and anger felt by the more traditional when their idols are framed in testosterone-free terminology and simply viewed as competent or not. Most were not, by the way.
However, let’s look at Michno’s conclusions and see if they fall apart on their own, without any aid. My comments in brackets.
From his conclusion, page 361:
What about Indian attacks on settlers? Thousands of homesteaders were killed by Indians. {Where? Between what dates?} Even the trip west was perilous. Some historians, in their quest to downplay the violence of the frontier, would have us believe that the danger along the Overland Trail was minimal. {Really? Sure they just didn’t say the risk of Indian attack was minimal?} Stewart Udall believes it is a ‘myth that emigrants in wagon trains faced ever-present threat of attacks" by Indians!” {Not sure about the point of the second quotation marks, unless Udall was quoting someone else, or one of them is a mistake} Some authors quote from Merrill Mattes's study, which gives an excellent account of the migrations up to 1866, or John Unruh's synthesis, which makes use of Mattes, but goes only up to 1860. In their estimations, about 200,000 people went west on the central route from 1850 to 1860. Unruh figures Indians killed only 316 emigrants in that decade. But he leaves out the attack on the Fancher train, the infamous Mountain Meadows Massacre, in which Mormons and their Indian allies executed 121 emigrants. This brings the number up to 437. It may still look like a small number at first glance - less than 1 percent. {You bet, but it’s way less than even that. It’s one fifth of one percent, and it would be unfair and untrue to credit the Mountain Meadows horror to Indians; it was willed and ordered in Salt Lake City by the Mormons. Otherwise, include Civil War caused deaths or any white on white violence, like range wars.} But what if "only" l out of 100 passenger airplanes flying between New York and San Francisco crashed? It would not seem insignificant. {I don’t understand this, switching counting individual deaths to airliners…. And why New York, given you’re only concerned with states west of the Mississippi? How about we say, to keep some sense of syllogims, that .22% of airline passengers between St. Louis and San Francisco were murdered by a group of related crime gangs over the course of a decade. That would be a huge number, and would never have been allowed to go on for a decade, given that passengers would cease flying. Even so, if 1000 people a day fly from SL to SF for a decade, that’s about 3.65 million, and .22% of that is 8030 dead folks. 80.3 a year. That’s considerably less than 1 out of 100 airliners crashing in Michno’s syllogism…..which doesn’t fit anyway. In any case, traffic deaths, accidents, drugs, other travelers, outlaws, disease, snakes and gun accidents kill more, just like they did back then. The question for Michno is how far down the Threat Matrix list were Indians to travelers? Pretty far down, which is why he pads the stats with Mountain Meadows. Indians were hardly a statistic at all.}
Granted, in the 1840s there were relatively few conflicts on the trail, but this was because there were relatively few people using it. They were little threat to the Indians. Yet John Faragher's statement in his study of families on the overland trail that "there were no war parties directed at emigrants" during the 1840s and early 1850s is incorrect. Those "nonexistent" war parties killed several hundred travelers! {Proof? In any case, there is bleed over to the stats above.} Later, as gold and silver were discovered, particularly in California, Colorado, and Montana, more white people poured in and more conflicts developed. As the casualty numbers in the entries of this book show, there were more than enough confrontations between 1850 and 1860 to belie the assertion that the trail was safe {Nobody's saying that, they're saying Indians were a statistically minor threat}: 62 emigrants were killed at Bloody Point in 1852; 19 died in the 1854 Ward Massacre; 11 were killed in the initial attack on the Utter-Van Ornum trains in 1860; and there were many more emigrant deaths, rapes, and torturings at the hands of Indian attackers. {Again, proof?} Faragher admits that in the late 1850s and 1860s emigrants "had to be more vigilant!' Still, he consoles readers, "most people got through!'828
I hope I have laid to rest, once and for all, the revisionist theory that the American frontier was not as tough as people think {you have not}, that it's all just a tall tale passed down from Great-great-grandpa. While we should not romanticize frontier violence, neither should we deny the facts: the West of the late nineteenth century was dangerous, destructive, bloody - in a word, wild. {Fine, but you go back and forth between the danger of Indians and everything else.} |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
Edited by - Dark Cloud on September 28 2004 2:29:05 PM |
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Anonymous Poster8169
Brigadier General
Status: offline |
Posted - September 28 2004 : 3:31:42 PM
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I'd join Billy in recommending Michno's book; it's useful for what it is, a reference work, and though in some places (Little Bighorn, Sand Creek, Mountain Meadows) it gets colored by Michno's agenda (as all his books do) I think overall he's faithful to his sources. The trouble is that so many of his sources are second, third-hand; and these books which Michno uses often give only cursory (and cursorily researched) attention to the skirmishes he's writing about.
The book has errors. One is saying that Lt. John McKinney was killed at Red Fork, 11/25/76, while leading A Company of the 4th Cavalry. He actually led M. Compare other details in Michno's paragraph with Jerome Greene's account of the same incident in "Morning Star Dawn" and you'll see that Michno's version only dimly reflects reality; this would come from using Utley and Robinson as his only sources, men who aren't exactly renowned for their scholarly rigor.
Michno depends too much on secondary sources when for a work like this, he should have relied on the official military returns. Those have errors and omissions too, but it's better than copying information from Dan Thrapp's "Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography," which has its own mistakes, and for the same reasons Michno has his: overdependance on secondary sources.
R. Larsen
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Edited by - Anonymous Poster8169 on September 28 2004 4:27:26 PM |
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BJMarkland
Colonel
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - September 28 2004 : 5:24:32 PM
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DC, with all respects, I must confess that my eyes began glazing over less than halfway through your "review." Nothing against the writing mind you, just too much at one time. Let me look through it and slowly read it and try to retain the gist of the point you were trying to make.
One thing I have confirmed to my own satisfaction is that the West was not a safe place to be. It was dangerous, despite some of the revisionist's denials. Along with disease and accidents, which I am sure killed more transients than any Indian, there was the Indian. And my statement is not only from secondary sources such as contemporary newspapers but also original source military reports, letters, etc. While I have no doubt that Michno, West, et. al. have their own agendas, I have no fears of them. Even with a thesis (for they must have a thesis) I totally disagree with, I feel that if nothing else, I can learn of another original source to check for myself and perhaps put it together where I am comfortable with. Hmmm...would that classify as macho revisionism or simply critical reading?
As far as Michno's Encyclopedia is concerned. As Larsen says, there are mistakes. Something that large will have mistakes, especially if an overabundance of faith is placed in not contemporaneous secondary sources but "modern" secondary sources. Whether he did that or simply used what he could find, I don't know. There are also omissions, as one I found yesterday in the Fort McPherson Post Returns regarding an Indian skirmish, exact day not given mentioned in the June, 1868 Post Return.
And strangely enough, while not looking for errors, I have been pleasantly surprised at some of the details he does have. For instance, in the Fort Cottonwood (or Cottonwood Springs) Post Return (M617 roll 257) there is the mention of the deaths of Pvts. Johns Anderson & William R. Mosier, Co. C, 7th Iowa Volunteer Cavalry; killed by Indians September 18, 1864 and Pvt. Edwin Beutz, Co. A, 1st Batl. Neb. Vol. Cavalry. Curious about that, I checked to see if Michno had anything about them. The closest I could come was 9/20/1864 when a "small party" of hospital patients and guards set out from Fort Cottonwood to gather fruit to combat a scurvy epidemic. Anderson was one of the guards. They were ambushed by Cheyenne and Anderson and three other troops were killed. Michno uses secondary sources which may explain the discrepancy in dates. I have been meaning to check to see if I can find the fourth man killed and whether I had missed it on the original perusal of the film. If not and the Post Return shows only three dead or died of injuries sustained in hostile encounters, well, we have found another two errors (date and number of dead). But, and this is a very important but! We do not throw the baby out with the bathwater. As history enthusiasts and researchers, we have to look at everything that we have not confirmed ourselves with a somewhat skeptical eye, especially the tiny details. Granted we should have a reasonable expectation of accuracy but truly, which of us unequivocally takes another's word?
Anyway, this went on much longer than I wanted. If your eyes begin to glaze over, I will understand. Likely, I should have enlisted Wiggs's neighborhood kids to put this into some kind of order but I am financially constrained after the last book-buying binge (plus we have to get the <expletive deleted> foundation to the house repaired.)
Best of wishes,
Billy |
Edited by - BJMarkland on September 28 2004 5:27:56 PM |
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BJMarkland
Colonel
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - September 28 2004 : 5:55:48 PM
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Back to sabers. I believe I saw somewhere on this thread the question, "when were sabers used against Indians in a charge" or something to that effect.
On July 29, 1857 on the south fork of the Solomon River near Penokee, KS, Col. Edwin Sumner with five companies of the 1st Cavalry charged approximately 300 Indians with sabers. Michno lists the casualties as either nine or four Cheyenne killed (larger figure from Sumner, smaller from Cheyenne sources) with two troopers killed and eight wounded. Of interest is that one of the wounded was a soon to be well known Lieutenant whose nickname at the Academy had been "Beauty", i.e., J.E.B. Stuart.
Incidentally, the event along with Sumner's report is contained within Grinnell's The Fighting Cheyenne, University of Oklahoma Press, 19th or 20th ed., page 119.
Quick and dumb question. On the edition indicators at the front, which is the current edition of the book you have? For instance, in Grinnell's book, mine states 10.....18, 19. Does that make my version a copy from the 19th or the 20th edition?
Best of wishes,
Billy |
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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - September 28 2004 : 8:05:13 PM
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Markland,
Well, it's not a review (THAT was too long and its still not complete and its succumbed to a piece on The History Channel and a bunch of stuff) but off the cuff comments and, anyway, half of it is Michno's final verses and his exclamation points with my comments in brackets. My point is that he pads his statistics to try and discredit "revisionist" historians, and it doesn't really work. To claim Mountain Meadow as an Indian battle (despite their presence in force) is a bit much, and to not mention the great likelihood that Wounded Knee's army casualties were inflated greatly by friendly fire is questionable. But his description of the Custer battle is not kosher whatsoever. We don't know what Custer was doing or thinking.
I recall that more people were killed by gun accident in the West than Indians, but I can't recall where I read that, but I'd bet a number of you knew that anyway. I think one of the Bloom books is where I got it from. In any case, the trail west was very dangerous, and I'm not aware of any responsible historian saying otherwise, but little of that danger was due to Indians.
Michno tries to confuse his readers to prove a point that isn't really valid, and his statistics don't back up his conclusions. There is an element of tortured logic and hardwired deception that bugs me about Michno. I don't think he's a historian.
And, back to swords, is that it? The supposedly deep fear of swords that Connell and others mention Indians suffered from is based on one (1) battle pre-Civil War? |
Dark Cloud
copyright RL MacLeod
darkcloud@darkendeavors.com
www.darkendeavors.com
www.boulderlout.com |
Edited by - Dark Cloud on September 28 2004 8:06:25 PM |
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joseph wiggs
Brigadier General
Status: offline |
Posted - September 29 2004 : 10:45:18 PM
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Movingrobewoman, your request from DC that he provide examples of my "lying" has been requested before. Were I to write, "The sky is blue," his response would be, "You are a liar Wiggs, the sky is teal and you are an insufferable liar to indicate otherwise. I hate you, you liar."
Lorenzo G. proposed the same question a while back. An intelligent, caring Italian gentleman , who did not possess the ability to write English with great skill was ripped apart by this dispicable bounder.
I appreciate your concern. Isn't it wonderful that there are so many friends on this forum to share information with? Let us not let "Dark Clound" rain on our parade. |
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Dark Cloud
Brigadier General
USA
Status: offline |
Posted - September 30 2004 : 12:40:01 AM
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Lorenzo takes it in better spirit than you, Wiggs. He's sent me some PM's a few times, and we've had pleasant exchanges, in my memory, although I haven't heard from him in a while. He could still be a fictional composite, for all I know, but his notes were perfectly nice, I thought.
He never lied. It's only you, Wiggs. All alone.
Nobody can read that thread recommended to Movingrobewoman and conclude otherwise. All there in black and white with your name attached. |
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 - September 30 2004 : 02:31:10 AM
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I doubt any soldier with Custer lived long enough to fire 60 rounds. To claim that figure as the average lacks any basis. The Indians talked freely about how much unused ammo the soldiers left. I also think your 10% hit rate is way too generous. Crook's men fired 20,000 rounds at the Rosebud and hit, what, thirty Indians? If the 10% rule was true, then Reno's skirmish line (granting an average of 5 rounds shot per man, which may be way too low) should have plugged at least 50 Indians. I know of no one who thinks that.
So no, I don't have any problem believing only 30 were killed. Hare thought the numbers were credible, and no one who saw the field seems to have believed that the Indians suffered extreme casualties. Only two dead Indian ponies were found on the field, for example. It was a rout.
R. Larsen |
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Responsibility At Little Bighorn
