Ive read the Indian dead may have reached about 80......

Yep, sure do. It's on my bookshelf. I also know the film isn't a documentary.

Maybe you missed the part (see above quote) where I refer to the book as a novel?

Custer fought a very poor battle, practically no reconnaissance, badly misunderestimated the enemy, both in numbers and fighting spirit, divided his forces in face of the enemy, his units not mutually supporting, poor choice of terrain. A good example of how NOT to do it.

Blackhawknj Speak truth. Injuns say last long knives run to deep ravine.


The last of Smith's troop fled towards the river and wound up in the Deep Ravine. It was like shooting fish in a barrel there. That's where fight ended.

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Eccentric old coot

WOW! One of the best posts that I have ever read on this website!!!
As a 2nd LT in 1960 at Ft Benning, GA.,,, we studied the tactics of both sides.
Custer looked for fame and because of this, he personally killed his own soldiers.

The American Indians were just trying to survive. They were also a good example of what results when you don't get immigration under control.

armed conflict = you're a hero or a villain....depends on who tells the story.....

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There's nowt so queer as folk

I don't think we like revisionism so much as we like objectivity. Is it "revisionism" to say that Lee fought Malvern Hill and Gettysburg very poorly ?
Jeb Stuart often outthought his opponents-the Ride Around McClellan, the Second Bull Run Campaign, e.g. But when he was bad-the Gettysburg Campaign-he was BAAAD! At least Custer led his men into battle. As opposed
to Hood at Franklin.

One point to keep in mind regardless....remember who was defending their homeland.

Love reading about Custer, but one of you guys with deep perspective should start a thread about Rorke's Drift and Isandhlwana. I read "The Washing of the Spears" about those battles and was amazed at Zulu capability. They maneuvered and controlled regiment sized units on the battlefield, and moved on a dead run. There's a reason Africans now dominate the long distance running events. If I remember correctly, a Zulu regiment thought nothing of moving 50-60 miles a day. A European unit in that campaign might move across ground, with wagons, 10-12 miles.
Bill S

What massacre? There were two American Army Units that met in combat that June day, one side won, the other side lost. That's warfare. As one Cheyenne Dog Soldier put it "them soldiers weren't massacred. Them soldiers were stupid". As I like to say, sometimes you're the Porsche Turbo zipping along at 190 mph, other times you're the bug smashed on the windshield. Life!

Watch the great movie 'ZULU DAWN' starring Peter O'Toole and Burt Lancaster. It plays out like Tora Tora Tora and shows how the Zulu Generals used the high hills to send positioning signals to their field commanders and successfully out-manuvered the British and their Boar guides. As far as The Little Big Horn Battle goes the best book & television mini-series about that day in June 1876, when 'two' American Armies engaged in combat is Evan Connell's 'SON OF THE MORNING STAR'. The details will grab you by the throat; like 'Little' Phil Sheridan's quote "Custer's campaign will be the final solution to the Indian problem...". Great read and a compelling viewing.

I read "The Washing of the Spears" many years ago and was very impressed by it.

Perhaps the Zulu should have acquired a true understanding of firearms (they thought raising the sights on a rifle increased the power, causing them to often shoot over the heads of the British) and sent a military advisory team to the Sioux and Cheyenne.

In the novel "The Indians Won", the Indians receive military equipment from the Europeans and prevail, an interesting "what if". Of course this would have required a fundamental change in Indian culture. But then Indian culture was fundamentally changed by force anyway...

Ive seen it, but not since it first came out. The premise is the same though.

Whites wanted to exploit the Indian [by treaty] lands the same way that the Germans wanted to exploit Poland and western Russia. Few people today think that was a particularly good idea.

I don't know why the Indians would have been any more favorably disposed to that sort of thing than the Poles or the Soviets.

Like the Poles, they fought and were crushed.

Unlike the Soviets, they lacked the means to prevail.

It wasn't a massacre-like the Alamo and Thermopylae one side fought to the last man. They went down fighting.

Massacre, is what happened to Col Fannin and his men.

And at Sand Creek.

My maternal grandfather was born in 1876, the same year as Custer's last stand.

Agreed. Custer was a self-promoter from start to finish. The greatest and (often) most successful generals kill the fewest of their troops as humanly possible in order to get the job done. Wellington ("our Artie") was one of the finest in this regard.

I agree their greatest value would have been in slowing Custer's rush to the scene of his demise - possibly allowing the natives to withdraw rather than fight.

Otherwise, I disagree.

The role of the gatling gun was the same as the role of the machine gun not too long after. As late as WWII the tactical doctrine against both fixed positions and in open country called for machine guns to pin the enemy in place while rifleman broke down the enemy. That was little changed from the waning days of the civil war where the combination of the Gatling gun and the rifled musket made Napoleonic tactics obsolete.

In that regard, the Gatling gun would have been extremely useful at LBH, assuming Custer could have established a suitable defensive perimeter.

If you walk the battle field and analyze the terrain from a small unit commander's perspective, and with an eye to the weapons of the day you realize a coupe things:

1) The Reno/Benteen position was the only defensible terrain in the area. It was well chosen and while others have condemned Reno for his actions, his actions are the only thing that saved his command. Had he attempted to advance to support Custer, he'd have been wiped out, and it would have been a waste as he could not have covered the 2 mile distance under fire soon enough to make a difference, and he'd have to cross the same terrain Custer was unable to cross to withdraw from LSH.

The steep slope down to the creek on the west side and the steep draw to the south left those areas well protected as attacking uphill was extremely hazardous. To the east there was 600 plus yards of very open, gently sloping terrain that would have made any kind of charge non survivable. Similarly, to the north was 600 or so yards of upward sloping terrain that was also devoid of cover. The command took some long range sniper rounds from a Sharps on the hill top, but otherwise, the area was easy to defend with troops carrying .45-70 Springfield carbines with an effective range of about 400 yards.

2) Last Stand Hill became progressively less defensible.

Initially it wasn't a bad position as the native americans came up a draw from the river and then engaged the hill and the skirmishers on the ridge leading to the hill from Greasy Grass Ridge.

Basically, Greasy Grass ridge ran west to east south of LSH, and intersected the ridge leading to the hill about 800 yards south east of LST. The ranges varied from about 250 yards to 700 yards. This was well beyond the effective range of the lever action rifles used by the natives (150 yards) and gave the initial advantage to the skirmishers on the ridge and the defenders on the hill.

The problem was that the natives also came up a draw to the east paralleling the ridge with several positions with ranges of 120-150 yards, which caused the skirmishers to have to fall back to the hill.

Even after the skirmishers fell back, and the natives closed the range to the hill via another draw to the southwest to around 300 yards, the fire from the natives was still comparatively ineffective, while the fire from the cavalry troops was not.

However, once the skirmishers fell back from the ridge leading from the top of the draw to last stand hill, it enabled the natives to obtain positions behind a low ridge to the northwest of LSH. The defilade is very slight, but sufficient and the ranges were again around 120-150 yards which forced the defenders to stay on the southwest slope of LSH.

Ultimately, with depleted numbers, diminishing numbers of functional weapons (the copper cased ammo tended to stick in black powder fouled chambers after extended firing, and had to be driver out with a ram rod), it was inevitable that they would not be able to resist a charge from either the northwest (only 120-150 yards), or from the southwest.

However...Gatling guns employed at that point could have suppressed those charges, and possibly could have added enough support to enable a withdrawl to the Reno/Benteen position.

Additionally, had Reno been equipped with Gatling guns, it's likely he could have held his position at the peak of his advance on the village from the south, rather than having to fall back into the woods and across the river to his final position. It's also probable that under covering fire from Gatling guns he could have continued the advance, as planned, even against superior numbers of warriors.

At a minimum, either way, he would have kept a significant number of warriors pinned in the south, and would have kept the focus on the battle in the south, giving Custer's planned envelopment of the village from the north greater chance of success.

Very well thought out observations. You've obviously studied the terrain carefully. But I think the crux of the matter, the key to Custer's defeat as well as the hypothetical issue of the Gatling guns, lies in the quote above.

The plains wars showed that any crew-served weapons, and that would have applied to Gatlings just like it did to the more common howitzers, could be used with impressive effect against Indians when defending a well-established position. To wit, Kit Carson's use of his cannons at Adobe Walls. Actually hitting anyone wasn't so much the point, but suppressive fire, and keeping any organized charges from even developing.

On the other hand, in fluid battle environments, out in the open, where the guns could not be properly supported by emplacements or properly placed infantry screens, their effectiveness was very limited. To wit, Big Hole, where the Nez Perce, though surprised in their encampment, regrouped and outflanked the deployed cannon after just a few ineffective rounds, forcing the crew to abandon it.

The LBH was a totally dynamic battlefield in its decisive phases. Most losses occurred during moving phases, for Reno during the retreat to the timber and the scramble to the hilltop, and for Custer in the final 15 minutes when his position, as much as you can call it a position, collapsed.

Reno's skirmish line out beyond the village might indeed have held longer if anchored on Gatlings, but it is debatable for how long, and they would have certainly been lost and impossible to get up to the top.

And Custer, in my opinion, died with his command because until the end he had no idea he was in real danger. There was no defensive position along Custer Ridge. If you walk the terrain, you realize that.

Why Custer thought as he did is a separate issue. But Custer was no dummy. Had he perceived a threat, he would have deployed the five companies in a defensible perimeter somewhere along the ridge. Never happened, as is obvious by the distance between Calhoun Hill and Last Stand Hill. No officer of Custer's proven ability would defend that terrain with 210 men if he thought he needed to assume a defensive posture. And when Calhoun's position caved in, there was no time to redeploy. The whole thing was over in minutes.

And in that situation, any Gatlings would not have been able to make a difference.

Custer made some assumptions based on previous engagements. It's believed his plan was to have Reno draw defending warriors to the south, while he came around behind the ridges and bluffs to the east and then entered the village from the north, where based on the results of prior engagements, he felt he could hold the women, children and elders essentially hostage and get the warriors to surrender, turn in their weapons and return to the reservation. It would have bene a good plan had he been facing the numbers of warriors he expected rather than the actual number of warriors on hand.

That massive underestimation of the forces involved doomed him from the start, and given that he ignored his scouts who tried to press the point, it was all preventable.

Consequently, there were more than enough braves to meet Reno in the south, as well as meet the attempt to cross into the village at Minneconjou ford at the bottom of Medicine Tail Coulee, and also repel any attempt to enter the village from the north.

The attempt to cross at the bottom Medicine Tail Coulee is well documented, but it's not clear what the intent was or how far Custer was able to advance to the north. Some evidence suggests he did complete his advance around to north, and then retreated to last stand hill, while other evidence suggests that last stand hill was as far as he got.

There's also some question of whether the attempt to cross at the bottom of Medicine Tail Coulee was due to Custer mistakenly thinking that was the north end of the village (since he expected a far smaller encampment), or an attempt to relieve pressure on Reno and/or create another diversion to mask his movement around to the north end of the village.

What ever was intended, the plan didn't work. Custer not only divided his command once when he separated from Reno, but once again to create a pincer with Reno to the south and Medicine tail Coulee to the north, and then a third time when he divided his command again to attempt to further encircle to the north around last stand hill to the actual north end of the village.

Injun say Yellow Hair was one of the first killed or wounded at the Medicine Tail Coulee. He was thrown over his saddle and the troops retreated.

Calhoun was left to cover the retreat and was rolled up. Survivors retreated to the ridge where Keough was attempting to establish a skirmish like. Injuns rolled up the skirmish line until there was the main body on massacre hill.

When Injuns reduced the hill to a pile of bodies, the remaining troops (Smith) fled down hill to the Deep Ravine where the fight ended.

Injuns said entire fight lasted no longer than the time to smoke "the pipe."

Incidentally, 5 members of the Custer family died that day.

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Eccentric old coot

It was President Grants fault. As many of us have wondered at different battlefields "What the devil are we doing here?"

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Halfway and one more step

Custer being a hero might depend upon from which side you were looking.

I'm as Southern as you can get, but there is no denying of Custer's civil war deeds.