Custer's "Last Stand"

The obvious answer is "not enough".

Far less than needed.

Good question. I did find this, a study of U.S. Army uniforms and equipment, but not much on how the 7th Cavalry was outfitted.

IIRC................

he left the supply train/pack animals with one of the other columns.

"I have read".... they had 24 rounds for their handguns (5/6+18) and 100 rounds for their rifles............50 on a bandolero (sp?) and half (2 boxes of 28) in their kit.

There have been many stories circulated concerning the weapons Custer and his men had available at he Battle of Little Bighorn. There has been speculation they had the wrong ammo for the weapons they were carrying, that ammo was left behind, weapons were left behind (i.e. Gatling guns), but as all the participants are dead it is tough to get the true story. As stated in an earlier post "not enough" would be morbidly true.

I have even read that the rifles after a few rounds would foul so badly that you couldn't chamber a new round . Supposedly most of the rifles were found with a cleaning rod down the barrel lying next to a fallen soldier .
There are a lot of stories , research is spotty and varies from different sources .

The pistol ammo was issued in 36 round packages that were paper wrapped. This started before the Civil War and continued until around 1900.

The standard load out for rifle ammo was Two 20 round cartridge boxes on a waste belt. The canvas "Prairie Belt" was after Custer's time, and may have been influenced by that debacle!

As to what the men actually carried. Only the sergeants, officers and a very few men in the 7th were Civil War and Indian War veterans. Over 85% of the enlisted were on their first enlistment, and a very large number of them had been in less that six months! The experience, that told them to carry all the ammo you can sneak, just didn't exist. This was a peace time army and pennies were pinched and regulations were strictly enforced! Moral in the 7th was very low. One very visible reason, the men were no longer allowed to carry the saber, the very symbol of cavalry. Another reason was the previous year the 7th US Cav. and the 7th Kansas Cav. had a long fruitless campaign, with the supply situation being so bad, the US Cav. took all the Kansas Cav's horses. Kansas troopers had to ride in empty supply wagons or walk! The 7th US Cav.'s supplies were in no better shape when they took off on the 1876 campaign!

The books I have that cover this are "Diaries of the Little Bighorn" & "Campaigning With Custer", Both are a little tedious to read, but very informative. I was amazed at the moral issues in both books. The enlisted men didn't like the West Point "Know it alls", at all! (sounds a lot like Viet Nam). The "professional" officers didn't see them as men, but merely as an expendable resource.

Ivan

The standard Frankford Arsenal package for the .45 revolver in the Custer period was 12 cartridges, and troopers usually carried a loaded revolver and an additional box on their person and probably a few more boxes in their saddlebags, with more in the supply wagon. Frankford Arsenal .45 rifle cartridges were packed in 20 round boxes, but I don't know what the regulation number of rounds carried per trooper were. I have examples of both cartridge boxes. For normal and typical Cavalry engagements with "hostiles" during the Indian Wars, troopers would not have needed to carry much ammunition. LBH was a glaring and unexpected exception. Stories have circulated for many years about the trap door carbines jamming at the LBH due to fired cases sticking in the chambers, but there is no solid evidence that ever happened, and some scholars strongly dispute the idea. Most likely, the troopers were simply poor shots (emphasis on marksmanship training did not exist in the Army at that time, and a typical soldier might fire only a few perfunctory shots per year in practice) and fire discipline was lacking, i.e., many of the troopers probably panicked and were firing wildly. But of course no one survived to relate the story of what really happened.

There is an interesting story about the development and adoption of the Model 1911 .45 pistol during the first decade of the 20th century. At the time, the Cavalry was not at all interested in a new handgun. Their attitude was (in brief) that a revolver and six rounds is all that a Cavalry trooper would ever need, thank you very much. Bady's book "Colt Automatic Pistols" discusses in considerable detail the resistance of the Cavalry to getting a new semiautomatic pistol.

Why Custer did not take along Gatling Guns on his expedition has been argued over a great deal. The fact is that it would have been difficult for Custer to move the Gatlings over rough terrain, and they would have slowed him down greatly. So he made what seemed to him to be a prudent decision to increase his mobility and leave them behind, given that he never expected to encounter such a concentration of hostiles.

There's more to it than just the basic load for a cavalry trooper of that era.

Custer left behind gatling guns that might have made a difference as he wanted to travel light and fast - in order to get there first and win the battle, rather than being part of a two part pincer movement.

Once at Little Big Horn, he divided his forces with Reno attacking the encampment from the south to keep the warriors busy while Custer rode to the north behind a ridge to attack the encampment from the north and in essence capture the women and children. It's a strategy that worked in the past as securing the women dn children had in a couple previous battles led to the warriors surrendering.

Of course the problem was that Custer ignored his scouts estimates of just how many warriors were present.

Reno faced a much wider front than anticipated and after about 20 minutes was facing about 500 warriors who were flanking his position on the left, and Custer had still not launched his attacks in the north. Reno was forced to retreat into an area of timber,a and then when the natives set fires to it, he had to retreat back across the Little Big Horn river and to the only defensible ground in the area to prevent his command from getting wiped out. His withdrawal was incidental however as there were more than enough warriors present to address both columns and even simultaneous attacks would not have been successful.

What Custer did is a bit fuzzy, depending on what evidence you look at and how you interpret it. He either split his forces with some of them descending Medicine Tail Coulee to attack across the ford there, and being repelled, while he tok the rest of his force to loop around to the north end the village. The alternative is that he took his entire command and attacked at Medicine Tail Coulee, and then, cut off from moving back south, retired to last stand hill.

I suspect the former rather than the latter after walking the ground and reviewing the evidence.

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In any case, the weapons employed by both forces largely dictated the flow and development of the battle.

Reno's assault was made with troops in a skirmish line with single shot Springfield carbines that had been recently issued. These 45-70 carbines did have a significant advantage in effective range over the various lever action pistol caliber rifles employed by the warriors. In the initial stages with the ranges in the 200-400 yard range, Reno was initially successful, but then had to withdraw as he was flanked, outnumbered, and the warriors successfully closed the range.

In fact he had taken only a single casualty until they had closed the range to within about 150 yards, at which point their superior short range firepower made all the difference and he lost 3 officers and 29 troopers in his retreat from the timber across the river and up the bluffs on the other side.

Custer's attack had similar weapon related consequences. On his withdrawl to last stand hill, the warriors engaged the troopers from greasy grass ridge and the range from carious points there to last stand hill is about 300-400 yards, giving Custer's troops a definite advantage. However as the warriors started to roll up the skirmish line on Custer's right flank, the range decreased.

More importantly, on the other side of last stand hill is a ridge in the ground about 100 yards from the summit. Once warriors were able to infiltrate this fold, Custer was fully exposed on the north east side of the hill to very accurate close range fire and had to position on the exposed south face of Last Stand hill. In fact, Crazy Horse reported making a surprise charge from the northeast - probably hidden by that low ridge until the last 100 yards. This was reported to cause some of Custer's men to panic and break down the south face of the hill toward deep ravine.

As his right flank was rolled up from the south, Custer was also exposed to ever closer fire from the much faster firing lever action rifles possessed by the warriors, and once the range closed to less than about 150 yards, the superior firepower made the outcome inevitable.

Th warriors probably took the majority of their casualties in the closing stages of the engagement, as they closed the range, and then in the last part of the battle were engaged at close range by the trooper's revolvers.

A contributing problem was the use of folded head copper cartridge cases in the .45-70 carbines. These cases did not relax to the same extent as brass cases, and they had a tendency to stick in the chamber once the chamber became badly fouled. This led to even slower rates of fires as troops were forced to knock these stuck cases out with cleaning rods, and no doubt led to numerous abandoned weapons.

As the battle progressed, more and more native americans along greasy grass ridge also became equipped with rifles that were either abandoned or taken from fallen troopers, augmenting their ability to effectively engage Custer's troops who were by then forced onto the south side of Last Stand Hill by the natives under cover of the low ridge to the north.

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In short, I don't think the basic load of ammo was really the issue and I don't think Custer's men probably ran out until the end was already unavoidable.

Benteen would have arrived with a full load while Reno's troops were probably running low on carbine ammo after a 20-25 minute engagement, but Reno and Benteen had ample ammunition to hold out until they were ultimately relieved a few days later.

Indians fired 13 rounds to 1 fired by the 7th. Troopers went down in a hail of lead.
Carbines didn't have cleaning rods. There were reports of broken knife blades from trying to get stuck cases out found on Custer Hill.

Dr. DeWolf, the regimental surgeon, had the only Springfield rifle and crawled from Trooper to Trooper on Reno hill to clear jammed carbines with his ramrod.

Troopers fired an average of 12 rounds per year in target practice.

Iggy's got it exactly right. Every Trooper with Custer was screaming, "My Kingdom, my Kingdom for a cleaning rod!"

The Indians had many repeating lever-action rifles that did not jamb much. And they were still very proficient with bow and arrow. It has been written that at times the air was filled with incoming arrows. The bow and arrow equipped Indian had about the same effective range as the Trooper with the Springfield Carbine in 45-70 and could put out 10 times the 'shots'.

The cartridges made with copper were subject to quick and copious corrosion when carried in the typical Trooper fashion. There were many Trooper's knives with broken tips found on the LSH. They were broken when a Trooper was frantically trying to remove a fired cartridge from his carbine.

There are many references to no survivors and that no one knows what really went on to contribute to the wipe out of Custer's part of the battle. That is wrong. There were many survivors back with Benteen and Reno who were still in a defensive position days later when the late arriving troops came upon the battlefield. There was a postmortem performed right then and there. Later, the Army held a hearing and most of what the late arrival Officers observed on LSH was made public knowledge. Over the years the PIOs for the Army did their best to protect the reputation of the ARMY!

There has been a tremendous amount of opprobrium heaped on Custer, but a good portion of blame rests with the Army leadership that set the training standards, the equipment lists and pervasive disregard of the Western Indian's fighting ability and willingness to fight. .......

Regarding the rifle ammunition, it is often stated that the .45 rifle case of the Custer period was copper. It was not. In the most authoritative work covering cartridges of that period, Hackley, Woodin, and Scranton's "History of Modern U. S. Military Small Arms Ammunition," states that beginning in 1874 at Frankford Arsenal, the case was actually made of a gilding metal alloy (somewhat like brass) called "Bloomfield Gilding Metal" with a cup anvil inside primer in a reinforced head. In common terminology, the case was usually called Copper, but it actually wasn't. With only a few minor changes, that cartridge was manufactured until October 1879, when the first lot of Boxer-primed .45 ammunition was manufactured at Frankford Arsenal, mainly to allow reloading (inside primed cases could not be reloaded). The gilding metal case remained. It was not until October 1884 that the case material was changed to tinned brass. HW&S make no mention about the .45 ammunition being changed as a result of the supposed Custer "Fired Case Sticking" experience. Logic dictates that were there any substantiation of that experience, action would have been taken immediately by Frankford Arsenal to improve the ammunition to prevent a recurrence, but such was not the case.

DWalt said:

Regarding the rifle ammunition, it is often stated that the .45 rifle case of the Custer period was copper. It was not. In the most authoritative work covering cartridges of that period, Hackley, Woodin, and Scranton's "History of Modern U. S. Military Small Arms Ammunition," states that beginning in 1874 at Frankford Arsenal, the case was actually made of a gilding metal alloy (somewhat like brass) called "Bloomfield Gilding Metal" with a cup anvil inside primer in a reinforced head. In common terminology, the case was usually called Copper, but it actually wasn't. With only a few minor changes, that cartridge was manufactured until October 1879, when the first lot of Boxer-primed .45 ammunition was manufactured at Frankford Arsenal, mainly to allow reloading (inside primed cases could not be reloaded). The gilding metal case remained. It was not until October 1884 that the case material was changed to tinned brass. HW&S make no mention about the .45 ammunition being changed as a result of the supposed Custer "Fired Case Sticking" experience. Logic dictates that were there any substantiation of that experience, action would have been taken immediately by Frankford Arsenal to improve the ammunition to prevent a recurrence, but such was not the case.

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Two observations:

1) Were picking at nits over the "copper" cases.

"Gilding metal" varies a bit depending on who's ordering the alloy. Today it refers to an alloy of 95% copper and 5% zinc. The British army 100 years ago defined it as 8 parts copper, to 1 part zinc, which works out to about 89% copper and 11% zinc.

In contrast, ordinance brass is typically 70% copper and 30% zinc, with trace amounts of lead.

The fact remains that the cases in use at the time had an alloy with a lot more copper and a lot less zinc than is the case with brass. It corroded, it did not snap back the same way brass does, and cases were sticking in the Springfield carbines, as evidenced by accounts of the time.

2) I appreciate the common sense contained in this statement:

"Logic dictates that were there any substantiation of that experience, action would have been taken immediately by Frankford Arsenal to improve the ammunition to prevent a recurrence, but such was not the case."

However, I have to ask whether you've ever worked for the government or ever looked at the many other examples of totally non responsive ordinance boards in US history?

For example, the first 2 years of our involvement in WWII were plagued with defective torpedoes and exploders, and despite numerous complaints and substantial evidence than the torpedoes and exploders were defective, the ordinance board refused to even conduct tests to see if the claims were valid. It'll never be known exactly how many US submarines were sunk by destroyers that they had hit with a dud torpedo.

Then there was the adoption of the 7.62mm NATO round where old heads in ordinance insisted on a full power battle round - a connect that was already known to be obsolete by the end of WWII, and they actively scuttled attempts to adopt the superior .280 British and the compromise .280/30 round - but then before the ink was even dry on the specification, they started developing the too small 5.56mm round.

Let's also consider the M16A1's combat debut. Ordinance folks decided that it could be fielded without a cleaning kit, even when Colt was saying that was not the case. It took several months and an unknown number of GI deaths before they even started to rectify that little problem.

That's on top of equally inept ordinance staff deciding it was ok to change the powder, which followed on the original error or insisting on the shorter, draggier Remington designed bullet, rather than the longer bullet designed by Sierra and Eugene Stoner - which precipitated the whole powder and pressure problem in the first place.

In the big picture, I am not surprised in the least that nothing was done about the alloy used in cartridges until 1884. Someone had skin in the game. In government, even admitting something could be better is seen by many government bureaucrats as saying that something is a problem, and problems make people in authority look bad, so they ignore it as long as possible - usually until the person who came up with the bad idea leaves.

The best book I have read on the subject was "Son of the Morning Star" by Evan S Connell.

It was well worth my time.

I anyone has read what happened to Custers Indian lady and son I would appreciate a reference.

Maybe I give the average Trooper too much credit for his mental acuity, but I suspect that if verdegris formation would have been a common phenomena, a trooper might have figured out the potential consequences to his tender body of a jammed carbine and kept his ammo clean, especially when he was about to go into a hot situation.

Ed Fowler said:

If anyone has read what happened to Custer's Indian lady and son I would appreciate a reference.

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Jake Herman who was on the tribal council at Pine Ridge was a friend of my family. I remember him telling us that he met Custer's son when Jake was a boy. Custer's son had the name Yellow Bird as a child, then Yellow Bear as an adult. He also took the white man's name of Jim Jack. If Custer's son was living at Pine Ridge, it can be assumed that Custer's Indian wife was there too. Custer wasn't the only officer in the 7th that had an Indian girlfriend/wife.

BB57 said:

For example, the first 2 years of our involvement in WWII were plagued with defective torpedoes and exploders, and despite numerous complaints and substantial evidence than the torpedoes and exploders were defective, the ordinance board refused to even conduct tests to see if the claims were valid. It'll never be known exactly how many US submarines were sunk by destroyers that they had hit with a dud torpedo.

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That is EXACTLY the example that came to mind.

Don't forget too that the Navy Ordnance people tried to blame the sub captains.

DWalt said:

Maybe I give the average Trooper too much credit for his mental acuity, but I suspect that if verdegris formation would have been a common phenomena, a trooper might have figured out the potential consequences to his tender body of a jammed carbine and kept his ammo clean, especially when he was about to go into a hot situation.

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My understanding of both the selection process and standard of training for enlisted people at the time would put them FAR below the average modern basic trainee, both in terms of basic human value, and skill set.

I suspect that troops that we TDPed out of the Army in '82 would have been shining stars in the U.S. Army of the 19th century.

I've read and researched much on this subject but I am not an expert.

My conclusion is two fold as others mentioned A) Copper casings fouled the breach of the trapdoors (see photo of my copper ammo from the era below) and B) Custer was arrogant enough to refuse to use lever action rifles available at the time. For good reason, the trapdoors were made to fire at long distances, kill the enemy before they were upon you. But that doesn't work so well in close combat. Many soldiers were missing with "Battle sight" position (leaf down) which is sight for 200 yards. Under that distance, it's anyone's guess where you're shooting with a trapdoor.