Interesing Sale of Custeriana

357larry wrote, "I have the utmost respect for those in our military. But if someone spent 22 years of their life having to be told when to sleep, when to eat, when to take a crap, then I have to wonder if he has the ability to have an original thought."

One of the several reasons I did not stay in the Marines is because I wanted to be responsible for my own fate. I was lucky in that I found out later even in civilian life we are never truly "responsible for our own fate". There are people at work, and on the street, even total strangers who interact in our lives to the point that often they make decisions towards us (quite often unknown until later) that are to our benefit.

If you desire to keep your civilian job, you "toe the line", if you desire to preserve your marriage and other relationships you do the same. Your life may not be as strict as the military but you still will NEVER do entirely as you see fit. Unless you like to live alone and off the land.

Since my departure from the Marines my respect for career military people has increased dramatically. It takes a lot of a "lot" to make a successful career in the military and to follow the life.

I have found many career military people are very capable of not only original thoughts but also more intelligent thoughts than quite a few civilians who never served in the military.

But I digress. Back to Custer, the U.S. military, the Indians, and the wars they fought. Neither side was guilty all of the time of committing atrocities and other sorts of bad humor. As well, both sides engaged in horrific treatment of their enemies as well. A good, modern American example of that is the land war in the Pacific during WWII.

Some the most vocal critics of the "Indian Policies" were U.S. military men who fought against the warrior tribes. Some of the most supportive of the Indians, in later life on the plains and on the reservations, were the same men of the U.S.mililtary.

Currently today one of the most prominent victims of revisionist history and inacurrate research is Kit Carson. He is being painted as an extreme killer of Navajo and Apache. In reality he knew them as well as their own people and he respected them. But he knew that if he refused to pursue them, others would with a more bloody vengeance. He tried as best to get them to surrender peacefully and was successful in many cases. Only when there was no alternative did he resort to force.

After he saw the terrible conditions the Navajo we forced into at Bosque Redondo he was the leading instrument in having them returned to their homelands.

Bullseye 2620, I'm liking your last poster a lot!! Of course "modern" science" is supposedly claiming, I think, 30,000 years.
 
357larry said:
semperfi71,
I find it curious that you seem to want to defend the POS. You say he was just following orders. So what!

True greatness comes about when an individual is willing to stand up for what is right and just and is willing to fight to correct that which is wrong. Custer possessed none of these attributes. He truly was nothing more than a big self-centered POS.
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it's evident that you have not done any time in the military I.E. chain of command and the following of orders...
 
357larry,

Wachinthun sni wasichu. :D

Pilamaya yelo!


Everyone else. . .

One of the reasons Custer is such a sore spot for those of us with First American ancestors, and especially, those of Sioux, Cheyenne, or Arapaho ancestry, is that the U.S. Seventh Cavalry still, to this day, carries a pennant on its battle flag commemorating the "action" in the Dakota Territory. I am sure that you will understand that some of us are highly offended that a unit of our own military, in which many First Americans have served with distinction, still commemorates the massacre at Wounded Knee.

Having said that, I urge two books on you: Crazy Horse and Custer, by Stephen Ambrose, which traces the development and fatal intersection of these two lives, and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, by Dee Brown, which tells the story of what happened during the wars on the Northern Plains and elsewhere. Everyone should read these (and anything else relevant) and make up his or her own mind about Custer, and the rest of it.

I will say this: the Seventh and the Combined Indian Forces (CIF), both rode horses, but that is about as far as the similarities went. First and foremost, the Seventh fought to kill; the CIF fought to protect their women and children, their homeland, and for honor. Traditional Indian warriors were each free to do whatever they wanted on the battle field because fighting was about personal honor and gaining merit, not about killing and submitting to higher authority. For a member of the CIF, counting coup -- touching -- an opponent was just as good as killing him, because you humiliated him by getting that close. As to tactics, well, people who know a lot more than me have called Crazy Horse's warriors "the finest light cavalry the world has ever seen." They certainly understood the use of the feint and parry, diversion, and drawing the enemy in close.

What happened at the Little Big Horn was that Custer divided his forces and then rode into one heckuva Sundance (the most sacred of the Northern Plains Indians' rituals) -- maybe 25,000 people and a lot of warriors. Really dumb. His Crow scouts warned him. Given those numbers, it wouldn't have mattered what tactics he used. He was looking for one more set of headlines with which he intended to propel himself into a Presidential nomination. Oh, well. By the way, some of the very first SAAs to come off the production line ended up at the Little Big Horn. Last year I thought I actually had a bead on one. Not the case. If any of you guys have one stashed, let me know. It's the only Colt I want.


Bullseye
 
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Bullseye 2620,

Sorry but I respectfully disagree with just about all of your comments about Custer, LBH, the warfare of the time period, and even some of your comments reference the warriors themselves.

Again, Custer was not "hunting headlines" when he rode into battle that day. He was following orders and he was using the standard tactics of the day that were in use by other officers in other campaigns before him and after.

The numbers of warriors, at best maybe, 1500 (and some women included) were not considered a threat to a mounted force of cavalry 600+ strong. Even if split as Custer did.

Custer disregarded the advice of his scouts because the Indian cultures then (and any intelligent guerrilla force before, then, and after) were not prone to attacking larger odds. A loss of a few men in a warrior camp was a tremendous loss. To an organized and trained "modern" army the loss of a lot of men could be absorbed. So the Crows, seeing what they AND Custer knew to be a large number of opponents wanted to move away, they were in the "Indian/guerrilla mindset", i.e. "Let's go find another, easier fight." But to ANY military officer of the time period the numbers were not daunting. So Custer attacked. So would have Miles, Crook, MacKenzie, Terry, Kit Carson.

However, on that day the Indian forces fought a different fight that changed the plans of Custer's engagement. The warriors were expected to fight a RETREATING skirmish as they had ALWAYS done before in an attack on a village. With one exception. Instead they came forth in an assault, first on Reno and then on Custer. Custer attempted to change his plans to meet the different threat. He ran out of time and terrain. he might even had been mortally wounded before a real plan could be formulated and the actual fate of the 7th rode on the shoulders of junior officers. Even if Benteen had done as ordered it would not have mattered.

The Indians defeated Custer because they had the terrain to their favor. They were in the coulees and under cover and able to direct a lot of arrows and SOME firearms into Custer's men who were on exposed hillsides. After whittling down the numbers even more they overran the remainder.

I personally do not consider "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee" so much a historical record of how Custer lost as much more one of the first historical records of how the various Indian nations were subjugated.

The Ambrose book I have not read. But I have read reviews of it and if they are true it is just another re-hash of incomplete information about Custer. But to be fair I should read it before I actually have an opinion.

Yes, any of the plains Indian cultures which were horseback by the 1870's were "fine light cavalry". But they were also just as good killers as they men who fought against them. They counted coup when they wanted and they killed when they wanted. I have no judgement on one side or the other as to killing and commiting "atrocities". In those days killing was killing. No one was too concerned about atrocities unless it was the killing of captives. And both sides did that as well.

Wounded Knee was a sickening tragedy. There was a lack of intelligence and level headness there that day, from both sides. And I suspect the 7th Cavalry was indeed looking for some revenge. I did not know the 7th today has banner commemorating that massacre. I would not consider that something to be proud of.

As far as Little Bighorn/Greasy Grass is concerned, I think the 7th has a right to commemorate that event as an example of bravery in the 7th...as long as they remember it was a defeat and not anything else. Then they will learn from it.

As for the Indian nations who won at the same battle, they have a right to be proud. But unfortunately they were too late on using the tactics of combined assault versus the tactics of hit and run. They won the battle but they lost the war.

"Cavalier in Buckskin" by Robert M. Utley was published in 1988. He was/is a western historian of top rate. His book explains the events of June 25, 1876 distinctly and accurately considering the dearth of knowledge available after Custer rode on with his split units.

The answer, to me, about the LBH/Greasy Grass battle, was not in the events unknown and therefore open to speculation but in the events that occurred throughout the West which describe in various details over many years of various events, the manner in which the warfare evolved to which combined that day to lead the principals into the decisions they made. Be it one side or the other.
 
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Yes, Utley is top-rate and I would tend to value his take on things. Now, the Ambrose book, while clearly aimed at the mass market, does contain some fine passages describing Crazy Horse's field tactics, and that's what I liked best about it. You will get a sense of the man as a fighter from what he has written. Remember, in the Lakotah Way, Crazy Horse (which better translates as "dances like a spiritually ecstatic horse") was also a "wicasa wakan," a holy man with a vision, and he fought in a much different way than do West Point graduates.

I'm not arguing that my relatives were above killing. I'm just trying to point out that they employed a very different style of warfare based on much different cultural norms as to what constituted heroic action on the battlefield.

Now, as to the numbers, I think the best estimate is that there were some 25,000 people in camp. It stretched three miles up-river. This was a rare event. Usually, we hold Sundance in relatively small family or immediate tribal groups. This one had whole clans -- the Minnecoujou (Crazy Horse's people), the Hunkpapa (Sitting Bull's folks), the Oglala (Red Cloud) -- of which there are seven in the Lakotah nation, as well as our eastern relatives, the Dakotah (Inkpaduta and his Santee warriors), and the other great branch of the Sioux nation -- the so-called Yankton Sioux, the Nakotah. Moreover, the Cheyenne were there, and also the Arapaho. As I say, this was a highly unusual event since these different tribes, while they all performed the Sundance, rarely conducted the ritual together on a whole tribal basis. We know for a fact that Sitting Bull participated in a Sundance on June 14, 11 days prior to the Battle at the Greasy Grass, where he had a vision of soldiers falling upside down into the camp.

This gathering, which literally had to do with the renewal of the life of the Sundance nation, occurred probably because it was part of Sitting Bull's plan to resist the unlawful annexation of the sacred Black Hills in violation of the Fort Laramie Treaty. It was literally a "gathering of the tribes," a marshaling of forces.

Given the size of the gathering, there had to be considerably more than 1,500 mounted warriors, even though they might not have all been visible at the same time. Remember, this attack happened during daylight, and some of the warriors reported that they were wakened from mid-day siestas (not all men dance at all Sundances). Many were in their tipis when the attack started.

Now, to Wounded Knee. It was indeed a "sickening tragedy," as you put it, and it was more. It was a stain on the honor of an American military unit that deliberately opened up on ~ 350 mostly old, sick, women, and children with four Hotchkiss guns. These people, under the leadership of the then dying Big Foot (Spotted Elk) had fled the Standing Rock Reservation in north central South Dakotah/south central North Dakota, and walked -- in blizzard conditions -- to reach the relative safety of Red Cloud's camp on what is today the Pine Ridge Reservation, this after Sitting Bull had been assassinated by Indian police on Standing Rock. That's why they fled.

Forsyth found hem just before they got to the Pine Ridge Reservation on Porcupine Creek, 30 miles east of Pine Ridge. One observer (The Wounded Knee Massacre - December 1890) reports:
"The Indians offered no resistance. Big Foot, ill with pneumonia, rode in a wagon. The soldiers ordered the Indians to set up camp five miles westward, at Wounded Knee Creek. Colonel James Forsyth arrived to take command and ordered his guards to place four Hotchkiss cannons in position around the camp. The soldiers now numbered around 500; the Indians 350, all but 120 of these women and children.

The following morning, December 29, 1890, the soldiers entered the camp demanding the all Indian firearms be relinquished. A medicine man named Yellow Bird advocated resistance, claiming the Ghost Shirts would protect them. One of the soldiers tried to disarm a deaf Indian named Black Coyote. A scuffle ensued and the firearm discharged. The silence of the morning was broken and soon other guns echoed in the river bed. At first, the struggle was fought at close quarters, but when the Indians ran to take cover, the Hotchkiss artillery opened up on them, cutting down men, women, children alike, the sick Big Foot among them. By the end of this brutal, unnecessary violence, which lasted less than an hour, at least 150 Indians had been killed and 50 wounded. In comparison, army casualties were 25 killed and 39 wounded. Forsyth was later charged with killing the innocents, but exonerated." ​

What is more, 20 Congressional Medals of Honor were awarded to members of the Seventh Cavalry for their "heroic" actions. Bob Smith summarizes this better than I can:

From a letter to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs dated April 12, 1920, three star General Nelson A. Miles (who was in command of the 500 soldiers that massacred the POWs) I quote:

"The present seems to me of imperative importance and justice, namely, to atone in part for the cruel and unjustifiable massacre of Indian men, and innocent women and children at Wounded Knee on the Red Cloud Reservation."

Later in the letter he stated, "I earnestly request that these measures be urged upon the action of the Congress."

Instead of an apology to the Sioux, the U.S. Government:

Awarded 20 Congressional Medals of Honor to those soldiers that participated in this wholesale slaughter;

Erected a monument to the few soldiers that died at Wounded Knee at Ft. Riley, Kansas;

Attached a battle streamer to flags on display in the White House, Pentagon, West Point and Army bases through out the world.

Incredibly, the Wounded Knee Massacre is listed in the Army record as the "Battle of Wounded Knee." And, it is a further travesty to have the 29 names of American Indians that have been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor to be listed on the same roll with the 20 heroes of Wounded Knee.

The United State Congress passed Concurrent Resolution #153 in October, 1990 to recognize Wounded Knee as a massacre and issued a statement of deep regret."
​
This was not a Presidential apology, which is what was requested by the American Indian veterans who pressed the issue. I think we owe it not just to the victims, but as a way of restoring lost honor to an American military unit, to revoke the medals, remove the battle pennant, and to acknowledge the crime that was committed. The healing has been delayed too long, and removing these continuing sources of hurt and dishonor would do everyone good, white and red alike.


Bullseye
 
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If you would like to really understand this issue you own it to yourself to read "The Last Stand" by Nathaniel Philbrick. It came out earlier this year and will give you a whole new perspective. I'm not going to ruin it for the history buffs who are here but suffice it to say it proves a lot of the common wisdom is wrong.

You can get the book from any of the popular sellers like Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Bob
 
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Interesting that books continue to be written about Custer's last fight. There is a plethora of books already on the subject. I suggest reading some of the older works where the authors could actually interview or had known survivors.
Graham and Marquis come to mind.....
 
Bullseye 2620,

I am very enamored with the history of Crazy Horse. It was he and Red Cloud (if I remember my readings) that engineered the defeat of Fetterman in a manner as professional as any trained warrior out of West Point. From what I have read about Crazy Horse he was dedicated to only one issue, fighting to save his way of life. As such he was probably killed outright from a fear that he would always be a "problem" although in captivity at the time. He was the epitome of a warrior from any time period or nation. I want the monument/sculpture of him currently under construction to be finished in my lifetime, I want to see it.

Wounded Knee was an atrocity, pure and simple. The aftermath, more expansive than I thought due to you report, a miscarriage.

bk43, I will have to get a copy of the "Last Stand". I am becoming a collector of Custer history, not because I am his "defender" but because I think he was interesting in spite of his egotistical lifestyle.

handejector, I too find it interesting that the "history" of LBH/greasy Grass and Custer continues to draw the interest that it does. I personally think it is because a lot of people find it difficult to grasp how such an event as LBH/Greasy Grass could occur as it did. That is essentialy how I became interested in it. But, personal anecdotes many times can be a slippery slope. They are colored by the person's prejudices, lack of knowledge outside of their own "sphere" or knowledge, and sometimes are just an axe to grind. BUT, they can be very enlightening if read "between the lines". Many people discount Elizabeth Custer's writings on her husband. However they are a treasure trove of how life was then and how it was to live on an army post in the ranks of the privileged officer class. And they are an insight into the personality of Custer when you read between the lines (again) of how "wonderful" he was in her eyes.
 
semperfi71 said:
handejector, I too find it interesting that the "history" of LBH/greasy Grass and Custer continues to draw the interest that it does. I personally think it is because a lot of people find it difficult to grasp how such an event as LBH/Greasy Grass could occur as it did. That is essentialy how I became interested in it. But, personal anecdotes many times can be a slippery slope. They are colored by the person's prejudices, lack of knowledge outside of their own "sphere" or knowledge, and sometimes are just an axe to grind.
Click to expand...
Of course they can be skewed by perspective, by hatred or prejudice, by an agenda, etc, etc. Ask any cop if three eyewitness accounts ever match perfectly.
However, three anecdotes give me more insight than 3 researchers usually do who have merely gone over the 3 anecdotes 135 years after they were published! Where has any new data come from on this battle? Anyone who was there has been dead for decades. Their children are dead. Most of their grandchildren are dead.
Was aerial film of the battle recently discovered? Much of the newest stuff I see is rather skewed, like there may be an agenda not fully in evidence.

After the burnover in the 80's, those reports came out about the forensic evidence found on the field. They said all the brass found indicated the Indians WERE in fact heavily armed. They thought they were able to follow individual weapons around the field.
GIMME A BREAK- more than a century after the battle, they pick up brass and tell me this brass fired with BP and corrosive, mercurial primers is in good enough shape to match with firing pin strikes. Don't you think every teenage boy that crossed that field for the decades after had to fire a few rounds from his ol' 73? Before it was a park, who would go there and NOT bust a few caps? It wasn't a truly protected area for decades after the battle. If I'm not mistaken, the village site was farmed for years after.
 
Another interesting read about Custer "General Custer and his Sporting Rifles" written by C. Vance Haynes Jr. in 1995, It goes into some depth of Custers expeditions up to the Little Bighorn.
Mr Vance sets up regularly at shows here in Tucson, if anyone is interested in a copy of the book he has them for sale at his table. Let me know and I can pick up a copy for you for around $20.

Dan
 
semperfi71 said:
Bullseye 2620,

I am very enamored with the history of Crazy Horse. I want the monument/sculpture of him currently under construction to be finished in my lifetime, I want to see it.
Click to expand...

Ya know, that thing is a total mystery to me. (Yes, I know, a great chief--Standing Bear--observed that there was no monument to American Indians in the Black Hills and he prevailed on Ziolkowski to sculpt one in 1939.)

kz_henry_48.jpg

The sculptor and Henry Standing Bear in 1948.


But, it is generally accepted that there are no images of Tashunka Witco (Crazy Horse) extant, because he refused to let his photograph be taken or his image be drawn. He was by accounts pretty modest in that way. At his request his parents buried him in a hidden, unknown location after he was assassinated in custody at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. I don't think he would have approved. Anyway, I think Ziolkowski got his nose too big. :D See this link:

http://smithdray.tripod.com/ch/crazyhorsememorial.htm


Bullseye
 
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handejector said:
However, three anecdotes give me more insight than 3 researchers usually do who have merely gone over the 3 anecdotes 135 years after they were published! Where has any new data come from on this battle? Anyone who was there has been dead for decades. Their children are dead. Most of their grandchildren are dead.
Click to expand...
Very true but(there's always a "but" isn't there:D) when you chronicle human history a period of time has to pass before people and associated events can be put in their proper place. It's not about the minutia of the day but where and how they fit into centuries of history. The book I recommended does this very well in my opinion by exploring how the battle fits, and affected, the histories of the native plaines people and our government.

As an example, the title "The Last Stand" is not Custer's Last Stand for a reason. The battle was the last stand for everybody there, and for the plaines people in many ways. A lot of times this is forgotten.

Bob
 
handejector,

I agree on the personal anecdotes versus re-hashed history that references rehashed history. I too wondered about the archealogical dig and the subsequent book by Gray, I think, (my copy is not in arm's reach). Also they utilized "evidence" and "reports" from previous folks who had found cartridge cases on the battlefield. However, the Indian reports themselves speak of not as many firearms as many folks later conjecture about. I suspect there was a certain number of "modern" firearms in use by the Indians and a number of muzzleloaders as well, since they were still preferred by them during that time period. They also had some Trapdoors captured from Crook two weeks or so before. But my readings indicate a lot of damage was done by arrows on Custer's unit. I do know that brass (or copper cases) from that time period can be found in surprisingly good condition withstanding exposure to the elements though. I have found some of it myself out here in New Mexico. It may or may not have been reloadable but it was easily identifiable and could be used as forensice evidence if need be.

Bullseye2620,

I too have read no image of Crazy Horse exists, although there was an internet photo a while back that claimed it "might be" but I suspected not because the principal in the photo appeared to be too dressed up in "war regalia" and I suspect Crazy Horse would not have done that. But I would like to see the statue finished although I have heard there are split opinions amongst the current Native cultures about it. A monument, however inexact in likeness of Crazy Horse would be a fiiting tribute to one of America's greates warriors.

bk43,

It was indeed the "Last Stand" for the Indian nations across the entire United States. I liken it to a Pearl Harbor, but in a negative fashion for the native people. Until LBH/Greasy Grass a lot of U.S. citizens and politicians were ambivalent about the "Indian Problem". After the battle the nation, and the politicians were galvanized into action and gave full support to a program of removing ALL native cultures to reservations. The Army was turned loose in the west and usually under General Nelson Miles' no-nonsense leadership the tribes were systematically subjugated.
 
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Speaking of Crook,

The Battle of the Rosebud, to me offers ensight and evidence that supports my suspicions that Custer did not "fail" in the manner usually projected.

Crook was about to engage a Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho village two weeks or so before Custer and south of LBH. He was assaulted, again as Custer was, and held at bay, and eventually so beaten he had to retire from the campaign altogether. He was defeated although most accounts do not say so. I have read that if a band of Crow warriors had not conducted a flanking attack on the "attackers" the Indians might have prevailed on Crook as they did on Custer. Crook's plan that day was to also split his forces on the attack of the village. But before he could engage that plan the warriors came out and attacked him. After the battle the Indians moved up to LBH, joining the rest, and Custer came along and met his doom.

Because Crook was incommunicado until after LBH the rest of the U.S. Army had no knowledge of the "new" tactic the Indians had engaged in. Knowledge of that may or may not have influenced Custer's decisions.
 
Bullseye 2620,

An interesting read from New York Times but the reporter, Bruce Barcott, is again repeating anecdotes and conjectures about Custer that vary greatly from what I believe otherwise. And I know to be reported otherwise. It has become too fashionable amongst modern folks to denigrate the U.S. military for its role in the Indian Wars and Custer (for many years) and now Kit Carson have become their poster boys for nastiness. They are not studying the history of the time period enough.

And...if the book about Custer he is reviewing is the same I would consider it not worht purchasing until it becomes "used' and cheaper. It sounds like another rehash of incomplete research.

However his quote, "QuanahParker exemplifies the more deserving who get left in the shadows." is something I have felt for many years. The book he is reviewing will definitely be bought by me. I always read everything I can related to the Comanche and Quanah Parker. Although I see some "holes" in the reporters comments about the Comanche that I assume come from the book as well.
 
semperfy71,

bk43 recommended The Last Stand. I was merely reporting that there is a review of this book, which I haven't read. As to the Philbrick book, Onomea and I swapped recently. He sent me the book about Quannah Parker, and I sent him Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee. You and I disagree about Custer, his motives, and what led to his decision to attack at the Greasy Grass. We do agree that the government's Indian policy was brutal. I continue to wish that more combat veterans would support the American Indian combat veterans who are demanding action regarding the medals awarded and the battle pennant.

I think on balance the Crazy Horse sculpture, if a little over the top, is probably a good thing. Indian kids can look at it and see a hero. I just think it is ironic that the person chosen by Henry Standing Bear to be memorialized was one who intensely disliked the glorification attendant to image-making. By the way, you know that Crazy Horse wore a small stone behind his ear as "medicine," and that he said to friends, "I shall return to you as stone." So, it is, as we say, all Mystery. Hoka hey!


Bullseye
 
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