mac
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Post by mac on Feb 6, 2022 23:44:34 GMT
All these men have major importance in this battle. Here is why.
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mac
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Posts: 1,790
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Post by mac on Feb 6, 2022 23:45:16 GMT
Gall Gall’s family were killed during Reno’s advance in the valley and so Gall took no part in the valley fighting. He was however the leader of the fighting against Company L at Calhoun Hill as referenced by Red Hawk. Red Hawk These later soldiers were coming down on the ridge in three divisions. They did not come down to the river. The first division came to a point about half a mile or three quarters of a mile from the river. Crazy Horse and Gall and Knife Chief were haranguing the Indians to get together so that they could make another charge on the soldiers. Smithsonian Magazine Thomas Powers ..November 2010 “Gall and three other Indians were watching the same soldiers from a high point on the eastern side of the river. Well out in front were two soldiers. Ten years later, Gall identified them as Custer and his orderly, but more probably it was not. This man he called Custer was in no hurry, Gall said. Off to Gall’s right, on one of the bluffs upriver, some Indians came into sight as Custer approached. Feather Earring, a Minneconjou, said Indians were just then coming up from the south on that side of the river “in great numbers.” When Custer saw them, Gall said, “his pace became slower and his actions more cautious, and finally he paused altogether to await the coming up of his command. This was the nearest point any of Custer’s party ever got to the river.” At that point, Gall went on, Custer “began to suspect he was in a bad scrape. From that time on Custer acted on the defensive.”” This tells us Gall was a leader at the fighting on Calhoun Hill hence an important man in the battle for Calhoun Hill.
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Post by yanmacca on Feb 7, 2022 14:28:02 GMT
These later soldiers were coming down on the ridge in three divisions. They did not come down to the river. The first division came to a point about half a mile or three quarters of a mile from the river. Hi Mac, sound like three companies moving off Nye-Cartwright, but where are the rest of the command, surly if these soldiers were in sight then any moving north down MTC would be too. All five crossed deep coulee more a less in the same time frame.
But it could have been over at ford D, but was any of these chiefs that far north?
Ian
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Post by quincannon on Feb 8, 2022 3:23:27 GMT
"Coming down" in most of the English speaking world means that whomever is being spoken about is heading southward, or descending. In this instance it is pretty darn obvious I think, to most people anyway, that the former is how Red Hawk used those words and not the latter.
SO, coming down the ridge in three divisions roughly translates into three separate parties, units, or companies moving southward along the ridge in question. The first division came to a point about a half to three quarters of a mile from the river fits quite nicely with Company C on F-F Ridge.
Red Hawk only spoke in his narrative about what he himself observed, and he is known not to have observed anything in the north or area of Ford D. He came from the south after Reno broke out, and never took part in anything except the fight with those three companies that came southward along the ridge until they were stopped.
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mac
Brigadier General
Posts: 1,790
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Post by mac on Feb 8, 2022 3:25:42 GMT
More to come Ian but Gall was facing North and the soldiers were moving south onto Calhoun Hill from behind Battle Ridge. See the next post. Cheers
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mac
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Posts: 1,790
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Post by mac on Feb 8, 2022 3:32:46 GMT
Crazy Horse
Crazy Horse left the valley fight shortly after Reno’s charge out of the timber and returned along the river to combat the troopers seen moving towards the North end of the village (Custer and his command).
Red Hawk locates Crazy Horse with Gall facing the troopers on Calhoun Hill. (See post above re Gall) He did not stay there.
Crazy Horse performed what is sometimes called his “Northern Loop”.
Flying Hawk tells us where Crazy Horse went in this loop. He went back down to the river and moved North to Deep ravine and then, up Deep Ravine to get behind the troopers on Calhoun Hill. As it happened, just as Crazy Horse arrived; Keogh had also arrived from the North, at what we now call the "Keogh position", behind Battle Ridge and short of Calhoun Hill.
Flying Hawk Oglalla Interview with M. I. McCreight, 1928 "Crazy Horse and I left the crowd and rode down along the river. We came to a ravine; then we followed up the gulch to a place in the rear of the soldiers that were making the stand on the hill. Crazy Horse gave his horse to me to hold along with my horse. He crawled up the ravine to where he could see the soldiers. He shot them as fast as he could load his gun. They fell off their horses as fast as he could shoot."
Crazy Horse then lead the attack on Keogh. Thus earning his fame in this battle.
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Post by yanmacca on Feb 8, 2022 6:21:38 GMT
Nice work Mac, I think this is where a lot of people get confused with the crazy horse attack, when they see "Northern loop" they immediately think of a wide sweep around the back of battle ridge, but you have to condense it to a much smaller loop, the move that Fred says took place which includes that gap. Keogh's position does have two very distinct groups which look like they have been cut in half by a flank attack.
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Post by yanmacca on Feb 8, 2022 6:26:11 GMT
Going back to your Gall post, I mentioned what I did in an exercise to show how many authors of the time mistook what the Indians said, when they received these accounts they simply went for the obvious and went for a move north. We have to be clear for future posters.
I will have to take my compass with me next we we go for a walk in the hills, apparently evey time we decend down a hill I am moving south, confusing ain't it and I speak the queen's English "LOL"
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Post by deadwoodgultch on Feb 8, 2022 11:59:24 GMT
More to come Ian but Gall was facing North and the soldiers were moving south onto Calhoun Hill from behind Battle Ridge. See the next post. Cheers
Mac, your thought process here is good, regarding Gall. I recently read two books that stated repeating rifles were being purchased by the Sioux. These rifles were said to be purchased from traders. The Sioux had a working relationship with the Metis, so this may have been where the came from. The books were written by descendents of the battle, from the winning side. One family is from Standing Rock, the other is from the Rosebud Reservation. The titles of the books do not include rifle purchases, but these purchases play a large part in the preparation for war in both books. The Hunkpapa circle is the southern circle, Gall was camped there. In an earlier post elsewhere on the board I indicated that Henryville was part of a tactic, not just happenstance. This tactic would have been two fold, one to stop reinforcements from heading north, and two for intercepting retreating troops heading south. Gall could have very well been involved in this. Regards, Tom
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Post by yanmacca on Feb 8, 2022 12:27:17 GMT
Yes Tom, blocking off deep coulee would be a good tactic, they could use it to move north too and if Gall saw the potential for two areas to cut off the column(s), then the crossing points at B and D would allow them to evelope the soldiers on the high ground. I am not sure on the time aspect here but it seems to me that once the soldiers got back to the high ground plans were being put in place to make sure they don't go anywhere, having fixed them on both ends of battle ridge plus infiltrate along their eastern flank, would give Crazy Horse a great option of splitting them in two, which it looks like he did, with great effect.
Ian
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Post by quincannon on Feb 8, 2022 16:13:24 GMT
"Coming down in most of the English speaking world means that whomever is being spoken about is heading southward OR descending".
Heading southward speaks for itself.
Descending means going down or down hill.
OR means you have a choice of the two definitions, depending upon which of the two activities one engages in..
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Post by quincannon on Feb 8, 2022 16:52:39 GMT
Mac: I find Flying Hawk's account completely consistent with Crazy Horse's reputation for aggressiveness in combat, and fully consistent with Indian tactical procedures of the time - hold and envelop. By going back to the river, then moving over to Deep Ravine, then ascending Battle Ridge he was enveloping what he probably thought were two companies on the southern extremity of that ridge (including F-F as being part of that southern most area). Running into Keogh at or near that gap in the ridge was probably a bonus. Do you have any idea of how many warriors accompanied him? I am sure there would be some, and ten or twenty would probably do nicely for what CH apparently had in mind.
Logic would tell you that if CH was returning from the Reno fight, he would cross at Medicine Tail Ford. I do not believe he would waste any time by going all the way north to cross at Ford D, as many think he did.
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mac
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Posts: 1,790
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Post by mac on Feb 9, 2022 0:10:11 GMT
QC The number of followers with Crazy Horse would be an absolute minimum of 12 but more likely many more, sometimes around 100 is suggested. Remember he had announced at the Reno site in the valley that he was going back to the fight that would be near the village, so some would follow him from there; then some would follow him when he left Gall to go on his loop North. At Keogh he made a bravery run which linked his followers with other Indians who were already concealed on Keogh's left (East). These two forces account for the compression of Keogh's command into two small bunches of men. Tom Great information! As you will see below Lame White Man had moved from Ford D to Greasy Grass. These guys were experienced fighters and were well able to figure out that they needed to "close the door" on Ford B. I am not suggesting that these were coordinated movements! Just saying that Gall saw the need to do something about Ford B and Lame White Man saw the same thing. Crazy Horse, being Crazy Horse, simply acted as QC noted above. Cheers
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mac
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Posts: 1,790
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Post by mac on Feb 9, 2022 0:16:46 GMT
Lame White Man
"The men in the sweat tepee crawled out and ran to help their families get on their horses and get away. Lame White Man did not have time to get war clothes on. He just wrapped a blanket around his waist and grabbed his moccasins and belt and a gun. He went with Grandmother a little way to the west of some small hills there. Then he turned down below and crossed after the rest of the warriors."
White Shield 1908 Cheyenne memories of the Custer fight.
"Near me I could see only Roan Bear, Bobtail Horse, and one other man. On my side was a man named Mad Wolf (aka Lame White Man) who said “No one should charge yet the soldiers are too many. Just keep shooting at them.” When they got pretty close to the river the Gray Horse Company dismounted and all the others as far back as I could see (sounds like more than two companies to me) dismounted also. It was not long before the Indians began to gather in large numbers where I was."
So we can place Lame White Man as a first responder to Custer's command in the valley at Ford D. He did not stay there. He probably left when he realized Custer was releasing men back to the South behind Battle Ridge.
We know Lame White Man left the Ford D area and moved South to Greasy Grass Ridge and from there lead the attack on Finley Finkle Ridge that destroyed the cohesion of the defense of Calhoun Hill.
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mac
Brigadier General
Posts: 1,790
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Post by mac on Feb 9, 2022 0:24:46 GMT
I see the first strike being by Lame White Man quickly followed by Gall and Crazy Horse. The only coordination being that Gall probably knew what Crazy Horse was doing and was watching for the chance to compliment Crazy Horse's action. For Gall the destabilization created by Lame White Man simply created an opening to launch an attack on Calhoun. The final point being that this was just great "heads up" fighting by three very experienced leaders; who should never be underestimated. Cheers
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