Revisiting the Battle of the Little Big Horn

[dave]

Beth
I agree that Custer's thinking and actions were influenced by his gambling mentality. I have known 2 people were addicted to gambling, one of which lost his business due to his willingness to double down. Custer had a serious gambling addiction that caused his widow to live a very debt ridden life for quite awhile. His investment in a non-gold mine was just one of many schemes he had.

QC or Colt or any veteran officer could certainly speak to what if any his gambling nature the effected his orders and actions at the LBH. I kinda think that Custer went with what brought him to his fame in the army and life. It would be hard for a leopard to change his spots after a career of letting it ride. (I apologize for all the idioms)
Regards
Dave

[yanmacca]

Dave in Grey’s book he writes of a conversation between Custer’s scouts observed by Lt. Godfrey, the scouts were Bouyer, Bloody Knife and Half Yellow Face, Bouyer turned around and asked Godfrey had I every fought against those Sioux, yes said Godfrey, Bouyer then asked him how many he expected to find and he said we may find between 1000 and 1500, Bouyer then said well do you think you can whip that many, oh yes I guess so Godfrey replied, Bouyer looked at him and said “well I can tell you we are going to have a dammed big fight!”.

1000-1500 is about the same total that Custer thought could be in the village, he said that he expected around 1000 plus another 500 could join them in the summer.

Also in the book you find just how hard Custer worked his scouts, they were sent out at intervals almost around the clock and after a brief rest they were ordered out again, Lt. Varnum says that he and his scouts acted like an advance guard up the rosebud.

Yan.

[quincannon]

Dave: Any officer that gambles with the lives of his soldiers is a goddamned fool.

Officers are taught from the time the first pin on bars to evaluate and calculate risk. Based upon that evaluation they take risks that are only justified by potential reward. If you cannot justify risk, especially great risk, you don't take it. It is not the risk that matters that much, it is the justification of that risk.

It works the other way around also. If you are afraid of risk itself, then there is no amount of calculation that can justify it.

Hopefully those so adverse never put on a uniform and instead teach history at a junior high, along with the gamblers and want to be soldiers, and then search for excuses for their non-action.

[yanmacca]

Would you say that taking a risk means the same as gambling? this would take us back to just what Custer actually saw before he made a decision to carry on north and again split his command, in his mind the risks was worth it, but his assumptions never worked out, his valley assault collapsed and his support never arrived, his enemy was not only stronger then expected but had no intentions of running.

Yan.

[quincannon]

Ian: Gambling is the taking of a risk without calculation or evaluation of that risk, as it pertains to possible reward for taking that risk.

If you are sitting in on a game of five card stud, and you have a pair of tens, you at least look at the other hands at the table evaluating those hands for what could possibly beat you, and calculating the possibilities of one player drawing that fifth card which would make his hand top yours BEFORE you decide to bet next months rent money on that pair of tens.

Watch the last scenes of the Cincinnati Kid with McQueen and Robinson to see the difference between risk and evaluation of risk. If you have never seen it, all you need do is watch Robinson's eyes, while McQueen watches only the cards he has.

Custer saw only what he wanted to see, like McQueen, and did not watch the eyes of his opponent for the tell. At LBH the tell was in the number of Indians available to fight, like the number of cards still in the deck that could spell your doom. When the other guy has four of the cards that make up a royal straight flush showing, and is still betting big money, chances are he ain't bluffing.

[dave]

QC
Excellent response. Custer chose to believe what he wanted as the reality of the situation instead of the truth. Poor poker players do not last and it seems neither do poor military leaders. 
Regards
Dave

[quincannon]

The moral of the story is:

If you are McQueen don't play cards with Edward G. Robinson.

If you are George Custer you don't try to fill an inside straight when Crazy Horse has Four Bullets showing.

[yanmacca]

Well I don't suffer from the game of chance which means I don't play poker but I get the idea.

Risks like the one Custer took would only work if the rest of his regiment knew he was taking it, Reno should have been informed of this so called flank attack, benteen too should have been told that the main column was going to split in two, but even with this planned risk being known to all his subordinates I still think it would have failed because the enemy was too strong for penny packet attacks.

All through history commanders have taken bold risks, some have worked and some have failed, but the ones that have failed would be the ones taken blindly and without communication, so did Custer feel safe taking this risk because he thought he was only fighting a rag tag bunch of savages?
Many US officers of that time also thought that the chances of Indians fighting a pitched battle against large bodies of troops would be nil and that they would turn tail and scatter.

[Beth]

I think Custer took risks for several reasons.
1. He didn't understand the number of hostiles he faced
2. He gave to much credence to the going prejudices--Indians don't fight, Indians always run, and perhaps Indians fight as individuals not as groups.
3. He was reluctant to share the glory--the 7th can handle anything the Indians can throw at them.

4. This is my own personal opinion. He had reached his limit at being away from Libbie. So he wanted things wrapped up quickly in one neat package so he could return to FAL.

[quincannon]

A risk like the risk Custer took Ian, won't work regardless of the rest of the regiment, or indeed the whole human race knew he was taking it.

Tell the world what you are doing, then climb out on the longest and highest limb on a tree, with someone more than willing to saw that limb off behind you, and see if anyone knowing you are out there does one damned thing, or can do one damned thing, to mitigate the fall you are about to take.

Then we get to reward. From 3411 Custer knew full well what he was facing. What possible reward for risk taken could there be. He was not going to be able to fight all those people successfully with 210 men, nor was he liable to cause them any great deal of damage, and it should have been apparent he could not accomplish the campaign objectives set forth.

You cannot paint a whole house with a half of a bucket of paint.

"So did Custer feel safe taking this risk because he thought he was only fighting a rag tag bunch of savages"

The operative word there is thought. You can't have a thought, unless you first think.

I was an officer, and I think the chances of Indians fighting a pitched battle against large bodies of troops would be nil. Nil that is if that large body of troops outnumbered those Indians I was going to fight. They would get up and go from me as fast as their scrawny little legs would carry them. On the other hand if they outnumbered me about four to five to one in combat power, I just might reevaluate the situation, unwrap my Hershey Bar, and ponder the issue for a moment or two before I leaped feet first into an ass whipping.

Irregular forces, be they Indians, or any one else, fight only when they have to, or when their advantage is so overwhelming. Their survival as a force depends upon them avoiding battle, and accepting it only on their terms. If the impending battle is not on their terms, run like hell.

Beth:

1) You are saying he could not count.

2) Believing that marks him a fool.

3) The 7th Cavalry probably could. 210 men couldn't

4) The image that conjures up in my mind. Beth that's a Lulu/ I have done a lot of very stupid things in my life in pursuit of a prolonged embrace, but I never lost half a regiment. 

[Beth]

I wonder how many of Custer's 210 men saw the village?

As for Custer not being able to count. I think that if he believed the government numbers were correct, he might not have been able to quickly adjust is mindset about the numbers he was actually facing. When he looked at 3411, would have he seen a lot of warriors or just a lot of teepees and would he have considered the meaning of all the wikiups? If he saw warriors at 3411 and then again at another location and even more at a third, would he consider that he was seeing 3 different groups of warriors or just the same group over again.

my point about Libbie is he had the supplies for several days--he did not need to push so hard in the days leading up to the battle.

[quincannon]

The government figures alone says he was facing odds of three to one. That ought to give him pause. Honor the threat or potential threat.

Your Libbie point is valid. He had used up about 20 percent of his logistical assets. There was no earthly reason for him to be in such a hurry.

[dave]

The inaccurate belief that plains Indians would not stand and fight permeated the military command. So Custer was not the only believer in this fallacy. Sherman should have learned his lesson from Shiloh of underestimating your enemy and believing they would behave as you expected. Sheridan had waged a "hard war" in the Shenandoah Valley and was doing the same with the Indians being ordered back to the reservations by the end of January. I believe he knew the Indians could not comply with this order even if they wanted to. He was seeking war and he found it with Crook and Custer's defeats.
Careful what you ask for.
Regards
Dave

[Beth]

of course they knew that the NA would be unable to comply with the order to return to the reservation by the end of January--that's why it was given. It was their line-in-the-sand to justify their next actions. They were looking for a way to justify a war against the NA but that the had mixed feelings about--it was popular in the West and very unpopular in the East.

They had already tried a winter campaign in the West so they knew that the conditions could be brutal and make it impossible for the NA to either receive word of the orders or to come into the reservations once they received the orders.

[quincannon]

On the other hand, and there always is another hand, the Indians saw themselves as a nation, within a nation. They hade no allegiance to the United States, or loyalty.

That order was a declaration of war in itself, viewed in the same way that the United States would view Mexico ordering us to leave Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California, and go settle ourselves east of the Mississippi, and north of the Red River.

Based upon what I said earlier that irregular forces avoid battle, unless they hold the advantage, and more importantly their survival as a force depends upon this dictum, it is absolutely criminal level miscalculation to think Indians would ALWAYS run. It is just another indicator of how woefully incompetent the United States Army was in this era, and if Sherman and Sheridan were running the show that incompetence is laid directly upon their doorstep