Order of Battle - Battle of Slim Buttes

[quincannon]

Expedition Commander: Brigadier General George Crook

U S Army unit participation

2nd Cavalry Regiment ( Companies A, B, D, E, and I)

3rd Cavalry Regiment (Entire regiment less Companies H and K)

5th Cavalry Regiment (Entire Regiment less Companies H and L)

4th Infantry Regiment (Companies D, F, and G)

9th Infantry Regiment (Companies C, G, and H)

14th Infantry Regiment (Companies B, C, F, and I)

Approximate strength of U S Army Forces: 1200

Native American Strength: Between 600 and 800 members of the Sioux-Cheyenne Confederation, with most sub tribes represented.

[mac]

Interesting encounter this one, on so many levels. Especially the effect on some of the participants.
Gotta go.
Cheers

[deadwoodgultch]

Mac,

The Battle of Slim Buttes was the first U.S. Army victory of the Great Sioux War of 1876. Brigadier General George Crook, led the “Horsemeat March”, one of the most grueling military expeditions in American history, destroying Oglala Chief American Horse’s village at Slim Buttes while kicking Crazy Horse's butt. This may have been a first for CH. This I am sure you know.

Crook’s "Horsemeat March” which I mentioned in another post marked the beginning of one of the most torturous marches in American military history. Crook’s command consisted of about 2200 men, including 44 white scouts. Crook’s civilian scouts included Bill Cody, Frank Grouard, Baptiste “Big Bat” Pourier, Baptiste “Little Bat” Garnier, Captain Jack Crawford and Charles White. Col. Wesley Merritt made Crawford chief of scouts of the 5th Cavalry, this is the guy I mentioned in another post, he was quite a cowboy poet as well.

We have mentioned scouts in other locations, all of a sudden they are beginning to be used properly, their advice heeded.

Hope Montrose drops in and sees this.

Regards,
Tom

[mac]

Anything Montrose has to say is well worth hearing!
I was struck by the assertion that people like Cody and Crawford were so effected by the incidents they witnessed that they did not care to talk about Slim Buttes. Not sure if this is truth or fiction.
Certainly the death of American Horse sounds very stark and moving.
Cheers

[Deleted]

Deadwood wrote: We have mentioned scouts in other locations, all of a sudden they are beginning to be used properly, their advice heeded.

I can not agree with this view. GAC was a very poor Indian fighter, his extensive writings show he had no idea of his operational environment.

The difference is after the LBH disaster, the Army brought in its best officers. These men understood the advantages and disadvantages of using indigenous personnel, and understood how to link an intelligence collection plan to tactical decisions. LTC Custer did not.

I spent this past weekend researching two battle sites from King Philip's war. This research included my walking through swamps, and I fell face first into a 5 foot deep pool of muck. My point is that Benjamin Church understood how to use Indians in 1690, but GAC was clueless in 1876. Why?

[deadwoodgultch]

Aug 12, 2015 10:54:58 GMT montrose said:

Deadwood wrote: We have mentioned scouts in other locations, all of a sudden they are beginning to be used properly, their advice heeded.

I can not agree with this view. GAC was a very poor Indian fighter, his extensive writings show he had no idea of his operational environment.

The difference is after the LBH disaster, the Army brought in its best officers. These men understood the advantages and disadvantages of using indigenous personnel, and understood how to link an intelligence collection plan to tactical decisions. LTC Custer did not.

I spent this past weekend researching two battle sites from King Philip's war. This research included my walking through swamps, and I fell face first into a 5 foot deep pool of muck. My point is that Benjamin Church understood how to use Indians in 1690, but GAC was clueless in 1876. Why? Hubris comes to mind. Nobody knows better than I. No matter what we run into I can handle it. Lastly he simply did not listen to or disregarded the warnings given him(incompetence). 

[deadwoodgultch]

Will,

I agree on better officers after LBH. If they were in fact better officers, why did the Army not choose the better officer in the first place. I understand the whole department thing. Custer had already displayed his lack of common sense, by crossing the President.

Still in all scouting resources had been used by others prior to the LBH and after, in other plains and southwest actions.

Regards,
Tom

[mac]

As always a logical analysis montrose; love to hear your thoughts on some other battles from the Centennial campaign. Deadwood's point is interesting though but probably officer choice is organisational until there is a disaster at which point we really try to do things right.
Cheers

[quincannon]

I am not sure that there were any direct crossovers from how Church operated to how Custer possibly should have operated. Church and Gorham, and to some extent Rogers integrated the NAs into their structure. Church in particular used his NAs as soldier instructors, primarily in field craft I would imagine. Both Church and Rogers wrote on the subject matter, but like others who wrote on modern irregular conflict, no one noticed until after crisis presented itself.

Custer and others were somewhat organizationally strained in what they could and could not do. The ideal solution was probably an off the books provisional reconnaissance company including some bright officers, some very solid NCOs and enlisted personnel, and a fully integrated Indian cadre. I don't think prevailing attitudes would have permitted this, even if the Army did.

[dave]

Montrose
I can certainly relate to your experience  "I spent this past weekend researching two battle sites from King Philip's war. This research included my walking through swamps, and I fell face first into a 5 foot deep pool of muck
."


I would hate to have these few words of mine fall under Deadwood's gaze since he respects me so much.
Many is the time, while duck hunting, I waded into cypress sloughs and fell into the mud and muck face first in the frigid waters.
Of course it was a coincidence that I had been nipping at a little bit of peppermint schnapps each time I fell. I blamed it on them dam old beaver runs how else would I have fallen.

In all seriousness, I am pleased that you were feeling well enough to be out promenading in the swamps.
Regards
Dave

[Beth]

Aug 12, 2015 11:30:08 GMT deadwoodgultch said:

Will,

I agree on better officers after LBH. If they were in fact better officers, why did the Army not choose the better officer in the first place. I understand the whole department thing. Custer had already displayed his lack of common sense, by crossing the President.

Still in all scouting resources had been used by others prior to the LBH and after, in other plains and southwest actions.

Regards,
Tom

First they didn't just send Custer.  They sent Crook, Terry,  and Gibbon.  Custer just found more NA than he could handle with the number of men he had with him.  Custer might have been considered the best Indian fighter by the public but Crook had the experience.

I suspect though one of the reasons Custer was included at the end was because if the Campaign was unsuccessful, the public would have howled that 'of course it was, you left the best Indian fighter behind."  

[Beth]

The thing I have been wondering lately is even if say some of Crooks Crow scouts came riding into Custer's camp with information about Rosebud and the big Sioux encampment the night before the battle--would Custer have listened?

[dave]

It seems the US government and top echelon military leaders took the Sioux and Cheyenne seriously after Custer's debacle. The army recalled detached officers and imposed martial law on the Sioux.
Did the army change its view of the Indians and their possible actions and reactions after the LBH? Obviously the army felt the stigma of Custer's defeat had not been removed at the end of military operations in 1876.
The 7th cavalry had to be reorganized and equipped and was effectively out of service till the next spring.
Were there any army leaders who gained any honors from the Slim Buttes battle?
Regards
Dave

[royalwelsh]

Aug 12, 2015 11:30:08 GMT deadwoodgultch said:

Will,

I agree on better officers after LBH. If they were in fact better officers, why did the Army not choose the better officer in the first place. I understand the whole department thing. Custer had already displayed his lack of common sense, by crossing the President.

Still in all scouting resources had been used by others prior to the LBH and after, in other plains and southwest actions.

Regards,
Tom

Tom,

Were not the better officers further south facing the better hostiles? Mackenzie and Merritt came north after GAC's defeat.

It's amazing to see how many Confederate military leaders served in the old 1st and 2nd cavalry regiments created in 1855 and which came north after the Little Bighorn disaster - AS Johnston, J Johnston, Robert E Lee, Hood, Kirby Smith, Van Dorn, Hardee, Fitzhugh Lee, JEB Stuart etc. Then Secretary of War Jefferson Davis was looking ahead!

RW  

[Beth]

Aug 12, 2015 21:45:06 GMT dave said:

It seems the US government and top echelon military leaders took the Sioux and Cheyenne seriously after Custer's debacle. The army recalled detached officers and imposed martial law on the Sioux.
Did the army change its view of the Indians and their possible actions and reactions after the LBH? Obviously the army felt the stigma of Custer's defeat had not been removed at the end of military operations in 1876.
The 7th cavalry had to be reorganized and equipped and was effectively out of service till the next spring.
Were there any army leaders who gained any honors from the Slim Buttes battle?
Regards
Dave

Dave I don't think we can understand today how appalled people were from LBH and perhaps there was a big of embarrassment
 on the part of the Army.  After all these were uncivilized heathens and they destroyed the best of the Indian fighters.  We have the luxury of history to see that the best Indian fighters were not in place.

 I am not sure if the 1876 campaign would have worked with with different players.  After LBH though it was a different war--the NA were no longer massed in one place and it became a war of chasing down smaller groups to force them to the reservation.