Post by Beth on Jun 6, 2016 0:32:38 GMT
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Always another story to write: Author retraces lead up to Custer's demise at Little Bighorn
After 35 years exploring every corner of Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, author, journalist, historian and academic Sandy Barnard has come to the conclusion that three factors were primarily responsible for the demise the U.S. Seventh Cavalry on the rolling Montana prairie in 1876.
It wasn’t all down to its commander, Lt. Col. George A. Custer, who a decade earlier had performed brilliantly as a Union general in the Civil War. Start with what he was given to work with, Barnard said in a telephone interview from his home in North Carolina.
During his much-lauded Civil War career, Custer had led a well-trained, motivated and experienced Michigan cavalry armed with Spencer repeating rifles.
“The Seventh Cavalry was not the Fifth Michigan Cavalry,” Barnard said.
Forty percent of the troopers who saddled up for the Little Bighorn campaign were poor immigrants barely familiar with horses or marksmanship, he explained. Their firearms weren’t seven-shot repeaters, but single-shot Springfields prone to jam.
Then there was the strength and overwhelming numbers of Custer’s opponents — Sioux and Cheyenne trained from childhood as horsemen and warriors, Barnard said. They were fighting on familiar ground, furiously protecting their women, children and way of life.
But the primary obstacle for the Seventh Cavalry campaign may have been the land itself.
“Terrain, I’m convinced, is the most important factor,” he said. “When you’ve been on the ground as much as I have, you realized how rugged it was, how hard it was for the men and horses.
"They (battle critics) have no idea what the terrain was like.”
The landscape of the fatal June 25 encounter is the subject of Barnard’s new book Photographing Custer’s Battlefield. Images featured in its 257-pages are those of legendary U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent and photographer Kenneth F. Roahen of Billings, who roamed the battlefield for work and pleasure from the 1930s to 1970s. Roahen’s photographs are paired with those Barnard took of the same scenery during several weeks-long visits to the battlefield in 2012 and 2013.
Here are the rugged ravines, steep hillsides and narrow ridges that stretch from the Little Bighorn River to Last Stand Hill. A few miles away, the photographers capture the daunting bluffs Maj. Marcus Reno and three companies under his command retreated up after launching the initial attack on Sitting Bull’s camp.
Marked by stark white headstones commemorating the fallen and crossed by trails and roads, the landscape has been significantly altered in the 140 years since the most famous battle of the Indian Wars. But the basic elements would still be recognizable to combatants on both sides, even with intrusion of Custer National Cemetery and a 1950s visitor center.
The terrain has a history and evolution all its own. Comparisons of Roahen’s photographs from 40 to 70 years ago and Barnard’s more contemporary shots, demonstrate the pace of change. Roahen pictured the landscape before the Park Service built its visitor center in the heart of the battlefield in 1952 and before Interstate 90 carved up a big chunk of the historic battleground in the 1970s.
“The visitor center is the worst thing they ever did," Barnard laments. “If they ever remove it, Roahen’s photographs will be very useful in restoring it to what it looked like at the time of the battle."
For more than 30 years, battlefield advocates and the National Park Service have been trying unsuccessfully to find a way to build a new visitor center/museum away from the primary scenes of the Little Bighorn fight.
Interstate 90, its four lanes clearly visible from much of the national monument, “destroyed the scene of Reno’s Valley fight,” Barnard said.
Before the attack, Custer had divided his command in three parts. One, under Reno, was ordered to initiate the action with a charge on the Indian village spread for miles in the Little Bighorn Valley. Capt. Frederick Benteen and his command were sent to scout territory a few miles away. Reno’s attack proved disastrous and he and his men scattered pell-mell across the river and struggled up treacherous bluffs to what is now known as the Reno-Benteen battlesite. There he was soon joined by Benteen and his troops. The combined forces held out for two days until a relief column arrived. They had no idea Custer and his five companies had been slaughtered several miles away at Last Stand Hill.
After arriving on the bluffs, the troops could hear heavy firing from the direction of the Custer fight. Capt. Thomas Weir, without orders, galloped toward the guns. Others soon followed, but got only as far as what is now called Weir Point before being forced back by warriors racing to meet them.
Troopers, many of whom were later awarded the Medal of Honor, risked their lives dodging bullets and arrows as they scampered down what is now known as Water Carriers’ Ravine to bring water from the Little Bighorn to the wounded on the hot, dry bluffs above.
The Roahen and Barnard photographs, taken largely from the same vantage points, explore the scenes of all of this action and much more. Bernard has organized the book starting at the Crow’s Nest, a precipice in the Wolf Mountains from where Custer’s Crow scouts first spotted the enemy many miles away on the Little Bighorn. He and Roahen follow the cavalry combatants to both Last Stand Hill and to the Reno-Benteen Battlesite.
Barnard began researching the book off and on beginning in 2009 when The Big Horn County Historical Museum in Hardin received Roahen’s collection of about 10,000 photographs from his niece Elaine Ooley of Billings. He made arrangements with museum director Diana Scheidt to research the collection and use parts of it in his book. Then he set about reshooting the same scenes from the same point of view, noting the changes that have occurred over several decades.
Roahen was as intriguing as his photographs. He began his Fish and Wildlife Service career battling Prohibition-era gangsters who were illegally culling ducks from Chicago-area waters. He was beaten, shot and left for dead many times during his five years in Al Capone country. Finally, in 1930, when it had become clear he was a prime target for the lawless element, Roahen was transferred to Montana where he served as an agent until 1955.
As his interest in photography grew, Roahen captured the images of a changing world. He was frequently called on to record scenes at the battlefield. Postcards made from his work were sold at the visitor center. Historians asked him to provide photos for their books.
Barnard, a retired journalist and college professor, has been visiting the battlefield since a family vacation in 1980. On the trip, he purchased a book that mentioned Mark Kellogg, a reporter who died with Custer at the Little Bighorn. Intrigued, he began research that led to one project after another. He has written 14 books related to the battle or the battlefield and has two more being readied for publication. Another four or five research topics wait in the wings.
“There’ll always be another story to write,” he said.
Photographing Custer Battlefield was published by The University of Oklahoma Press and is priced at $39.95. Barnard will visit the battlefield in June for the 140th anniversary of the Last Stand. A book signing is planned at the battlefield.
Always another story to write: Author retraces lead up to Custer's demise at Little Bighorn
After 35 years exploring every corner of Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, author, journalist, historian and academic Sandy Barnard has come to the conclusion that three factors were primarily responsible for the demise the U.S. Seventh Cavalry on the rolling Montana prairie in 1876.
It wasn’t all down to its commander, Lt. Col. George A. Custer, who a decade earlier had performed brilliantly as a Union general in the Civil War. Start with what he was given to work with, Barnard said in a telephone interview from his home in North Carolina.
During his much-lauded Civil War career, Custer had led a well-trained, motivated and experienced Michigan cavalry armed with Spencer repeating rifles.
“The Seventh Cavalry was not the Fifth Michigan Cavalry,” Barnard said.
Forty percent of the troopers who saddled up for the Little Bighorn campaign were poor immigrants barely familiar with horses or marksmanship, he explained. Their firearms weren’t seven-shot repeaters, but single-shot Springfields prone to jam.
Then there was the strength and overwhelming numbers of Custer’s opponents — Sioux and Cheyenne trained from childhood as horsemen and warriors, Barnard said. They were fighting on familiar ground, furiously protecting their women, children and way of life.
But the primary obstacle for the Seventh Cavalry campaign may have been the land itself.
“Terrain, I’m convinced, is the most important factor,” he said. “When you’ve been on the ground as much as I have, you realized how rugged it was, how hard it was for the men and horses.
"They (battle critics) have no idea what the terrain was like.”
The landscape of the fatal June 25 encounter is the subject of Barnard’s new book Photographing Custer’s Battlefield. Images featured in its 257-pages are those of legendary U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent and photographer Kenneth F. Roahen of Billings, who roamed the battlefield for work and pleasure from the 1930s to 1970s. Roahen’s photographs are paired with those Barnard took of the same scenery during several weeks-long visits to the battlefield in 2012 and 2013.
Here are the rugged ravines, steep hillsides and narrow ridges that stretch from the Little Bighorn River to Last Stand Hill. A few miles away, the photographers capture the daunting bluffs Maj. Marcus Reno and three companies under his command retreated up after launching the initial attack on Sitting Bull’s camp.
Marked by stark white headstones commemorating the fallen and crossed by trails and roads, the landscape has been significantly altered in the 140 years since the most famous battle of the Indian Wars. But the basic elements would still be recognizable to combatants on both sides, even with intrusion of Custer National Cemetery and a 1950s visitor center.
The terrain has a history and evolution all its own. Comparisons of Roahen’s photographs from 40 to 70 years ago and Barnard’s more contemporary shots, demonstrate the pace of change. Roahen pictured the landscape before the Park Service built its visitor center in the heart of the battlefield in 1952 and before Interstate 90 carved up a big chunk of the historic battleground in the 1970s.
“The visitor center is the worst thing they ever did," Barnard laments. “If they ever remove it, Roahen’s photographs will be very useful in restoring it to what it looked like at the time of the battle."
For more than 30 years, battlefield advocates and the National Park Service have been trying unsuccessfully to find a way to build a new visitor center/museum away from the primary scenes of the Little Bighorn fight.
Interstate 90, its four lanes clearly visible from much of the national monument, “destroyed the scene of Reno’s Valley fight,” Barnard said.
Before the attack, Custer had divided his command in three parts. One, under Reno, was ordered to initiate the action with a charge on the Indian village spread for miles in the Little Bighorn Valley. Capt. Frederick Benteen and his command were sent to scout territory a few miles away. Reno’s attack proved disastrous and he and his men scattered pell-mell across the river and struggled up treacherous bluffs to what is now known as the Reno-Benteen battlesite. There he was soon joined by Benteen and his troops. The combined forces held out for two days until a relief column arrived. They had no idea Custer and his five companies had been slaughtered several miles away at Last Stand Hill.
After arriving on the bluffs, the troops could hear heavy firing from the direction of the Custer fight. Capt. Thomas Weir, without orders, galloped toward the guns. Others soon followed, but got only as far as what is now called Weir Point before being forced back by warriors racing to meet them.
Troopers, many of whom were later awarded the Medal of Honor, risked their lives dodging bullets and arrows as they scampered down what is now known as Water Carriers’ Ravine to bring water from the Little Bighorn to the wounded on the hot, dry bluffs above.
The Roahen and Barnard photographs, taken largely from the same vantage points, explore the scenes of all of this action and much more. Bernard has organized the book starting at the Crow’s Nest, a precipice in the Wolf Mountains from where Custer’s Crow scouts first spotted the enemy many miles away on the Little Bighorn. He and Roahen follow the cavalry combatants to both Last Stand Hill and to the Reno-Benteen Battlesite.
Barnard began researching the book off and on beginning in 2009 when The Big Horn County Historical Museum in Hardin received Roahen’s collection of about 10,000 photographs from his niece Elaine Ooley of Billings. He made arrangements with museum director Diana Scheidt to research the collection and use parts of it in his book. Then he set about reshooting the same scenes from the same point of view, noting the changes that have occurred over several decades.
Roahen was as intriguing as his photographs. He began his Fish and Wildlife Service career battling Prohibition-era gangsters who were illegally culling ducks from Chicago-area waters. He was beaten, shot and left for dead many times during his five years in Al Capone country. Finally, in 1930, when it had become clear he was a prime target for the lawless element, Roahen was transferred to Montana where he served as an agent until 1955.
As his interest in photography grew, Roahen captured the images of a changing world. He was frequently called on to record scenes at the battlefield. Postcards made from his work were sold at the visitor center. Historians asked him to provide photos for their books.
Barnard, a retired journalist and college professor, has been visiting the battlefield since a family vacation in 1980. On the trip, he purchased a book that mentioned Mark Kellogg, a reporter who died with Custer at the Little Bighorn. Intrigued, he began research that led to one project after another. He has written 14 books related to the battle or the battlefield and has two more being readied for publication. Another four or five research topics wait in the wings.
“There’ll always be another story to write,” he said.
Photographing Custer Battlefield was published by The University of Oklahoma Press and is priced at $39.95. Barnard will visit the battlefield in June for the 140th anniversary of the Last Stand. A book signing is planned at the battlefield.
