Custer Moves to Ford D with Five Companies Part A

[mac]

Nov 18, 2016 13:31:10 GMT yanmacca said:

Also you see mentioned in some Indian accounts the mention of the cemetery and monument, now these were added well after the battle, but some of the Indians do use them in their accounts to explain what happened on certain features, which seems wrong to me and is a clear indicator that some of the accounts were written well after the event.

I suppose if you are looking up hill at a featureless terrain, that the only things that stand out are the heights, so I suppose that's how the Indians maybe are getting their locations wrong, as ridges like cemetery, Calhoun, battle and Finley-Finkle are just prominent's on the skyline, well they were until the white man started to add features like buildings and stuff.

Those photos are great Ian!
As to the above.
Where does the idea that Custer went down to the river at Ford B come from?
I think it is derived by historians from Indian accounts where the participant recounts the stories he has heard after the battle, as well as his own experiences. As you commant Ian, close after the battle there would be no names for features. Just the soldiers came down a ravine to the river and they were repulsed by a smallish group of warriors concealled in the bushes. It is the historian who makes this MTC and Ford B.
The other point is that the accounts are largely from Sioux ( at the trading post I was told "The Cheyenne did the fighting, the Sioux did the bragging and the Crow got the land") who had been at the Reno fight and returned when they heard there were more troops behind the village. I have shown earlier in this thread in response to Fred Wagner that these warriors could not have been at Ford B to see any approach. They are just reporting that they were told; Custer come to the river. What they actually would have seen on their return was Company L in line on Calhoun. This makes them assume Custer came down to Ford B then went to Calhoun. In fact he came to Ford D and retreated to Cemetery. It is a natural misunderstanding that has become "fact".
The other factor operating is that the historians are not soldiers. I have yet to find a real soldier who actually thinks any commander would try to cross the river at Ford B.
Lastly it fuels the idea that Custer was supporting Reno only to be let down by Reno and Benteen. The romance angle. The attack at Ford D is not only far more likely it also shows Custer to be a far better commander than the loon who rode down and paraded in front of the village before turning his back and dividing his troops.
The more one investigates without the prejudice of the accepted truth, the more credible this theory becomes.
Cheers

[yanmacca]

You are right Mac, as a military manoeuvre, the option of sneaking right around the back of the Indians made sense. As I mentioned earlier, heading this way and using the ridge lines as cover, would allow for Custer to catch the north end of the village by surprise and if he times it well it could also give him an unopposed riving crossing.

I not sure of the exact length of time it took Reno to cross, but I think that it took about eight minutes to get around 150 men over that river, so Custer would be looking at say ten minutes to get across and move south in good order.

I would like to add that Wolftooth came as a bad surprise to Custer and spoilt his plan of surprising the village, and the fact that they followed him all the way to the ford would have had an effect on him, especially as he met resistance at the ford, so that meant that he was facing possible attacks on a couple of fronts, in a way the Indians could have done to him what he was trying to do to them and attack them from two or more directions.

The idea of Custer heading straight for ford B is an odd scenario, because we can see through many accounts that he came via the LNC ridges and snook around the east side of battle ridge, prior to that he kept his men out of sight by keeping off the bluffs on his approach.

I suppose that if you arrived at the battlefield from the south and saw the position of the village, MTC and MTF plus many shod hoof prints around the ford then you can try and make a point that this is what happened.

I am yet to see anyone come forward with evidence of a fight here, I know that some say that one troop approach the ford and tried to cross, but this would be a suicide mission as their support was nearly a mile away and this village was huge, I mean come on thirty eight men crossing a river to attack this objective?

[quincannon]

And you will not see conclusive evidence of it, as it did not happen, and what evidence there is, can be readily explained away as being mistakes made or false trails as Mac has done.

Real soldiers do make mistakes from time to time, and sometimes those mistakes are whoppers. This time though, no one can point to a valid reason to make the mistake of going to Ford B with a small force. There must be a reason, for even mistakes have reasoning behind them. What is the reason?

Wagner says it was for purposes of reconnaissance. Wagner wants to sell books, so what he did was merely try to determine timelines for the conventional as a means to that end. He broke no new ground. He only tried to fine tune what was already there. Had he proposed the theory that we have ruminated over these past months he may have sold his books to us, but it would be considered heresy to the larger LBH community. I suspect that Harper's book has received a similar review within that same larger community. At least he had the courage to say it was his, put it in print,  and in so doing also say if you don't like it, tough shit.

Mac is correct in saying that Custer going to Ford B, is the essential ingredient for the Reno and Benteen haters. Custer tried his best according to those misguided fools (misguided fools only that you must be misguided by emotion to hate any of these players, and for bonus points you lose your objectivity and perspective in the process of venting your hatred), and they let him down, dooming him. Bushwa to the infinite power.

Real people, and in that I include this body here assembled, look at things with objectivity. If it looks like shit, and stinks like shit, there is a nearly overwhelming probability that what you are objectively viewing is a pile of shit, The conventional theory more and more resembles that pile, which if you chanced upon it while strolling in yon countryside, you would  avoid.

[rebcav]

Nov 19, 2016 14:03:00 GMT yanmacca said:

Please tell me if this is too much, because I can get carried away.

    Not EVEN, Brah!!!!
       Actually, these pics have given me a WAY better picture of the AO.  Especially the pic from Ford D to The Cemetery....Do you have one from Ford D looking at LSH? (As he peers DEEP into the Gift Horse's Mouth)
      Thank You Sir,
      Duane

[yanmacca]

Sorry Duane, I tried to capture the image but the results were disappointing.

[mac]

There is an Indian account that I cannot find as I am in some disarray at home (code for my wife rearranged the study).
This account describes the soldiers coming over a hill and splitting into three groups. Does this "ring a bell" for anyone?
Cheers

[mac]

Found it! Two Moon (Cheyenne)

I then rode toward my camp, and stopped squaws from carrying off lodges. While I was sitting on my horse I saw flags come up over the hill to the east like that [he raised his finger-tips]. Then the soldiers rose all at once, all on horses, like this [he put his fingers behind each other to indicate that Custer appeared marching in columns of fours]. They formed into three bunches [squadrons] with a little ways between. Then a bugle sounded, and they all got off horses, and some soldiers led the horses back over the hill.

Not sure what to the east is, as a direction from a warrior.
This just does not sound like the topography at MTC but it does sound like BRE. The three bunches made me remember this quote, and think of Companies C,I,L on BRE. The fact that it is a Cheyenne source from their village area is significant to me. Sadly he does not say exactly where he is.
I could suggest north of the actual village, if he is stopping women leaving.
Cheers

[quincannon]

Let's forget the word squadrons for a moment, for it means something different to the boys and girls in the UK, Canada, and Oz than it means to us here in the Land of the Free, and Home of the Moon Pie.

Let's us say that Two Moons is telling the unvarnished truth and he was there, and saw exactly what he says he saw. That may be difficult for some, but what the hell.

When a column of say three companies is moving, there would come a point where it would find it advisable to deploy. The column of three companies would not deploy in line at first, but rather split into three company size columns, that seek to ride parallel to one another, three columns abreast in other words. They would continue forward until they found it advisable for each of those companies to go from column to line. What you would then have is a line, three companies wide, that could from that point 1) assault mounted 2) dismount and assault on foot, or 3) dismount and fight on foot disputing the terrain to their front, until one side or the other gained fire superiority, then moved to the next phase of the action.

Three Companies In Column

I
I
I

Three Company Columns Abreast    

I I I

Three Companies In Line

_ _ _

So what Two Moon describes is just what I laid out, and do not let the number three lead you into LALA Land. Two Moon was only one person who did not, nor could not see everything. What he did see was probably Companies C, I, and L coming over the top of that ridge at the place I suggested on Ian's first photo,  near where the trading post is now. He well could have missed Custer completely, but you can bet if he saw Custer he would describe the same thing only using the number two.

We still do it the same old way Two Moon described boys and girls, the same old way, and that was not at all hard to discern from what Moonblossom had to say

[mac]

Thanks for that analysis QC it is well beyond my level of understanding of such things.
The thing that always got me about that account is that it seemed an accurate description of a maneuver rather than simply "they came this way". The problem for me was that until now, using the conventional story, I could not possibly match it to any piece of terrain. Now I can! As I have said before, this theory makes it all start to make sense.
In the JSIT account Custer and Companies E and F would, I think, be moving down between BRE and Cemetery Ridge in that ravine; out of sight from the village and probably Two Moon. Does that sound right?
Cheers

[Beth]

I did a bit of googling and it looks like Camp was a big proponent of Ford B based on Sioux accounts In fact it may be the the Ford B designation comes from a Camp map.

When I was searching about Ford B I found this "Probably the clearest white voice that denies bodies in the Deep Ravine came from eyewitness Lieutenant Charles F. Roe, who was there right after the battle, and whose job it was to return to the field in 1881, rebury the bodies on the ridge and place the stone monument above them. In a letter to Walter Camp in 1911, responding to Camp’s persistent, incorrect questions about bodies in the ravine, Roe finally said: “I put up the markers near the deep ravine you speak of. There never was twenty-eight dead men in the ravine, but near the head of said ravine, and only two or three in it.”

[quincannon]

It is textbook maneuver Mac.

A column is the easiest formation to control on the march, but shucky doo, it ain't worth crap in a firefight. SO. What you do is start to spread wide as you approach where you think you may have to deploy, as an aid to that deployment. At what we now call the PLD (Probable Line of Deployment) or when you first take fire, it is rather easy then for these smaller units to shake out and come into line, and place maximum firepower forward. Much easier say then sorting out a three company column.

My suspicion was always that Custer was traveling in two groupings. That was probably for security, although there may be some unknown factor I am not aware of. What I am sure of is that he would wish to be able to control as wide a front as possible coming down off that high ground. Companies E and F could very well have been in that feature AZ calls Crazy Horse Draw. They obviously went back that way as evidenced by the Kellogg body find, so there I every reason to believe that they may have approached the ford that way as well. Roads get put in because they are they pathways men travel for the most part.

KISS KISS KISS or better IIBTKATAYSSBSMMTDFTAYS

It Is Best To Keep All Answers You Seek Simple Because Simple Men Made The Decisions For The Answers You Seek.

Walter Camp Beth has probably caused more harm than any good he ever did. Reminds me of this guy who my old man used to hang out with back in the thirties and forties. Always wondered why my father could not read a map or have any clue about fighting or positioning of troops. His theories were so far off they baffled me. It became clear after my father passed away when I went through volumes of letters exchanged during the period cited between him and my father, as well as quite a few other ACW buffs that lived in the DC area. The man who led them was a tactical moron. Unfortunately he was the ACW historian for one of the more prominent Union States, so I will not mention his name. He was the Walter Camp of his particular area of interest.

[mac]

If it is text book then I am betting Custer would have done it that way.
Beth, interesting about the ravine and Camp . If I read it right the bodies were at the ravine rather than in it. No matter for this theory. I wonder if the easy way to bury them was to put them in it and throw dirt in?
Cheers

[yanmacca]

Mac, the Indians used a different way of finding their way around and as the link provided by Beth says “north” to most Indians, is “east” to white observers” so using Indian accounts can confuse things a little.

This is a nice little link;

link

Back to deep ravine, some say that Corporal Briody (F Coy) was found dead on a rise above deep ravine.

This shows how long this so called “south skirmish line” runs, it looks like on hell of a run, if that is what they did?

link

[quincannon]

The story that Custer Apollo relates in that video clip defies belief for the rational and those of sound mind.

[yanmacca]

It does give a good lay out of the area in question, and near the point where they get to deep ravine you cannot even see LSH, so how the hell did they no where to run to.