Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2016 18:28:36 GMT
When I was at LBH they are trying to prove 28 men from E company ran from LSH to DR and we're killed there. Trouble is no bodies have been found. It's the wrong ravine I think cemetery ravine is the one. It's just to far to DR and cover. I wear tall square toed boots with a 2 inch heel it's hard to run in them. I also owned a appolossa mare she could move when swatted. They would of been rode down clubbed and that would be that. The reports say all were shot from above. Why does common sense simply vanish because someone educated says it went like this
|
|
|
Post by yanmacca on Aug 11, 2016 18:46:34 GMT
JD I am not 100% on this but I thought that cemetery ravine was were E Company stashed their horses, this echoed with the way that L Company stashed theirs in horse holders ravine over on the Keogh sector.
If only these two companies used terrain features to stash their mounts, then these two companies may have expected a long period on skirmish duty.
|
|
dave
Brigadier General
Posts: 1,679
|
Post by dave on Aug 11, 2016 20:07:50 GMT
Benteen stated there were bodies in the deep ravine and in late June 1876 drew a map with the notation of 28 bodies. That is a first hand source from a combat vet who presumably kept his wits about him and knew of what he spoke.
Beth previously alluded to the fact this location was a water course in a part of the world known for heavy flash floods and storms which would easily have flushed any human remains down hill and down stream. Not to mention the number of scavengers who strewn the bones even further afield. Regards Dave
|
|
|
Post by quincannon on Aug 11, 2016 22:49:44 GMT
Benteen said there were 28 bodies in "A" deep ravine. He did not say there were 28 bodies in THE DEEP RAVINE> There is a significant difference.
All of those ravines up there are relatively deep. I would suspect that if you did a survey that Cemetery Ravine is deeper than Deep Ravine. It is also wider. It is also right next to a known location of Company E. It is not hard to build a scenario where Company E end up just where the markers are in Cemetery Ravine. It is near impossible, loony bin impossible, to build a logical scenario why 28 men still combat capable would run down into a deep cut like Deep Ravine that was full if Indians. It just does not make sense.
Ian: Company E's horses were stashed around the place where the Cemetery house now stands. Maybe not the exact spot but real nearby. Cemetery Ravine is a wide and deep feature that goes from LSH westward nearly to the river. Clearly marked on the Bonafides.
In this regard I think JD is 100 percent correct. Maybe even 110 percent. Contrary to my previous remarks on the black board, some holes in the ground are more important than others.
|
|
|
Post by Beth on Aug 11, 2016 23:08:18 GMT
Benteen stated there were bodies in the deep ravine, that is different that saying they were in Deep Ravine. I used to accept it as gospel that meant the only option was that area now called Deep Ravine but now I am no longer so certain.
Regardless of which ravine it is, the chances of the bodies being found are really, really remote because of things like erosion and scavengers. We tend to think of the terrible conditions that the army described when they tried to removed the bodies from the ravine--so I wonder if people think that those bodies were untouched by the NA. I suspect after the battle the bodies in the ravine were given the same treatment as everyone else so they had little left that would be picked up by metal detectors. If they are detecting metal in Deep Ravine it is from all the debris that has washed off the area or just thrown in over the decades since the battle.
BTW when the accounts talk about removing some of the bodies before they realized it was a really, really bad job, I think people think about them removing the corpses up over the steep walls of the ravine and putting them in that hardscrabble ground around the edge. It boggles my mind why they wouldn't have worked from the river side and then deposited whatever bodies they were able to remove in the lowland area at the mouth of the ravine. Maybe its because I am at heart a lazy person but I tend to think that people will find the easiest way to do a task especially if it is unpleasant. If though the ravine didn't go directly to the river then removing them up onto the hill makes more sense.
|
|
|
Post by yanmacca on Aug 12, 2016 11:14:04 GMT
Would cemetery ravine provide a decent place to bury men? if so then why was they not marked in the same way the rest were.
I would expect that deep ravine would make it difficult to drag these poor souls from this abyss, and that's why they gave up, but cemetery ravine does not look as bad to me.
So that is why I always thought that they ended up in deep ravine.
Apparently there were six markers placed were the visitor center and cemetery were built and these may have been E Company men.
Apparently surviving officers Benteen, Moylan, Godfrey and Hare, all mention these bodies, interestingly enough Lt. Hare said that the bodies of E Company were found in a coulee in skirmish order.
|
|
|
Post by Beth on Aug 12, 2016 15:32:21 GMT
I take it 'skirmish order' would mean that Hare saw them as being in order and evenly spaced? I wonder if that was because they were laid out somewhat orderly or if it was Hare's need to see order or a pattern instead of chaos, plus seeing them as in a skirmish order would possibly imply in his mind that they died fighting not being run down fleeing. Personally I suspect if the bodies were in any sort of order it would have more to do with human intervention after the fact, then the way they died.
I suspect that any of the ravines would have looked different on the day after the battle over what you see today just because of the 'traffic' through them--and of course the time since would have changed their look--some might be steeper and deeper than in 1876 and other might have broadened out and filled it. The topography of the area has been changed pretty much the day after the battle by things like building the monument, the increase of visitors, buildings, roads--the way the water flowed from heights to the river would have changed.
|
|
|
Post by quincannon on Aug 12, 2016 15:50:50 GMT
The markers in Cemetery Ravine seem to appear to me as being in some form of skirmish line, not perfect, but generally linear.
Good soil-bad soil, I don't think it mattered all that much, but burying them in Cemetery Ravine would certainly be easier than burying them in the feature we now call Deep Ravine.
I would think, and I have no expertise in geology that those bodies buried at the bottom of anywhere would be more effected by rainfall and erosion.
The point is that is where the markers were placed, and even knowing that some of the markers are not accurate, I don't believe there is any direct evidence that these markers in question were not placed in the general area of where the soldiers they represent were found.
The six markers that were supposedly moved from the cemetery for purposes of construction, I find quite valid. If Company E's horses were run off, while in the care of horse holders it would stand to reason that a firefight occurred at the place the horses were held. The location of the Cemetery House is a very good location to secure horses.
Steve knows the history of these markers, the Kellogg marker, and the markers formerly in Putt's parking lot. Perhaps he could give us an in depth post on the subject/ That is one I would really like to read.
Count you blessing Beth, at least you don't have a Howard Johnson's in the middle of a brigade's avenue of approach as you do at Gettysburg.
|
|
|
Post by Beth on Aug 12, 2016 16:43:09 GMT
Count you blessing Beth, at least you don't have a Howard Johnson's in the middle of a brigade's avenue of approach as you do at Gettysburg. True but I think people put too much stock in the 'pristineness' of LBH. They tend to look for patterns in the stones that may not actually exist. It is part of how are brains work to always search for patterns when we see randomness. It's why we see animals in clouds, constellations in the stars and religious visions in just about anything. I feel it's important to understand if when we are looking at the marker placement are we are actually seeing a pattern or if we are mentally making a pattern. And did the people who put the stones in do the exact same thing and thereby create patterns that do not actually exist. The stones allegedly were put up to show where a body was at one point in the history of time--and that may be true but it does not mean that is where a person died in at that spot. We don't know how much bodies were moved by looting and we don't know at a glance which ones are spurious. (I have a hard time describing the treatment of human bodies with disregard so I tend to depersonalize it by thinking of the area as full of fallen logs with valuable treasures embedded in and on them. If you were searching those logs how much are you going to roll them around to get what you want or just move some out of the way to make your job easier) We also don't know if when the people who put in the markers tried to make the battlefield look like they thought it should with the extra markers. It is human nature to create a pattern out of chaos so with the addition of a spurious stone or two and a random sprinkling becomes a skirmish line or a few markers in one area might become a stronger grouping Someone either consciously or unconsciously could to make an absolute rout appear to be a brave fight to the last man, it's going to effect where they place the markers--and even the way they orient the markers in relationship to others and the battlefield. Imagine if you threw a couple hundred dominoes on your lawn from the roof then think of them as markers in a battlefield. (But keep a couple dozen spurious dominoes to place where you want) You would be able to create all sorts of battle lines in what is actually just randomness. If there were no markers at LBH and you just had eyewitness testimony--would it effect your view of the battle significationly
|
|
|
Post by quincannon on Aug 12, 2016 17:15:29 GMT
Excellent. We do not know. We can never know. The point is that all we have to work with is the marker location and their association with cartridge/bullet artifact finds. It is that connection that is significant I think, not any one of the two alone.
Look at my recent post to Dave on the private thread, for something more in depth in this regard. Keep in mind when you do though that the people who placed those markers had no earthly idea of the presence of those artifacts, and the story they tell.
Also keep in mind the presence of the artifacts on L-N-C, that is consistent with the Godfrey trail. No markers there, also tells a story - that of a long range inconclusive waste of ammunition. Alone that has no meaning, but when you put trail, artifacts, long range action, and the JSIT telling of Wolf Tooth's activities, it provides several missing pieces to the puzzle. It also lends credibility to Wolf Tooth and by extension him telling his grandson of his other observations. It gives you a basis to rate the credibility of the intelligence provided - namely if someone is telling the truth about one thing, there is a better than fair chance he is telling the truth about another. Wolf Tooth told JSIT without filter. To me that is a distinct plus.
|
|
|
Post by yanmacca on Aug 12, 2016 18:37:49 GMT
I think there are 39 spurious markers, but was the trend to try and double up on certain graves to use the surplus?
If so then we don’t have to worry about markers just being placed in a vacant area just for the hell of it and if we see a double set of markers then at least one of those is genuine.
Going on this principle we can still mark out the areas were these soldiers died.
|
|
|
Post by yanmacca on Aug 12, 2016 18:42:53 GMT
Namely if someone is telling the truth about one thing, there is a better than fair chance he is telling the truth about another. Wolf Tooth told JSIT without filter. To me that is a distinct plus. I agree because these are the major factors which drew me to the JSIT narrative, and that was his step grand father actually showed him the areas in question and also explained things to him in his native tongue. This along with route drawn on the map pretty much changed my mind about how this battle panned out.
|
|
|
Post by Beth on Aug 12, 2016 19:25:23 GMT
I have moved a conversation that took place in a PM this morning that really belonged in this thread. Generally PMs for really, really off topic conversations--like talk about children/grandchildren, weather, sports, politics or just a quick clarification of some point. In this case, the question arose about whether it was 'kosher' to include information from a published source on the board and it quickly evolved into a conversation that needed to be shared with everyone. in the appropriate thread. Unfortunately there is no way to move the conversation other than copy and paste so it will show as a series of posts by me but hopefully I got the attributions correct.
An explanation to anyone new enough that they might not yet be a member on a PM (or private message). PM's should be looked at as a type of emails--only instead of being delivered to your mail server are delivered to a member via the message board. I can assure you as the board owner/admin/moderator--that they are private and it is only possible to see and take part in PM's that you have been included in to. One word of advice though--PMs are as private as an email--you should always remember that it is still something going out over the great abyss know as the internet--use common sense.
Thanks
Beth
|
|
|
Post by Beth on Aug 12, 2016 19:27:44 GMT
Yan Wrote: I wanted to post this on the board but it is from Fred's work and I don't want to quote him without his say so, so here it is. It concerns the body placements of E Company and Fred believes that E Company EMs died in three locations; Deep Ravine (28) Cemetery Ridge (6) South Skirmish Line (2) That counts for all 36 Privates and NCOs from that Company. Officers; E Company had two officers. 1st Lt. Smith (Last Stand Hill) 2nd Lt. Sturgis (never found but probable location was in the village) That makes the full total of all of E Company, I just wish I could do the same with the F and HQ elements. www.quartermastersection.com
|
|
|
Post by Beth on Aug 12, 2016 19:31:32 GMT
QC wrote: If Wagner or anyone else writes something for publication he can say absolutely nothing about it as long as you cite his work as a reference, preferably by page number. Just get the quote correct and in the context he intended it to be.
Well he can say something about it I suppose, but he would be wrong in doing so.
If Wagner or anyone else writes something on a forum such as this, it is not protected material, so it is fair game for anyone that wants to use it anytime - anywhere.
I am still waiting for someone to tell me why 28 armed and combat capable men would run into the terrain feature that was later named Deep Ravine that was full of Indians. Does that make any sense to anyone?
What I believe that nonsense to be, is the only way the conventional folks have to explain the men running down off of the hill tales. They presume they were running off of Last Stand Hill. and if you are indeed running off of LSH, then the only place you could run at the time is DR. You certainly could not run down to the place where those markers are in Cemetery Ravine. They could not have made it half that far.
You can though find ample reason for they to run down the partial face of Cemetery Ridge and end up just where the markers are.
Another 3 pointer for the JSIT and Scoot, while the Conventionals are calling for a foul shot.
|
|