Custer's route

[yanmacca]

So just make the blue line longer?
By that map it is the only high ground between the yellow and pink lines.

I am trying to get a map for us all to use and need some help, that is why I am asking, as there is no point me spending time posting map after map if I don't nail these features.

[quincannon]

Can you get out your Bonafides and transpose?

[yanmacca]

Here is the Bonafides section cover some of that area, as you can see its not brilliant.

[yanmacca]

Going on that map SSR ridge is here!

[quincannon]

Perhaps I am confused, as I find that Google map very hard to read, as you scan in and out.

Looking on that Bonafides map though, if you will turn to the 3D portion of the map that has colors lighter as the elevations get higher, you will see the technical name SSR applied to the area you have noted above, but you will also see that the high ground itself extends further eastward, toward highway 212, and the high ground itself is completely interrelated and cutting off the top of Medicine Tail Coulee. I believe the interrelationship (therefore tactical value) of the feature in its entirety must be taken into consideration for the purpose of this particular part of the discussion. Were we just talking about that portion of the feature from which fire was taken during the Reno/Benteen siege fight then the place you have circled would be right on the money.

There is something I read once about some sort of notch in that high ground that would permit an approaching Benteen to be seen from the L-N-C complex. That notch would be along SSR with the eastward projection included. That to me is significant, and a good reason to include the larger area as a whole.

Guys who give names to these places are largely driven by the event taking place, and not the tactical value of the whole. I think that is what happened here, giving the name to the place the sharpshooters were and forgetting that the rest of that high ground must be integrated into the whole. Case in point if we came to believe that some activity must be confined to a place we now call SSR (the portion you have circled) then we are not open then to that activity having taken place in the same piece of high ground (writ large)but just not within the confines of that circle.

[mac]

I too find it hard to locate on the google map but I think you are about there Ian so keep up the good work.
With respect to names etc a thing to remember is as QC says names are tied to events and there are multiple names and in most cases those names are not the names used by the NA.
Another point to ponder is that it could be that Cedar Coulee as a route was originally chosen for some reason. I suspect to get Custer to Ford B on the erroneous basis that that was where he wanted to be.
When Weir went in search of Custer and wound up at Weir Peak he makes no reference, as far as I know, of seeing Custer's trail along the way or in Cedar Coulee does he? I think he would have to see it if it was there.
If not then Custer did not go that way as I cannot see how Weir would miss it.
Please correct me if I am wrong.
Cheers

[yanmacca]

I have enhanced the Bonafide map;

[yanmacca]

I can see what you mean, but is this still SSR or shall we call it Sharpshooter Ridge Extensions? (SSRE)
It looks very much as if it forms the right hand shoulder of Cedar Coulee and tails off as it reaches MTC, now working on that principle I should be able to nail it!

[yanmacca]

Sept 6, 2016 4:09:07 GMT mac said:

When Weir went in search of Custer and wound up at Weir Peak he makes no reference, as far as I know, of seeing Custer's trail along the way or in Cedar Coulee does he? I think he would have to see it if it was there.
If not then Custer did not go that way as I cannot see how Weir would miss it.
Please correct me if I am wrong.
Cheers

Good question Mac, Lt. Edgerly said that Capt. Weir and his Orderly simply trotted off towards the high ridge to the north. Weir apparently looked constantly at the ground as he rode and found deep furrows torn in the grasses along the bluffs and angling away on the backside of the nearing high ridge.

The account goes on to say that the trail was unmistakable and it was Custer’s.

But the question still remains that Weir ended up on the peaks and Custer ended up on LNC.

[quincannon]

Let us call Sharpshooter, Sharpshooter and the rest of that high ground, both fingers The Yanmacca Prominence.

What Edgerly does not say is if that trail was the trail of eighty or the trail of two hundred.

[yanmacca]

Can I please use the "Yanmacca Prominence" on all maps that we use, I used to envy the location of 3411 and how it has done FW no harm at all.

Chuck I cannot help with the amount of shod horses that made that trail, it took me a while just to get the info above.

Hmmm...I am not sure about the "two fingers" as here in the UK it means something rather different.

[quincannon]

I talked to Queen Lizzie about placing you into LBH immortality just this morning. She has blessed it and there may be a knighthood in your future

It means the same thing here Ian.

The Trail: We see these things in print all the time, and from various sources, and the point is that we cannot put all our eggs in one basket, to whit. Edgerly says there was a trail. I believe him. It is what he does not tell us though that can lead us down a garden path. He does not tell us "exactly where" it was. He does not tell us how big it was. He does not tell us if the trail led him to Weir Point, and extended beyond that place. He does not tell us that if the trail led down Cedar Coulee, why did Weir not follow it, but rather chose to go to Weir Point.

Somehow, we have the Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon vision when it comes to columns of cavalry, one long snakelike formation, and from a tactical perspective, when contact is eminent, those type formations serve only to get you real dead, real quick.

[yanmacca]

When Custer reached the area in question (just north of Reno hill), I wonder where Reno was in his move up the valley.

This would still be early in the piece and accounts suggest that when he separated from Reno his column was still whole.
I would have thought that any separation would occur later perhaps, maybe when the terrain changed.

JSIT said all the soldiers went together, so put this with no mention of any separation from Reno's men must either mean that any separation would be done so that one column could hug the high ground, whilst another (containing GAC)could keep to the bluffs to view Reno, the valley and the village.

So by the time they reached LNC, both columns had re-united.

[mac]

Adding to what QC has said re the trail.
It seems to me quite possible that there may be a few trails made by parties taking a look see while they are paused to view Reno. One may well lead towards Weir point.
When he arrived at the valley Benteen had no problem recognizing and recording that Custer had split from Reno and gone right. The fact that there is no explicit recognition of what would be a sizable trail in Cedar Coulee makes me doubt that one existed. I think it likely that Weir went to the most visible high point in the Custer direction rather than following any trail. Happy to be corrected.
Cedar Coulee is suggested as it takes one to Ford B. I doubt that having seen the village, Custer ever wanted to go to Ford B (see North South battle thread).
However they went, I expect all 5 companies went together (no further divide) and in what ever formations Custer thought appropriate for the situation. Further I would expect that those formations were text book and would surprise no experienced officer.
Cheers

[mac]

"Yanmacca Prominence"
I like it!
YP...reads well.