The wounding of Smith and its effect.

[yanmacca]

Hello everyone, I just wanted to put a question out there and instead of using the “Custer attacked ford D” thread, I decided on starting a new one.

Now it is a straight forward question, does anybody think that the possible wounding of Lieutenant Smith virtually sealed Custer’s fate?

Now by all accounts, the soldiers paused on cemetery ridge and some Indians say this pause lasted 15-20 minutes. Now I reckon that the wounding of Smith caused this pause and it took around 15 minutes to patch him up.

Now 15-20 minutes may not seem like a long time, but in this time frame the whole five companies may have regrouped around the Calhoun/Keogh sectors.

Now I am not saying that just because all five reached the Calhoun/Keogh sectors intact that the outcome would have changed, but the earlier pause would have caused the battalion to split, and seeing that they paused in the first place would suggest that they were not yet under any real pressure.

Now I am not suggesting that poor Lt. Smith should be given the Vincent Charley treatment, but if they were being pressurized by bands of braves coming up from ford D and other locations, then Smith would be forced hang on a while longer for treatment. because the command would not have stopped.

So did the 15-20 minute pause have a real effect on the battle?

Yan.

[deadwoodgultch]

We will never know if, in fact, Smith was wounded at a/the ford. What we do know is, a stoppage for any reason, in any unprotected area, while the enemy forces arrayed against you continues to build, you are asking for it.

[yanmacca]

Exactly Tom, you don't stop for one man and put the rest of the command in danger, but they did halt and this is well documented in Indian accounts, but even the Indians said that he still could have escaped as they had not yet completely surrounded them.

I think that Custer was wary of the build up against him but unaware of how fast in was happening, so he called a halt on the high ground to patch up Smith, then he sent the other three companies forward with a plan of rejoining them on the southern end of battle ridge, but he was soon cut of and fixed.

So the medical pause forced him into a fight he didn't want.

[deadwoodgultch]

Good theory, and the stall for whatever reason was a coffin nail.

[quincannon]

If you conclude the word pause was used as we would pause in the middle of a football game for half time, that just DID NOT HAPPEN.

If you assume the word pause is used to denote a stopping of forward or rearward motion, in this instance rearward, and the action was ongoing during this pause, then that is most likely how the word was used in this context.

Any commander that stops for the sole purpose of treating one man or a few under those circumstances is a complexly irresponsible idiot, and should be taken out and shot for dereliction of duty.

Halting on that high ground for any reason for more than thirty seconds is what caused Custer's personal defeat,  Had he chosen to go back south all that would be done is change the location of the terrain feature we call Last Stand Hill. Had he gone east he would have made a clean getaway.

[yanmacca]

A pause, halt or stopped, it doesn’t matter what it is called, but they did halt, you find references to this in many Indian accounts. Smith was not with his company, he was with the HQ and funny enough so was the surgeon.

I know that stopping on the high ground is only one reason that they died, like I said I am not saying that the location made much of a difference, all five would have died on cemetery and BRE, and if they all made it to Keogh’s spot, they would have all succumbed.

The Indians said he could have gotten away and I said as much above, why he didn’t do this I don’t know.

[quincannon]

Pause, stopped, or halted does matter. It matters in the understanding of what was taking place.

Go over to the brown board and they will insist that the word pause was used to denote some type of coffee break activity. Who was it, perhaps Custer Apollo, or maybe something from the rubbish bin that Captain Pretend runs that suggests that they were up there picking out that evenings diversions with the opposite gender. All that is crap.

Stopped or halted could have been for several reasons. 1) Custer thought the situation was not that serious, and he could halt any advance on his position with firepower from the high ground. 2) A complete momentary loss of situational awareness caused by failure to appreciate the terrain that surrounded him. 3) A fixation on the preconception of about 1500 warriors, and that only a portion of that whole could be arrayed against him and that portion could be managed. Probably others as well.

You can bet your last farthing though that he did not stop for the SOLE purpose of helping Smith or anyone else, although helping Smith or anyone else would be a natural act concurrent with the halt itself.

Dismiss now and forevermore, not just you but everyone, this Victorian vision of gallantry that trumps common sense. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE in battle is expendable. It does no good to attempt to save one at the risk of two hundred nine.

[yanmacca]

Boy O Boy, I thought this new thread might start some interest but I am getting linked with the brown board, what gets me Chuck is that half the stuff you have just wrote, I have already agreed with over the last few days, and how Custer thought that the high ground would give some time to react and plan, but the Indians simply went around him and he never reacted to this threat, or he never seen it coming.

[quincannon]

I agree. That is just what you have said.

We must always remember though, that these are not private conversations between the two of us, or indeed between us as a group. They are conversations that have an audience that is the civilized world, or at least anyplace that has an internet connection.

It is therefore dependent on both bringing these things up for discussion, as well as dispelling any notion that these things are correct. Laying something out is one thing, but it comes with an equal responsibility to either concur, and show reasoning behind the concurrence, or pick it to pieces, and show an equal reasoning why something did not or was unlikely to occur.

We can never become a place where these things are not discussed. But it can also never become a place where nonsense is not labeled as such.

I fully understand why you posted this. The meat of it was WHIFF we are looking at the JSIT narrative, and accept it, while searching for an alternative reason for the stop, pause, coffee break, whatever, other than being forced off that position by enemy action.

My position on that, is there was a reason that Custer halted on that high ground. A bad reason, but a reason none the less. Further I believe that any reason, other than a force off does not fit what else we see. Therefore I reject it, not out of hand, but with due consideration.

[yanmacca]

I know you are a candid man Chuck, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

I always look a scenario from different angles, first I look at what we have written in Indian accounts, then I look at the body placements and markers, finally I look at the terrain.
Now giving that we are working with the JSIT narrative and all five moved back from ford D, I then consider this halt to be out of necessity and maybe even two fold, we don't know how many wounded he had if any, but any stop would probably be for a military reason first and and medical reason second.
E Company could have been deployed without a commander and maybe led by the 1st sergeant as Smith was not among his men.
If the circumstances were bad enough to cause them to pull away from ford D, then this halt on cemetery should have been by one company and the HQ and even then any firing line had to be so temporary that their horses should be very close at hand, to add to this the HQ should there about to supervise this move and make sure the other four get away, then they follow and then the company in line mounts up too.

[quincannon]

Given the situation, there is no good military reason for doing anything but breaking contact as quickly as possible, IF you have the situational awareness required by the situation itself, the appreciation of the opposition, in conjunction with the terrain.

It was the stopping that allowed the infiltration around the flanks to take place.

The headquarters element should be with the main body --- period. That is the responsibility of the commander ---- the whole, not the part. The fact that the headquarters element was found where it was suggests to me that they were not in fact in control of anything. Were they, the headquarters would have been with the three companies found in the Calhoun area. The sum total of this leads me to believe that it was a complete breakdown of command, and that all movement off of the northern position, as well as movement within it was a complete company level affair.

Time works both ways.

Medical reasons are always way down the line of priority, and have no bearing on the military aspects of any action.

The next senior commands, regardless if that next senior is a commissioned officer or the senior private in the rear rank. I would not hesitate to deploy a unit under command of the First Sergeant, anymore than I would hesitate to deploy that unit under the command of a Field Marshall. We make far to much of this Smith business, when the business itself tells us absolutely nothing of any consequence. It is a non-factor.

[yanmacca]

That sounds as if the whole move back was a bit of a shambles, and similar in a way to the pull back from Weir peaks, as one company has the presence of mind to hold its position whilst the others take off.
Custer could have lost control at this point and only for F Company being blocked, they could have been found with Keogh.
If there is any reason behind this pull back, then F Company could have been more south then the HQ.

[quincannon]

Custer lost effective control when all of the five companies arrayed themselves on the two ridges.

It was a two edged sword in that both ridges must be held. As we have discussed before one could not be held without holding the other. Therefore when the territory that must be held exceeds the capacity to do so, the fundamental mistake is thinking you could do the impossible given the resources to do so are not at hand. That leads one to the inevitable conclusion that the mistake was to stop and try to do what could not be done.

Had the position offered a more compact form of defense, stopping might have been the best option. Defense itself is not a defense if it cannot be integrated and it cannot be controlled. The two ridge position was a necessity as far as holding was concerned, but at the same time the two ridge position could not be integrated into one solid defensive array, and more importantly it was impossible to exercise control over it.

This same thing played out in Korea literally hundreds of time, too little trying to cover two much, and mind you they had the advantage of electronic communications and still could not do it.

Now also keep mind that I do not know why this happened. It could very well be that only two companies went to Ford D while the other three stayed on BRE. It could be that as a result of action the two companies that may have gone to D were split away and prevented from joining the other  three. We just do not have enough information to make that determination.

It should be sufficient to say that LBH was a combination of forced and unforced errors, but stopping was the biggest of all, and that any confusion resulting from a repulse at Ford D could have easily been prevented by pre-battle instructions being issued to the appropriate commanders. It is never sufficient to say what you are going to do if something works. You must also lay out what your intentions are if it does not. Hubris, in thinking that you have all the (required) answers is just as bad, as assuming that the enemy has no vote.

I get accused from time to time of oversimplifying these things by the use of examples from everyday life. I do that with purpose, in that these things are indeed the everyday life of a soldier. It is completely unnatural and inaccurate  to think that that the soldier in combat uses a different form of reasoning in planning a battle than we do in planning a trip to the grocery store. The same principles apply, including thinking about what you would do if that store is out of one of the items you need, or what happens if your car breaks down to or from that store. We go through these processes without a whole lot of deliberate thought, but we never go about them without an alternative or emergency plan in mind. That is all well and good for us as an individual, and I would submit to all of you that the only difference in going to the grocery story and planning a military operations is the requirement in the latter to inform others as to our plans, alternatives, and emergency action procedures.  

[Beth]

Nov 3, 2016 15:50:50 GMT quincannon said:

Pause, stopped, or halted does matter. It matters in the understanding of what was taking place.

Go over to the brown board and they will insist that the word pause was used to denote some type of coffee break activity. Who was it, perhaps Custer Apollo, or maybe something from the rubbish bin that Captain Pretend runs that suggests that they were up there picking out that evenings diversions with the opposite gender. All that is crap.

Stopped or halted could have been for several reasons. 1) Custer thought the situation was not that serious, and he could halt any advance on his position with firepower from the high ground. 2) A complete momentary loss of situational awareness caused by failure to appreciate the terrain that surrounded him. 3) A fixation on the preconception of about 1500 warriors, and that only a portion of that whole could be arrayed against him and that portion could be managed. Probably others as well.

You can bet your last farthing though that he did not stop for the SOLE purpose of helping Smith or anyone else, although helping Smith or anyone else would be a natural act concurrent with the halt itself.

Dismiss now and forevermore, not just you but everyone, this Victorian vision of gallantry that trumps common sense. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE in battle is expendable. It does no good to attempt to save one at the risk of two hundred nine.

Where would 'oh crap that plan won't work, what do we do know fit?"   Even if Custer wasn't necessarily in the habit of canvasing his officers for ideas, he would have had to gather them together to give a 'here's what we are going to do now."  Would that taken 15 minutes or so? 
 
I have a image of while they were planning the next move that they were in a sort of mental foxhole and totally lost what was going on or that the situation could have changed drastically in those 15 minutes.

[yanmacca]

Beth, I have a feeling that some of those companies simply took off without getting the go ahead, because just looking at the topography and given the idea that some of these units were well out of shouting range of the HQ, makes me think that they didn't hang around and wait for GAC to send an orderly over to them to issue fresh orders.

It may have been like a domino effect with one moving first and the others following.