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Post by quincannon on Feb 2, 2017 17:43:50 GMT
It has often been asked here, and on the other boards - Had Custer been successful with a regimental attack in the valley, what the next step would be.
I think you may enjoy the following passages.
" He said, You there, You're an officer. Get these rapscallions into formation. Assemble your men, sir! No time for, Why! His teeth showed in his beard. It's the big parson! What are you doing here preacher?
Sir, Praxiteles told him, suddenly shaken - may He of Galilee forgive me, but from this day henseforward, I serve the God of Battles, the greatest of commanders. Tell me what you want these young men to do and they will do it.
Get them into line Hood told him soberly Get them get them , that is straightened out by companies. All the damned field officers seem to be shot. Do the best you can Elder, and when I find an officer, I'll send him along.
Praxiteles Swan, sometime shepherd of the best thought of Methodist flocks in East Texas, inflated his chest and let out a roar. Men stopped what they were doing and listened. All right, you scabrous sons of Belial! Cease your grave robbing and come unto me. The curse of Achan on you, who turned aside to plunder! You, young man I mean you with the flag - stand right here and wave the flag!
Come round here you - He tried to remember, but didn't, the commands from Gilham's Manual - Huddle! Jehovah confound you huddle - I would have you stay not, but pursue after your enemies, and smite the hindmost of them. He menaced them with the dreadful clotted musket barrel, and soldiers moved to assemble themselves, obedient. Even stray South Carolinians of Hampton's high-chinned heroes from the proper side of Church Street began to sort themselves into squads, well disposed and heedful.
General Hood gathered his horse; he wanted to find Whiting, or D.H. Hill or Jackson, and get a pursuit started Elder, he said immensely pleased - old Stonewall couldn't have put it better Stay not... and smite the hindmost of them"
A Preacher Goes To War - John W. Thomason
With Thomason you get it all ........ Consolidation - Reorganization - Preparation for the Next Mission - The effect of dynamic leadership.
Fiction? Yes it is, but the author learned his fiction in the Bois de Belleau.
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Post by yanmacca on Feb 2, 2017 19:28:12 GMT
Chuck, so the author fought in the 1918 The Battle of Belleau Wood?
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Post by quincannon on Feb 2, 2017 20:46:44 GMT
He did, with the 5th Marine Regiment.
His stories of combat in France, and in particular Belleau Wood are contained in his book, another collection of short stories, "Fix Bayonets"
The selection above was taken from another collection of his short stories "Lone Star Preacher", which follows the Texas Brigade in the form of historical fiction throughout the course of the ACW.
Most of his stuff was published in The Saturday Evening Post, although some is from Collier's Magazine.
He was also a China Marine in the 1930's, and due to health problems he only trained Marines in WWII. He died of a heart attack in 1944 in San Diego. USS John W. Thomason was named for him.
His biography of JEB Stuart, along with the other two I mentioned, are among my prized possessions.
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Post by herosrest on May 9, 2019 14:27:16 GMT
I'm going to toy with hostage taking theory and CBW it. The valley attack undertaken by Reno would offer the only offensive strike. Benteen's battalion as we understand its march today - would not take place and that battalion would remain with Keogh and Yates commands which move rapidly, as currently discussed elsewhere, to and across MTC to deploy to skirmish on foot. Benteen's companies would deploy along the river's first bench - dismounted to skirmish. The packtrain and rear guard would have been huuried up to move urgently east of the river to join the regiment there. Reno presses his attack into the village and into the river, exactly as he did during the retreat to Reno Hill; and driving all before him into the river and under Benteen's guns. Reno retire's on the regiment, which then negotiates pretty much anything it wants from the hostile Chiefs. Quick and dirty, in and out for Reno. High risk until Reno delivered.
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benteen
First Lieutenant
"Once An Eagle
Posts: 406
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Post by benteen on May 9, 2019 19:50:17 GMT
HR,
Your battle plan is good, but only if you are committed to fight. I have posted this before and I would like to propose it again and see what you think.
How about keeping the regiment together on line in a show of force. 650 mounted cavalry men is an awesome sight. Perhaps the warriors would realize if they fought too many of their people would die. Women and children included. Advise them that are even more soldiers coming from the North and offer them a surrender. I think there is a good chance they would take it. Then no one has to die. Not soldiers or Indians especially women and children.
For your consideration
Be Well Dan
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Post by quincannon on May 9, 2019 20:21:29 GMT
I have considered, and I consider that the Eagle is a hell of a lot smarter than he looks.
I would not demand they surrender though. Mine would be an agreement of mutual security, negotiated in an atmosphere of mutual respect between warriors. A Crook could do it. A Custer not so much.
All I fear would be for naught though, with the political masters being the duplicitous scum that they are, and then one must consider the lust for land. The Indians and the White man's ways, and values were so far apart. It is a long bridge that is necessary to span the waters that separate them.
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Post by herosrest on May 9, 2019 23:08:04 GMT
100% roger. However, from Terry on down and up, the entire idea was to chastise the hostiles and force compliance. This was an unusual battle in that regardless of the Sioux side of things, Sitting Bull fully expected victory in battle would bring favorable negotiation, such as the capitulation after Fetterman, only a few years before. This was a huge political miscalculation. Likewise, the army were there to protect the US population. The Sioux were going to fight if soldiers came and they came and they rumbled and they tumbled.
The full force of twelve companies in phalanx could have marched or charged down the valley into the camp and held it long enough to destroy it. Custer did not know, according to the considerable weight of considered opinion, that the village was standing rather than running despite having been told that by his scouts and by Varnum. He did what he did. They all did. He expected trouble from 1500 hostiles and got it.
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Post by quincannon on May 10, 2019 14:58:14 GMT
I believe Dan was talking smart HR, as you often do. Smart is something the majority of our frontier army leadership found in short supply.
The mission assigned was to force compliance, by whatever means necessary. Prudence in the application of whatever means necessary is always better, than the alternative of going to the menu and ordering violence first.
I fully realize that this is "pie in the sky" musing for the climate of 1876, and so does Dan.
We Americans have a tendency to disrespect our adversaries, until that respect is forced upon us. We saw it with the Indians in the 19th Century. and the same disrespect was present with the Filipinos, Japanese, North Koreans, Chinese, North Vietnamese, and the various forms of terrorists we encountered in the 20th Century and still do in the 21st. In fact the only adversaries we ever respected before conflict were the Germans and Russians.
We like things big. They are content with the small. We are impatient, always in a hurry. They are patient, and to them the clock is meaningless. We are too focused on decisive victory. They are content to let us have it, for there will always be another day.
Today in the Philippines there are descendants of the Moro's we fought in 1900 still fighting us a hundred and twenty years later.
Clausewitz tells us that war is politics by other means. What he does not state is that war must end with a political solution, and never a military solution alone. If what you say is true and Sitting Bull rolled the dice of politics, he failed to read the tea leaves of the American character, as did the Japanese nearly seventy years later. Fetterman brought on no widespread American anger. Custer was to us an embarrassment that brought on that popular anger that Red Cloud a decade before did not have to deal with.
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Post by herosrest on May 10, 2019 16:04:03 GMT
There was an aspect of the 'whoops, I did it again' with Sitting Bull. There's been a lot of disguising his role and importance to the Teton Sioux. He was their president and duly elected for life, I think. His people, those who would not submit to the Great Bald Father (excuse the pun ) had reached their potential and wished to keep it. I feel that Sitting Bull felt that..... his people could pull off another Fetterman and they did. What he did not comprehend was the fickle nature of democratic society and its politics. This is broad democracy rather than the Party wearing its badge. So, either he hoped for what took place before, again, or he understood that he had a last throw of the dice. Sitting Bull was the leader of the Sioux at the time of Red Cloud's War and did not understand the constraints upon the re-United States in post Civil War. He did not seek or understand change and his ethos was to avoid and prevent it in worship of his people and their ways. The 37 States, in spite of a financial failure, were rejuvenating and champing the bit to follow their dream and dreams which was a very different mindset from the extreme sacrifices demanded by the war for survival which ACW became. I have some difficulty deciding whether it is yourself or Sitting Bull who despise Custer the most? No need to reply. There is a nice article HERE detailing the post ACW 'changing society'.
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Post by quincannon on May 10, 2019 16:30:28 GMT
I despise him no more and more importantly no less than any other incompetent to lead commander, entrusted with the sacred twofold responsibilities of leadership - To accomplish the mission while at the same time looking out for the welfare of his soldiers. Custer ignored the second, which was the prime factor involved with failing the first. It does not matter how dashing, how brave, or how pretty you are, if you fail to train your troops to the point where the training is harder than combat, you will fail, and your soldiers will hate you for your inattention to their needs and requirements. So yes I do despise him, but not for self serving reasons of taking sides one against the other as the fan boys do, but rather for the fact that he failed to prepare his troops for battle.
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benteen
First Lieutenant
"Once An Eagle
Posts: 406
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Post by benteen on May 10, 2019 20:57:01 GMT
I despise him no more and more importantly no less than any other incompetent to lead commander, entrusted with the sacred twofold responsibilities of leadership - To accomplish the mission while at the same time looking out for the welfare of his soldiers. Custer ignored the second, which was the prime factor involved with failing the first. It does not matter how dashing, how brave, or how pretty you are, if you fail to train your troops to the point where the training is harder than combat, you will fail, and your soldiers will hate you for your inattention to their needs and requirements. So yes I do despise him, but not for self serving reasons of taking sides one against the other as the fan boys do, but rather for the fact that he failed to prepare his troops for battle. Chuck, You must have read my mind. That is exactly the way I feel about that man. Does the name Mark Clark strike the same feeling Be Well Dan
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Post by quincannon on May 10, 2019 23:23:36 GMT
Yes and no. Clark was an Army level commander, so direct leadership of troops was below his pay grade. He was excellent as a staff officer, and he excelled in training troops. He and the Army both would have been much better off had he worked throughout the war as one of Ike's direct subordinates, J.C.H Lee, or Walter Smith. He would have done a Cracker Jack job in commanding one of the stateside Armies as well. Ike, his lifelong friend, thought he was doing his friend a favor giving him Fifth Army. Such favors the Army learned it could do without.
Part, a good part of the problem, with Clark is that he had virtually no combat experience. He commanded a company for a few days in WWI and was wounded, and never returned to command. All he knew about war was from the Command and General Staff College, and any graduate, myself among them, will tell you fooling with the maps, the figures, the school solutions, and such, just ain't what it's supposed to be when you have to apply the lessons on the ground with real things and real troops. So, like Custer, Clark did not have the experience at the level he needed it, to help him perform the job of translating theory into reality. In Kansas, at Leavenworth, every piece of equipment works as it should, and every soldier is Audie Murphy. Clark's failing is that he did not understand the fog and friction of war as given to us by Clausewitz, especially the friction.
The only guy at that level who was worth two shits in Italy was Lucian Truscott. There were a few good division commanders, and the rest, both American and Brit were all second string bench warmers.
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Post by deadwoodgultch on May 15, 2019 10:56:23 GMT
Ah, the politics of the general. It's there and always has been there. Some have patrons some not so much. Some of the most abrasive may be the best. Some silver oak leaves never get the silver eagle, some silver eagles never get the coveted star.
Did Grant and Sherman believe in total war? Yes. Did they care about their men? Yes. Was Patton in many ways an ass? Yes. Did he care about the well being of his men? Yes. I got to know a man in in Patton's chain of command, albeit way down the line. He was injured for life in a burning tank and lost pieces and parts. He tells the story of Patton of visiting the wounded and Patton crying( much like in the movie). He also tells the story of hard training while Patton was in charge of the fake army in England. He apologized to his staff and men when petrol and supplies were diverted from their advance. This fellow's name was Al Smelgus. He said he would have fought for Patton anytime anywhere.
I worked for two Birds, the first I loved and respected, the second one I did not know as well, I liked and respected him. Number 2 got a star and there were reasons, number 1 did not. Number 1 was in the Patton mold and #2 was more in the Eisenhower mold. I was also way down the chain. We were trained better under #2. Much of the difference had to do with the changes that took place in the all volunteer service. Neither of the two skipped the steps of command on their way up.
We, in the military, were all tools, some more multi-facetted than others. Enough rambling.
Regards, Tom
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Post by quincannon on May 16, 2019 17:00:21 GMT
General officers rarely develop the totality of what a general officer should be. We draw them from the human race, and they generally turn out to be in their forties and fifties, just what they were before they first put on a uniform in their early twenties. That, to me, is why such pretend authorities such as Rini, are so very wrong when they get into this cavalry minded horse crap, of the branch making the man. It's nonsense and I hope by now everyone knows it, except Rini of course, whose mind was left in a sandbox about age three.
The perfect general officer, to me, combines the gentlemanly qualities of a Robert E. Lee, and the combativeness, grit, and determination of a U.S. Grant. It is not often that is achieved. None come to mind, and I have looked in vain for fifty plus years.
World War II, or perhaps Korea saw the last of the warrior generals in the U S Army. That is not necessarily a bad thing, although it might seem so. Generals today are more sought after for their management skills than their traditional individual skill at arms. Most of that is due to the fact that the battle spaces has expanded exponentially, where the Bull Runs and Gettysburgs are battalion size actions, and some little skirmish like LBH is a platoon and company sized affair. Armies are much more sophisticated today then in the 19th Century. Napoleon turned loose his legions with little more than hard bread and musket balls and conquered most of Europe. He had no worries about fuel, spare parts, and support establishments that were twice as large as his combat formations.
Command and control and it means have changed radically as well. In Custer's day you could send a regiment or brigade chasing after the bad guys thousands of miles away from the center of power, and fear very little about the political repercussions of anything that a Custer, Crook or Terry did. Today, you have one innocent civilian caught up in collateral damage, and at least the cumulative effect of such actions had a lasting political effect. Today everyone sees what you do around the world, and while some military misstep is in itself unfortunate, but minor, your objective is not to make the enemy like you, they won't, but the rest of the world MUST see what you are doing as beneficial. More people were turned off by that photo of the South Viet summarily executing that North Viet than all the bombing raids and casualty figures that dominated the news every night back then. We, our side, had become the barbarians. We were just like them. That is what did not sit well with the American people. We could endure the loss of a son or daughter, as long as our side had purpose, and occupied the moral right.That was in 68 and it was all downhill from there.
So you could turn a Sherman or Sheridan loose in 64 to burn cities and crops, destroy war making infrastructure of every kind. No one saw. No one cared. You need another type of general officer today, one that can at the same time deal with the political observer peeking over your shoulder at your every move, while at the same time managing a battle space, that may be the size of several of our larger states combined. These too were once Lieutenants we expected to be gifted warrior at the tip of the spear, who have developed a second, and superior skill set, that being to manage the gifted warriors.
I might also add that I don't have much use for general officers, never had. They have a tendency to compromise too much to get them where they are. One in particular that I have a passing acquaintance with was as a Captain, Lieutenant Colonel, and Colonel as good as they come, but as a Lieutenant General sold out the very principles that he outlined in his own book.
Like it or not our generals serve their political masters, and that is as it should and must be, servants of a Constitutionally mandated political system. We can no longer be Grants and Lincolns, turning the former loose by the latter, regardless of the trust the latter may have in the former. There are not many, if any, generals today that can be trusted as Grant was trusted by Lincoln. It's a matter of character, Grant was a failure at everything he did, except fighting, but no matter his failures or any adversity never gave up. He did not have to compromise himself to reach general officer rank. He was out of the peacetime Army after the Mexican War then came back in. A lot can be learned from Grant as he fought his final fight, publishing his book as he was dying of cancer. The Grant of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House were still there as he sat and wrote for the record. He never gave up.
Generals should also be apolitical in a political environment. I know another Lieutenant General very well who never voted for President of the United States from the time he was a cadet at West Point until he retired thirty some year later. He told me that he did not because he would have a bias against those he had not voted for, and be more inclined to bend for those he had. That is not a bad idea really, although a bit extreme for most folks. That same general told me the only reason today that the Army maintains a Corps headquarters, and the Marines an Amphibious Force (both equal three star headquarters) is to act as a military buffer for the political actors, thus allowing division and brigade commanders to concentrate on battle management. Don't know if that is entirely true, but if it is, that's a good thing.
So if you are one of those who longs for the good old days, of "fighting" generals, and are from the "turn the suckers loose school of combat management", forget it, that time is long passed. There will be no more Pattons or anything in close proximity. That may be bad news for you in light of your personal view about how things should be run, BUT, it is also true for our enemies as well. They too acknowledge the disaster that befalls them when they reach to far, both militarily, and politically.
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mac
Brigadier General
Posts: 1,790
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Post by mac on May 16, 2019 22:14:41 GMT
Interesting stuff.
To follow QC on modern times.
What about the degree of "interconnectedness" of the global community today? Cannot groups (nations) follow strategic paths now that rely on interventions that are non military to get outcomes once only available by means of arms?
Win without actually going to war.
Cheers
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