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Post by dan25 on Feb 4, 2018 21:28:26 GMT
Thanks for your help Yan.
Thank you Dave.
Does any one know if the Surgeons were assigned to each battalion?
Dr. Carl A. Stein was a Veterinary Surgeon, but he was on detached service. Dr. George E. Lord was with the Custer battalion.
Listed on all the rosters that I have found, Dr. James M. DeWolf was killed in the valley fight. So I assumed he had been assigned to Reno's battalion.
What is confusing is on the same rosters Dr. Henry R. Porter is shown present in both the valley and hilltop fights. Why two surgeons in the valley? Or could this have been a misprint?
I think Dr. Porter should have been assigned to Benteen's battalion. I have been unable to find any evidence.
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Post by quincannon on Feb 4, 2018 21:47:47 GMT
As far as I know Porter and DeWolf were both in the valley with Reno. The why of that is beyond me.
I will give you a wild ass guess though. One possibility is that Custer expected after some fighting to join up with Reno. Under those circumstances I would think he would want his entire medical detachment together.
Further, I fully believe that sending Benteen out to the west on what amounted to a wild goose chase, was for no other reason beyond giving lip service to orders and direction given to Custer previously. I fully believe that Custer knew it would be a dry hole before he sent him.
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Post by Beth on Feb 5, 2018 0:11:11 GMT
Porter and DeWolff were both assigned to Reno. I tend to agree with QC that Custer didn't really believe that Benteen would face enough resistance to need the skills of a doctor. Perhaps it is an indicator that at the time of the split he expected Benteen to do his scout and then join Reno with 2/3's of his force having 2/3's of the doctors.
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Post by yanmacca on Feb 5, 2018 10:58:51 GMT
I think that during the campaign, Dr Henry Porter was Dr James DeWolf’s assistant, so they may have rode along with Pvt Abbotts (E Company) who acted as DeWolf’s orderly for the day.
DeWolf himself was assistant surgeon to Lt. Dr Lord, who had Corporal Callahan [K Company] as his orderly for the day.
So this medical group of DeWolf, Porter and two orderlies, may have been attached to the battalion HQ, including Maj. Reno, 2nd Lt. Hodgson plus Reno’s orderly Pvt Davern [F Company] and Hodgson’s orderly Pvt Mask (B Company).
Up to now I have not been able to nail down Dr Porters orderly. I know Porter had one because he carried his medical supplies and bandages, apparently this orderly was wounded in the valley and treated by Dr Porter. Porter was also offered a side arm by Reno, but he declined the offer. Porter was the only doctor to survive the battle and ran an improvised field hospital on Reno hill and cared for around thirty wounded men. Dr. Porter wanted to take the place of Dr. Lord, who was not too good that day, Porter asked him to stay with the pack train, but Lord insisted on riding with Custer.
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Post by Beth on Feb 5, 2018 18:07:15 GMT
I HAVE to get back to my muster research so we have a way to get that information easier.
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Post by dan25 on Feb 5, 2018 18:49:08 GMT
First, I wish to thank every one for their kind reply.
Beth, thank you for the welcome.
Forgive my curiosity about something so trivial.
If Custer felt Benteen didn't need a surgeon and there was no particular reason for sending 2 surgeon's with just 3 companies, you would think Custer having retained the larger force of 5 companies would have kept the extra surgeon with him.
I don't think Custer would have anticipated Reno's command might suffer heavy casualties.
I guess this is just another small mystery.
regards dan25
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Post by yanmacca on Feb 5, 2018 19:20:31 GMT
I don't think that Custer even thought about the fact that Reno had two to his one, the two that went with Reno were civilian contract surgeons, but Lord was an army surgeon who held the rank of 1st Lieutenant and Custer may have preferred him to either DeWolf or Porter.
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Post by quincannon on Feb 5, 2018 20:30:04 GMT
Concur with Ian. Lord was the regimental surgeon and his duty station would have been with the regimental headquarters.
I would also think that Custer would give about as much deep thought to where the other two doctors were, as he gave to everything else - Not much
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dave
Brigadier General
Posts: 1,679
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Post by dave on Feb 5, 2018 22:04:16 GMT
Dan There is nothing trivial about this battle. No question is too stupid to ask, for which I take full credit, and there is nothing that is not important about the LBH. Keep plugging and questioning! Regards Dave
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Post by quincannon on Feb 5, 2018 22:41:27 GMT
On the contrary. There is absolutely nothing that is important about the battle of the Little Big Horn. Nothing at all. It is all mush for the masses, and the conspiracy theorists. There is not one lesson to be learned from the battle that was not previously learned as far back as when Moses was in the bulrushes.
The fascination we have for it should not be mistaken as being important. It's not. It's just fascination.
Battles only achieve the state of importance if the survival of civilizations depend on the outcome, if they are turning points in a given conflict, or they teach us something new in the field of the military arts and sciences. Little Big Horn met none of these requirements, yet we are drawn with fascinated attention to this unimportant affair in such a manner that we feel the Holy Grail of military wisdom is contained in a three hour period on a Summer's Sunday afternoon.
There is no Sir Percival in the ranks of LBH fanatics, and there is nothing that draws us to this battle, that should do anything but despise the actions of one who has become one of history's anointed, with not one shred of evidence as why he should be.
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Post by dan25 on Feb 5, 2018 23:50:10 GMT
Guy's, You can't be referring to good ole Uncle George? Not that Caring, Thoughtful, Benevolent life of the party?
I guess we're on the same page.
regards dan25
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Post by quincannon on Feb 6, 2018 1:40:39 GMT
Oddly enough I suppose we are.
Don't make the mistake though that everything the man did was because he was a social misfit, especially not if you wish to have a fuller understanding of what transpired. Opinions about him range from homicidal maniac on one extreme to a candidate for being the second coming of Christ at the other end of the spectrum. What he was, and the reason he fell from grace like all of them do, is that he came to believe the rules didn't apply to him. In this he was enabled all of his life. He was not born that way, he was made and shaped that way, and those who did, are as equally responsible for the deaths on the Little Big Horn as he was.
If you tolerate the drunkard at your house party, and let him drive home, without any attempt on your part to take the drunks keys, or call him a cab, then it is you who are just as responsible as the drunk for running over and killing Little Susie Snowflake in the cross walk.
I am not in a very good, or charitable mood tonight. At 1600 hours local three deputies and a CS police officer were shot, with one deputy KIA, and the other three critical WIA . That plus my son in law just got orders today to Afghanistan for a year long tour. He is a DA Civilian, and will be the deputy commander at one of our bases over there.
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Post by deadwoodgultch on Feb 6, 2018 11:26:40 GMT
Dan,
What little I know is that Porter was very junior, roughly 4 years out of Georgetown, had been a resident at a Woman's hospital. There is a book out about him which may give you some insights as to assignments. I don't recall any revelations.
The majority of the book—seven of its eleven chapters—concerns Porter’s participation as an Acting Assistant Surgeon with the 7th Cavalry in the 1876 campaign. At the time, Porter, although young for a surgeon, was already an accomplished horseman, devoted hunter, and experienced campaigner. He was both active and vigorous. By contrast, Doctor Lord suffered poor health and illness throughout the campaign. When Custer organized his regiment into three battalions on the morning of 25 July, Porter offered to relieve Lord so that the older, ailing man could remain in the rear with the baggage train. Knowing combat was imminent and as the regiment’s senior surgeon, Lord insisted on staying with Custer and his battalion. He thereby inadvertently saved Porter’s life while losing his own. Porter, as we know accompanied Reno’s attack on the southern portion of the Indian villages west of the Little Bighorn.
Regards, Tom
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Post by yanmacca on Feb 6, 2018 12:08:00 GMT
Dan, we just have to look at how the three combat units were assembled that day and it is obvious to me that Custer choose what he thought he would need to carry the day, for example;
Benteen's Battalion; Companies D, H & K Surgeons; 0 Scouts; 0
Reno's Battalion; Companies A, G & M Surgeons; 2 Scouts; 36
Custer's Battalion; Companies C, E, F, I & L Surgeons; 1 Scouts; 5
Benteen got bugger all, Reno got all the odds and sods and Custer took cream. Which makes it clear that his battalion was going to be in the thick of it.
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Post by quincannon on Feb 6, 2018 14:49:50 GMT
Insightful Ian. The process of "taking the cream" is called "weighting the main attack" (in this case intended to be the main attack).
It is part of the process we call task organization in this latter day.
SO IF, you weight the main attack, then you must go to the next step and ask the poop peddlers why would the commander who carefully task organized his force, for the mission he envisioned, leave sixty percent of that weighted attack force behind on some godforsaken ridge in Montana for no apparent reason, and attempt to launch that attack with a paltry forty percent of the weighted force he originally intended to attack with?.
On the other hand don't bother, they do not have an answer that will not cause you to laugh at them -- out loud.
They will say they were waiting for Benteen, and in one hundred and forty two years no one has yet to prove Custer intended Benteen to come up on his rear, nor has anyone who ever gave more than a sideways glance at Custer the man ever suggested that Custer would be willing to wait the two plus hours that it would take for Benteen and the trains to reach the place those three companies were waiting.
Others will say they were left there to guard the threat developing from Ford B. The place they were left is a mile from Ford B, and there is no evidence that indicates that at the time these three companies would have been left there that Custer exposed himself at Ford B or anywhere else. He traveled behind the ridge line and the only people that we know who saw him were Wolf Tooth band, who skirmished with him all the way north, by Wolf Tooth's own account.
So to get back on thread, Custer did not need to rearrange how he assigned the surgeons. He needed a heaven sent miracle to get him out of the jam he made for himself.
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