Post by dan25 on Apr 14, 2018 0:15:18 GMT
Possibly I am the only person to find this interesting. how some people have premonitions that actually come true.
Lt. Godfrey,
June 22
All officers were requested to make to him, then or at any time, any suggestions they thought fit. This " talk " of his, as we called it, was considered at the time as something extraordinary for General Custer, for it was not his habit to unbosom himself to his officers. In it he showed a lack of self-confidence, a reliance on somebody else; there was an indefinable something that was not Custer. His manner and tone, usually brusque and aggressive, or somewhat rasping, was on this occasion conciliating and subdued. There was something akin to an appeal, as if depressed, that made a deep impression on all present. We compared watches to get the official time, and separated to attend to our various duties. Lieutenants Mcintosh, Wallace,! and myself walked to our bivouac, for some distance in silence, when Wallace remarked : " Godfrey, I beheve General Custer is going to be killed." " Why, Wallace," I rephed, " what makes you think so ? " " Because," said he, " I have never heard Custer talk in that way before."
June 24
The command halted here and the "officers' call" was sounded. Upon assembling we were informed that our Crow scouts, who had been very active and efficient, had discovered fresh signs, the tracks of three or four ponies and one Indian on foot. At this point a stiff southerly breeze was blowing; as we were about to separate, the General's headquarters' flag was blown down, falling toward our rear. Being near the flag I picked it up and stuck the staff in the ground, but it again fell to the rear. I then bored the staff into the ground where it would have the support of a sagebrush. This circumstance made no impression on me at the time, but after the battle, an officer, Lieutenant Wallace, asked me if I remembered the incident. He had observed, and regarded the fact of its falling to the rear as a bad omen, and felt sure we would suffer a defeat.
Pvt. John Burkman
The previous day, Custer had clearly been impressed by the size of the trail. At some point, he and his orderly, John Burkman, were riding together well ahead of the regiment. “There’s a lot of them,” Custer said, “more than we figured.”
For the last two days, Custer had been, in Burkman’s words, “unusually quiet and stern.” There was none of the buffoonery with his brothers that had typified the march from Fort Lincoln. To have the normally brazen Custer suggesting that the Indians might be in greater numbers than he’d anticipated was troubling. “Not too many to lick, though,” Burkman worriedly responded.
Custer smiled and instantly became, much to his orderly’s relief, the swaggering braggart of old. “What the Seventh can’t lick,” he said, “the whole U.S. army couldn’t lick.”
Lt. Godfrey,
June 22
All officers were requested to make to him, then or at any time, any suggestions they thought fit. This " talk " of his, as we called it, was considered at the time as something extraordinary for General Custer, for it was not his habit to unbosom himself to his officers. In it he showed a lack of self-confidence, a reliance on somebody else; there was an indefinable something that was not Custer. His manner and tone, usually brusque and aggressive, or somewhat rasping, was on this occasion conciliating and subdued. There was something akin to an appeal, as if depressed, that made a deep impression on all present. We compared watches to get the official time, and separated to attend to our various duties. Lieutenants Mcintosh, Wallace,! and myself walked to our bivouac, for some distance in silence, when Wallace remarked : " Godfrey, I beheve General Custer is going to be killed." " Why, Wallace," I rephed, " what makes you think so ? " " Because," said he, " I have never heard Custer talk in that way before."
June 24
The command halted here and the "officers' call" was sounded. Upon assembling we were informed that our Crow scouts, who had been very active and efficient, had discovered fresh signs, the tracks of three or four ponies and one Indian on foot. At this point a stiff southerly breeze was blowing; as we were about to separate, the General's headquarters' flag was blown down, falling toward our rear. Being near the flag I picked it up and stuck the staff in the ground, but it again fell to the rear. I then bored the staff into the ground where it would have the support of a sagebrush. This circumstance made no impression on me at the time, but after the battle, an officer, Lieutenant Wallace, asked me if I remembered the incident. He had observed, and regarded the fact of its falling to the rear as a bad omen, and felt sure we would suffer a defeat.
Pvt. John Burkman
The previous day, Custer had clearly been impressed by the size of the trail. At some point, he and his orderly, John Burkman, were riding together well ahead of the regiment. “There’s a lot of them,” Custer said, “more than we figured.”
For the last two days, Custer had been, in Burkman’s words, “unusually quiet and stern.” There was none of the buffoonery with his brothers that had typified the march from Fort Lincoln. To have the normally brazen Custer suggesting that the Indians might be in greater numbers than he’d anticipated was troubling. “Not too many to lick, though,” Burkman worriedly responded.
Custer smiled and instantly became, much to his orderly’s relief, the swaggering braggart of old. “What the Seventh can’t lick,” he said, “the whole U.S. army couldn’t lick.”