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Post by deadwoodgultch on Jul 3, 2018 1:23:02 GMT
I guess I could have put this anywhere I choose the Valley, since many feel that Reno is the scapegoat. It is common knowledge that President Roosevelt persuaded Curtis not to reduce this to print. Camp interviewed the same scouts, who had and agenda, who asked the right questions. who got the right answers? Thanks to Lee and Michele Noyes for the following.
The July issue of True West magazine features Editor Meghan Saar’s informative essay on photographer Edward S. Curtis and the excellent array of his images that reflect his tireless efforts to capture the essence of traditional Native American culture before it vanished. The sample is among the thousands of such photographs taken by this “shadow catcher.”
Curtis was among those intrigued by the mystery of the 1876 Battle of the Little Big Horn. In 1907, he persuaded three of the U.S. Army’s Crow scouts to guide him on the battlefield so as to follow the route of the five 7th Cavalry companies decimated with Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer. What the battle survivors Goes Ahead, Hairy Moccasin and White Man Runs Him told the photographer varied significantly from military interpretations of Custer’s Last Fight.
One widely held belief was (and is) that Major Marcus Reno’s retreat from the Little Big Horn valley was a principal cause of the battle’s outcome because it enabled warriors to concentrate in force against Custer’s immediate command. However, the scouts informed Curtis that Custer had witnessed Reno’s entire fight from the two peaks known as Weir Point, including the major’s chaotic retreat. White Man Runs Him claimed that Custer dismissed the scouts’ admonishment to assist Reno by telling them there was “plenty of time.” The five companies then proceeded north to their doom. Before Custer engaged the Indians the guide “Mitch” Boyer released the three scouts, who temporarily joined Reno’s battered command.
Based on what the scouts had told him, Curtis concluded that the real victim at the Little Big Horn was Reno, not Custer, and that an investigation of the battle was thus warranted. He also shared this story with several military scholars and his friend Theodore Roosevelt. Not believing the allegation, however, the President persuaded the photographer not to publish or otherwise pursue the matter.
Smithsonian Institution archivist James S. Hutchins compiled and edited the Curtis manuscript and related correspondence on this subject, which Upton & Sons published as The Papers of Edward S. Curtis Relating to Custer’s Last Battle (2000). This book features several of Curtis’ images, including those of the three Crow scouts during the photographer’s 1907 visit to the Little Big Horn. It includes a fine interpretive (then and now) essay of these images by Dr. James S. Brust.
Please go to truewestmagazine.com/shadow-catcher-edward-curtis/ to read the True West article.
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Post by Beth on Jul 3, 2018 21:54:53 GMT
His photography is breathtaking. He gives his subjects respect and dignity.
I can see why TR thought it was best to withhold Curtis's report. Can you imagine how Libby would have reacted?
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Post by quincannon on Jul 4, 2018 17:13:52 GMT
It is one thing not to believe something, and quite another to "discourage" publication.
Throughout the history of the United States Army there has always been "wise men" and an occasional "wise woman" They are usually retired general officers, but there may also be people associated with the Army, that have some political affiliation or who are influential in the private sector. These people change from generation to generation. In WWII "the only wise man" was John J Pershing confined to the hospital at Walter Reed. Anything done in the Army from the mid 1930's to the end of WWII was blessed by Pershing, including the selection of senior leaders. Ask yourself sometime how Patton escaped being relieved after any of his well known straying from the reservation. Ask yourself how George Marshall became Chief of Staff, him coming from way down the list of seniority. Colonel to four stars is one big jump. All this was Pershing. For most of my day the "wise men" were Ridgeway, Collins, Gavin, and a few others. Then there were the "wise women", women whose influence could not be ignored. "Mother" Dorcey for instance "must" be consulted before anything changed in the First Cavalry Division. Mrs Stillwell had that same exalted post for the 7th Infantry Division. Mrs Custer was the "wise woman" of her day, and her day lasted a long time.
Theodore Roosevelt was a Navy man, who became Leonard Wood's second in command of the Rough Riders. He later replaced Wood on the eve of Kettle Hill/San Juan Heights. Roosevelt saw first hand in the Spanish American War all the various ills of both the Army and the Navy, poor weapons, poor organization, poor food, poor sanitary arrangements, obsolete ships, no advances schooling, inadequate staffs to manage the force, and so many other sins of commission or omission that it would take a book the size of Gone With The Wind to list them all. Then fate would make Roosevelt president. and he set out with trusted advisers and friends like Wood and Pershing, both of whom went up San Juan Hill with him, to reform both the Army and the Navy and bring them into the 20th Century, from a position of sadly lagging behind.
The Root reforms and the Dick Act were some of the results of Teddy's Reformation. They are in fact some the reforms that culminated in our participation in WWII. They were too new to have much impact on WWI, but came into full flower between 41 and 45. Roosevelt did all that, and if one reads any good biography of him they will realize that his impact on the office of the President is without peer and that includes Lincoln and Teddy's cousin.
So how does this relate to Curtis and the scouts. Had Roosevelt not asked Curtis not to publish, Beth is correct, the "wise woman" would have stood in Roosevelt's way, and joined the Democrats in blocking or delaying everything Roosevelt was trying to do, and blockage or delay at that juncture, could not be tolerated. It might also have spillover onto such vital domestic legislation as the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and the funding of the Panama Canal.
Roosevelt was never afraid to fight, but a careful study of the man reveals that he picked his fights very carefully, and this particular issue, Custer the Idiot, was not worth the spending of political capitol.
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Post by deadwoodgultch on Jul 5, 2018 11:12:37 GMT
Boy, that was a long way to say it. Roosevelt also got us sued for patent infringement by the Germans and Mauser over the 1903 Springfield long story, I will save you the obvious. San Juan Hill was part of this too.
Good read< Chuck!
Regards, Tom
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Post by quincannon on Jul 5, 2018 15:51:56 GMT
Yes, it was a long way around, but I think it is important for all these folks to know and understand the back story on how things are really done, because the history books always leave you with questions. That is ever so much important in the period we most discuss.
It was the Spanish Mauser that so impressed Roosevelt and Wood among others in the Spanish American War and the relatively poor performance of the Krag, the unprepared state we were in to deal with the Yellow Jack, plus eating Monkey Meat on Long Island immediately after the war that were the three straws that broke the camels back of institutional malaise within the Army. We were a fifth rate Army that would have been soundly beaten by a third rate Army, had not Cuba and Puerto Rico been in our back yard, and Spain so relatively so far away. Of course having a third rate Navy opposed by Spain's tenth rate navy helped greatly.
The bottom line is that the Spanish American war probably did more than any other event to shape U S military and naval policy from that time to the present. It's too bad more people do not study it. It is far more interesting subject than endless commentary on the color of Dandy's poop that we see on the other boards.
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Post by yanmacca on Jul 5, 2018 16:17:09 GMT
The Mauser was described as 'understand this and you will understand them all' probably down to its bolt action system which had three locking lugs. Apparently it was so smooth to operate. A lot of other designers copied this system, including Enfield.
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Post by deadwoodgultch on Jul 6, 2018 13:42:52 GMT
Back to the Valley. As a follow up to Curtis(same source)
White Man Runs Him told General Hugh Scott in 1919 that some of Reno’s men joined Custer. He also stated, for example, that “Custer moved slowly and took his time and stopped occasionally. . . . Reno was fighting long before Custer moved.” An edited, condensed version by Colonel Tim McCoy of this on-the-scene account is in Graham, The Custer Myth, pp. 20-24. White Man Runs Him told Walter M. Camp that “Custer sat on [the] bluff and saw all of Reno’s valley fight.” (See Hammer, Custer in ’76, p. 178, italics added.) Camp’s other Crow scout interviews appear to support this statement in part, if not the entire Curtis allegation noted below.
Regards, Tom
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Post by Beth on Jul 6, 2018 19:27:17 GMT
If Custer saw all of Reno's fight it meant he would have also seen the breakout wouldn't it?
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Post by quincannon on Jul 6, 2018 21:25:17 GMT
It would, and would also mean he was a half a mile or so away from the place where Reno attained the bluffs after the breakout.
By extension it would also mean that "hero" Custer attacked at Ford B, to help Reno, and was driven away back up onto Battle Ridge and that nasty old Reno, aided and abetted by his partner in crime Benteen, did not lift a finger to save the Idol of American Youth. It was a vast conspiracy concocted at West Point between that illustrious graduate Sitting Bull, and the aforementioned dastardly duo, while drinking Carlin's Black Label at Benny Havens Tavern
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Post by Beth on Jul 8, 2018 21:31:22 GMT
I know. I know, I don't recall a single report of early arrivals on Reno Hill reporting seeing Custer lounging out on Weir Point. Major cover up.
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Post by yanmacca on Jul 9, 2018 14:27:23 GMT
Well we have a group of scouts saying one thing and a soldier saying another, the Crows reckon that Custer saw the whole party in the valley, from start to finish, Martini never said anything about this show on the bluffs but states that he was with Custer all day up till he got sent with the note and that would mean that he left well after the column moved away from the bluffs and into MTC.
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Post by Beth on Jul 9, 2018 17:10:38 GMT
I recently read that White Man Runs Him was considered the most reliable source. I wonder if it because his narrative fit what was wanted by the American public at the time. I am going to have to go back and read his account. The first thing to find out is where WMRH was on the battlefield when those events would have been happening. Also when he says Custer does he mean the man himself.
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Post by yanmacca on Jul 9, 2018 18:43:11 GMT
Have a look at this Beth;
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Post by johnson1941 on Jul 16, 2023 17:35:32 GMT
They located this picture by “photo matching”. So is it really Wier Peak? Just doesnt look the same as their proof photo. Hopefully they have something more substential in the original Curtis interview. for instance this one says “on Custers Outlook”. ALL those scouts also said Custer went down South Coulee, as they themselves went along the bluffs to somewhere supposedly near or even past Weir Peaks, then shot at village, then 3 of them made it all the way back to meet Benteen near to Ford A. hmm… Attachments:
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