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Post by crowsnest on Mar 13, 2019 23:50:31 GMT
Aww...QC you are avoiding the game...I’m looking for detailed speculation. Give me your best guess.
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Post by deadwoodgultch on Mar 14, 2019 1:30:36 GMT
He was with his company when they left the Divide, he sent Knipe back as directed, he retreated from near Calhoun Hill with the recements C company through the Keogh sector, leaving dead and dyeing along the way to die with his family on LSH. Now that wasn't that so hard, was it? Sorry the run n sentence. I know this was a fact as my GGG grandfather escaped the battle and the story was passed down through our family. Game, Set, and match. Game over! The story was checked out through Curley.
No need to bother, QC.
Regards, Tom
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Post by quincannon on Mar 14, 2019 2:22:09 GMT
No need to bother with QC at all. QC is a devoted follower of KISS and Occam's Razor, preferring simplicity.
Don't you think it rather odd and very pitiful that people have felt the need over the last 143 years to come up with convoluted theories why Tom was found where he was when the simple, and probably most correct answer was there all the time? Those folks are trying to distort what is there so it may fit within their theory. I see what was there, and only look at the most probable answer, that being, he was in that area with his company, and was prevented from leaving. That is the only evidence we have, and as such is my best guess.
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Post by crowsnest on Mar 14, 2019 2:35:56 GMT
I agree that’s the simplist solution. QC. How many scenarios allow for this in your opinion?
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Post by deadwoodgultch on Mar 14, 2019 10:13:39 GMT
CN sorry for the SA answer. QC's thoughts are as good as any. I just can't imagine GAC pulling his Company commander from C. If C company was north maybe TC was in fact wounded and could not accompany his company south.
Regards, Tom
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Post by yanmacca on Mar 14, 2019 12:17:54 GMT
Tom Custer should have been with his company, Calhoun was with his and he was a relation of Custer's too.
It is funny that all the brothers plus a nephew, died in the same area, but this is what makes this battle unique. We also have the case of missing officers with no remains found for Porter and Harrington. Then we have Smith also not with his company and you can also throw in 1st Sgt Bobo who was found next to Keogh. Looking at the body placements for company C, we have its commander on LSH, its 2/inc missing, its 1st sergeant found with another company commander and two-line sergeants dead on FFR. We also have Sgt. Kanipe who turned up with the packs, corporal Foley found dead four hundred yards from ford B.
Privates Thompson, Fitzgerald, Watson, Brennan and Morris, whose horses had gave out, but funny enough four of these troopers were in the same set of fours and maybe at the back of the company.
Pvt. Short was supposedly found near Rosebud Creek, sent maybe as a messenger, but this is disputed. Pvt. Stungewitz found on next to Boston Custer near LSH
Never mind the book, the mystery of E troop, someone should write the mystery of C troop.
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Post by crowsnest on Mar 14, 2019 12:49:02 GMT
Exactly while there are many things we'd like to know about the battle. Solving the C Company movements will put a lot of other pieces in place.
Personally I'm a believer of a movement toward Ford D. With no bodies of C company found near Ford D (I believe I'm correct here) it's hard to put C Company in a movement on the Ford. It's possible they were some sort of rear guard for that movement. If they didn't move all the way to LSH as a group however explaining many of those questions above seem hard to fathom. If they were held as a rear guard, why not Calhoun Hill placement.
I've felt for a long time that C Company's movements put a wrench into the various scenarios, while the other Companies you can make some educated guesses on, that fit the others, sans C.
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azranger
Brigadier General
Ranger
Posts: 1,824
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Post by azranger on Mar 14, 2019 14:42:59 GMT
No bodies at Ford D doesn't indicate they weren't there. We don't even know if skeletal remains weren't moved when they the built the current entrance road. The construction filled the gap (CH Ravine) between BRE and CR. There could be numerous reasons they would make a change of direction.
Discovering lots of Cheyennes coming around the trees as they start down toward the open flats could have caused a retrograde. We know artifacts from at least 4 carbines were found on CA and on BRE. Donahue has E and F firing at Calhoun Area and then again at Battle Ridge Extension. Following the five companies theory here CIL would fire in the CA and could have moved out BRE and fired.
I believe the plan was to go to the flats organize and move toward the Big Village. Colt has laid out what that would look like if they had succeeded. Artifacts indicate troopers made it to Ford D near Willy's Bend. Something prevented them and it was most likely Cheyennes.
I don't believe CIL were in the CA waiting for Benteen. The route between MTC and DC is full of ambush sites and whoever went that way knew the Indians were there. Artifacts on Luce and nearby Indian sites.
My own personal belief is that they were retrograding with E on CR and F,HQ on LSH to slow the Cheyennes. CIL were moving along a route similar to the current road. The artifacts in the Calhoun Area indicates L may been there first and formed a skirmish line. I was found in between and I believed attack while they were on the move. They collapsed on themselves and went into a hedgehog defense. I believe the movement could have crossed that same area several times. The first on offense going north. The second on a retrograde going south. The last is what occurs just before everyone is killed.
My own personal current theory is that C is goes past L and in the lead of the retrograde. They are stopped and fall back to the CA. L is holding and would have followed C back toward LSH. Troopers continue to attempt to reach LSH. After the overwhelming numbers of Indians willing to fight the results look like throwing a handful of corn stating from Deep Ravine and ending at Finckle/Finley.
I don't see 5 companies on defense within mutual support of each other including overlapping fields of fire. I think the wait on CR is the organization of the retrograde.
Regards
Steve
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Post by quincannon on Mar 14, 2019 16:30:14 GMT
CN: Your original question concerned Tom Custer. I believe I gave you an answer to that.
If you really wanted to know about any Company C scenario, why did you not ask something along the lines of Company C movements being the key to the mystery. Tom Custer is one man, not Company C, and your original question did not differentiate between the man and the company.
The most likely scenario for Company C, is that they moved north with the other four, were engaged for a time, and once the decision was made to retrograde were either number one or two out in that effort. There were most probably second. Tom remained behind, due to an unknown cause, but the most likely was that he was either KIA or WIA. I cannot see him leaving his company under any circumstance, including being ordered to, or brotherly affection. He was a reckless, hair brained ass hole, but he was also a soldier who knew his duty to his soldiers. Had C moved without him it is because T. Custer could not move.
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Post by quincannon on Mar 14, 2019 17:05:16 GMT
CN: Now for a little inside baseball.
Godfrey, reports to us that on the morning of the battle, Tom Custer was where you would expect him to be, that being present for duty and commanding Company C.
Those that hang their hat on the conventional theory of C, I, and L remaining behind in the Calhoun Hill area, with the other two companies going north, must find an explanation for the location of Tom's body, for the conventionalists are the ones that say that Company C was not there. So they make up this bullshit story of Tom being an aide to his brother. Kanipe saying that he was sent back by Tom, they believe reinforces their story, when in actuality it casts doubt on it. Tom Custer if he was acting as a pseudo staff officer, would not dare approach Kanipe directly. Rather, protocol demands that he would/must go through the officer in acting command (Harrington). So those that question Kanipe, in my mind unfairly, actually build the case against the conventional theory.
Tom Custer was awarded the Medal of Honor twice. He would have considered it the greatest of insults, and unforgivable event, if his brother had detailed him to assist his brother, thereby not allowing him to fight his company. Such a thing goes beyond pissing in someone's corn flakes, and in an earlier day would be considered sufficient reason for a trip to the Dueling Oaks. It is that bad. Tom had he survived would have never lived it down, nor would any other officer worthy of drawing pay. What may seem like an act of nepotism is, in reality to the officer concerned, the branding of him as a coward at worst, and incompetent to lead at best. Like I said before Tom may very well be a reckless numb skull, but he was also demonstratively brave. An officer being too brave can cause a lot of problems too, but that is for another day.
Another bit of overlooked evidence that supports the case of Tom being wounded or killed up north when all five companies were in that location, is what we see on F-F Ridge where the two sergeants were the only identified leaders found. Had Tom been able, he would have been there as well, fighting his company. He would have most probably been dismounted and on the skirmish line, as were the two sergeants. Like them, as a dismount, he would most likely not had the opportunity to remount, and escape to either Calhoun Hill or the Keogh area. It is more likely that the only people from C that got out of there would have remained mounted like the horse holders, and perhaps the 1st Sergeant, whom I would place back with the horse holders, intending that he would be the one to bring the horses forward (in the absence of orders). That would place a great deal of responsibility on Bobo's shoulders, and would be indicative of him being held in esteem by either T. Custer or Harrington. The idea then of Tom Custer, making it back all the way through the Calhoun position on to Company I, and then to LSH for me defies the reality of the situation.
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Post by crowsnest on Mar 14, 2019 17:30:08 GMT
Do we assume that the company C soldiers found on last stand hill are killed there prior to the retrograde or because of the collapse of the retrograde
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Post by quincannon on Mar 14, 2019 17:48:29 GMT
It is a fundamental error to assume anything.
Company C soldiers whose bodies were found up north could have been there for a couple of reasons. The two most likely, and my working hypothesis is that they were either KIA or WIA, during the fight in the north, and before any of C retrograded south, or were somehow cut off and could not leave with the rest of their company.
The cut off speculation, may go a little further as well. Some of C, including Bobo were found with Company I. At least that was what was reported.It could be very possible then that a second group was also cut off, only to manage to get away when Company I left. Retrograde while in contact is very hard, and very messy, and nothing is ever as it is supposed to be. We see soldiers left behind, by circumstance with Reno's breakout, and no one doubts that it happened. In fact they chastise Reno for it, but no one with half a brain would. It only shows the person chastising's great depths of ignorance.
It could very well be that the Company C soldiers on F-F Ridge, and the bodies found in the river corridor that Steve keeps talking about, were the only ones that left the north with the Company C main body. That seems more likely than not to me.
Except for a very few, none of these people were easily recognizable. So it is very hard to say how many or if they even where. We are so used to the great lengths taken to positively identify a body today, that we sometimes don't understand that that is an accomplishment of the last 30 years.
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mac
Brigadier General
Posts: 1,790
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Post by mac on Mar 14, 2019 21:02:14 GMT
Rain in the Face maintained to his dying breath that he knew, hated, and killed Tom Custer. I believe that accounts for his location.
Cheers
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Post by deadwoodgultch on Mar 14, 2019 22:06:59 GMT
Ok we have 3 pages of this, at the risk of sounding like Hillary Clinton " what difference does it make" he is dead. Did his location have any impact on the battle? Did where he was attached have anything to do with the outcome of the battle? The answer is no, big brother screwed the pooch, did not follow up the initial attack, did not share any plan, and outdistanced any means of reasonable support.
Regards, Tom
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Post by quincannon on Mar 14, 2019 22:19:25 GMT
I think that is being a little unfair to CN Tom. He is relatively new, and his point is well taken with me.
We are the ones who have to do the convincing about the wisdom of overturn the wisdom of the potentates. The burden of proof is ours. What Crow's Nest has done is force us to present what we have on this bit of the whole matter, a validation of our thinking process.
Otherwise you are starting to sound like me, in presenting root causes.
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