mac
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Post by mac on Oct 27, 2018 12:00:10 GMT
Let us consider company E and start as they move north. First it would be good if someone could post the relevant parts of Curly, Martini and Thompson accounts with regard to the gray horses. Also AZ or someone else might post a map of their possible route of Company E in line with these accounts. Looking forward to this. Cheers
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Post by deadwoodgultch on Oct 27, 2018 14:27:26 GMT
Wow, I am not an E aficionado, although I got a couple in school. When I get a chance I will see what I can do. Steve and Ian would be the go to guys for this, but many of the maps requested are already on the board.
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Post by deadwoodgultch on Oct 27, 2018 14:36:23 GMT
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Post by yanmacca on Oct 27, 2018 19:40:57 GMT
I have checked my accounts for such information by these three men and none of them mention about the grey horse company of E company leading the way or breaking away from the main column. Maybe there is better accounts out there, but as we know, two of these men have changed their stories more then once.
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azranger
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Post by azranger on Oct 28, 2018 16:22:26 GMT
Curley states the gray horses continued down MTC.
"After riding awhile, he halted the command -- then the gray horse troop left us and started down the creek -- when we turned north-crossing Medicine Tail Creek going on the hills north of the creek -- here the command halted again -
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Post by quincannon on Oct 28, 2018 18:14:24 GMT
Who did Curley tell this to? Camp? Was there any mention by Curley of the main body halting to engage (the elongated W).Why did the command halt? Was Curley with the command when it halted? Was Curley somewhere else at the time? Was he not with Bouyer?
I am very suspicious of these tales. I am also suspicious of anything coming from either Martini and Thompson, albeit for different reasons.
It seems everyone then had an agenda. Reminds me of a friend of my dad's from long ago, an actual honest to goodness historian, someone paid for studying history. In this instance for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. To him, southern forces did no right, and Union forces never did anything but right. His agenda was to never say a bad thing about Massachusetts troops, DESPITE the facts. A classic case of making a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
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mac
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Post by mac on Oct 29, 2018 11:10:48 GMT
I share the worries about these accounts and have not yet had a chance to look at them more closely. I propose always 3 points of evidence that should reinforce each other, one is accounts and another is tactics. Let's leave the accounts for a moment and talk tactics. There must be a tactical reason for Company E to move closer to the river than the others and follow a path that is west of Battle Ridge. Flankers. Recon. Any thoughts on this? Cheers
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Post by yanmacca on Oct 29, 2018 14:13:41 GMT
Mac, we can see from past discussions, that the Custer battalion would not have traveled in a snake like column to get north.
Look in Fred's book about how Reno moved his battalion up the valley and how it was two companies front and another behind, all in columns of fours. Of course the valley was totally different terrain to what Custer was moving over and Reno was also unmolested until he halted.
Custer's battalion was moving across coulees and ridges and probably being harassed in the process.
In all likely hood Custer's force of five companies would have used more then one route to get from SSR to battle ridge and that would be down to the nature of the terrain.
I did a map a while ago and with some amendments by QC, we got close to how a cavalry battalion would look like on the march, almost like a diamond fashion if I remember correctly.
Now I believe that Custer knew that every Indian in the area knew he was there and was either trying to get away from him or gathering strength to block him.
So I would guess that two columns moved over the MTC/Luce-NC Ridge area and were involved in a firefight. These two columns probably closed up when the got on to battle ridge and formed a more loose formation with one company between the river and the main group to act as a screen.
There are many who say that E Company may have split into two that day, I myself would say that splitting a company of 38 into two, would give you two very weak groups, which was incapable of doing anything except recon and would also weaken the main column by reducing its fire power.
I will however stick my neck out and say that Custer's battalion of five, may have gone across deep coulee in two or maybe three units, which would give it more speed and keep all five in view of each other.
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azranger
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Post by azranger on Oct 29, 2018 14:18:35 GMT
Here is one source that has Curley responding about the gray horses moving further down MTC. It is a res ponce to Fred Dustin. It is in a letter from Russel White Bear dated Dec 1,1938. It is clear that the gray horses have been brought up before this interview.
"A few days before Curley passed away, I visited him and said `Curley, I have interpreted for you a number of times. I am not clear yet on your stories -- tell me for the last time if you were with Custer up to the time when the gray horse troop separated from the main command."
www.astonisher.com/archives/museum/curley2_little_big_horn.html
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azranger
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Post by azranger on Oct 29, 2018 14:52:38 GMT
Martin states he left MTC about 600 yards from the river. Would Custer have moved that close with the Gray Horse Company?
Thompson sees fighting from his location on the river. Gerry Schulz has an excellent paper on Thompson's movement presented to the CBHMA. He has the viewscape of what areas would be visible to Thompson. That area corresponds to being with 600 yards of the river and action on GG where artifacts were found.
I posted the last time Curley states the gray horse troop moves in a conversation with Russel White Bear 1938. It is obvious that Curley said it before since White Bear references the Gray Horse Troop in his question.
Maguire in his final report has line that would approximate the use of the western corridor that could have been used by the Gray Horse Troop. Donahue wrote that Maguire used the bodies when he made his final map.
There are other maps that have Gray Horse on them. This is from the Cartwright Map.
Regards
Steve
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azranger
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Post by azranger on Oct 29, 2018 14:54:17 GMT
Here is the Freeman map made in real time at the battlefield. Notice the lines
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Post by yanmacca on Oct 29, 2018 14:54:18 GMT
I have been studying that Curly map in the link above and thought of how if may look on a google map, so I have tried to transfer the data, what do you think? Please take a close look at position 2 on the map, now Curly said he watched the battle from here, could that be possible? and how far from Reno hill was that position?
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Post by yanmacca on Oct 29, 2018 15:01:55 GMT
When I was watching the Apollo Custer clip from MTF, I thought how cool it would be to go to some of these locations with a movie camera like his and film the areas in question with comments and a pointer to show the various locations at each point of the battlefield viewed from that location, to give what both sides would have saw, that would give us a better understanding of what we area reading when we read accounts like the soldiers rode over the ridge etc. if we could nail were this warrior was in relation to what he saw, then this give us a better understanding of the topographic's in question and where the soldiers were heading.
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azranger
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Post by azranger on Oct 29, 2018 15:13:52 GMT
In Maguires #4 map he actually shows the line following the western travel corridor and the troop movement from the LSH/CR area back toward the end in Deep Ravine or SSL. My personal feeling is that is was troops pushed off CR into Deep Ravine and they were attempting to go back the western travel corridor. That is what make sense to me. A skirmish line down there never has made sense to me. The markers line up with CR except for 2 markers which are closer to LSH. I think that is why it erroneously called South Skirmish Line because of the distance from LSH.
Last year I was with Will Hutchison on CR and we walked down to the edge of CR toward the markers. Because of the rain we spent some time at the Hardin County Museum looking at maps and making a working map.
So I can blame this on the rain in Montana.
Regards
Steve
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azranger
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Post by azranger on Oct 29, 2018 15:22:10 GMT
I have been studying that Curly map in the link above and thought of how if may look on a google map, so I have tried to transfer the data, what do you think? Please take a close look at position 2 on the map, now Curly said he watched the battle from here, could that be possible? and how far from Reno hill was that position?
For me this Google maps distort things. This June I went with a Crow friend who is a Marine. He owns property in Cedar Coulée area where most people can't go. He took me to the location where he believes Curley made is observations from. it is not on his property. It is across Highway 212.
In 2019 I expect we will go with him again. It will be a good year to be at the battlefield.
Regards
Steve
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