One area map for the use of discussion

[quincannon]

Well all we really have to go on with regard to the two sergeants is that Kanipe identified them. How he did it, the by what, I do not know. What I do know is that his identification is generally accepted as truth, this from the same guy who has been labeled a liar and coward, for a hundred forty years, because he told a plausible truth concerning Tom Custer, that the Big Horn Saints revile, because it ruins their fantasy.

Personally, if that is what you are asking, I think that very few of the bodies were properly identified. Keogh was one, because the wounds on the body match those on a horse known to be his. That and the Papal Medal probably gave him some manner of immunity from mutilation because of the Indians believing in the bad Ju Ju of the medal.

Most of the others are up for grabs including all the big boys. Many of the tales told the mothers, wives, and sweethearts I would wager, were for sympathetic consumption in the aftermath, something like not speaking ill of the dead, although thinking the dead was a shit.

That is why I go back to the statement I made about historians I know or knew. None of this crap would have been included in what they wrote. They write the facts, and leave out any trips to fantasy land. Their jobs and reputations depend upon it.

An example. If you watch the film taken from the hospital ship USS Solace on 7 December 1941 of Arizona blowing up you will see a huge billow of black smoke readily apparent in the midst of lighter colored smoke, blowing out of Arizona's stack and straight up. Based upon that those that wrote about it early, the one's that set the stage for others that follow, something like the Big Horn Saints, said that Arizona was sunk by a single bomb down the stack. There are still people today that write that in current material. The monument to Arizona on Ford Island states that's what happened, and the legend first presented by the Saints of Pearl will continue into and well beyond the immediate future. It does not matter to them, that the down the stack tale has been dis-proven starting in the 1950's. The area the bomb hit is very clear on what remains of the hulk. Even the Japanese said they hit her on the starboard side between turrets one and two and the magazines exploded venting, as the smoke shows, through the stack. Most convincing of all is that the stack cap was still intact, no holes other than those supposed to be there, and you can see that on photos that were taken starting on 8 December 1941. Yet the down the stack story continues and is much more widely known and accepted, and will probably stay that way. Of course it was first a mistake or misconception. Now it's a lie.

Believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see, and you will never go far wrong.

[deadwoodgultch]

I'm, truly sorry we can't drag all along on this years trip, especially Chuck and Colt. Why? Because I would like to put them on a horse or in Steve's buddy's the Crow's truck or my truck to ride these locations. Viewing from the Park roads or sat photos do not do justice to what you are looking for. A view from 600yds, 300yds. or even 100yds can be deceptive. The folds in this terrain will fool the eye,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kX_9Go0Z8e4

www.youtube.com/watch?v=F32azxP7urU

As you can see George Strait has no problem with travel.

Regards,
Tom

[azranger]

Apr 14, 2019 19:29:23 GMT yanmacca said:

Steve, that map you posted is a better quality than my effort from the same map, you must have shit hot scanner software.

If you look at the W on the map, you will see anotherline of finds on Luce ridge, now these look as if they are from a different group then the ones in the W, maybe more directed to the eastern side of Luce?

Ian

I think it is all one group and we see them responding to threats coming from different directions.

Regards

Steve

[quincannon]

Then the question is what different directions? Certainly the only direction on the table is from the east, documented in the JSIT map. Different locations I grant you, but different directions, I will have to be shown.

If by a different direction you mean a threat from the west of the battalion's line of march and main thrust line northward, then you had better come up with a force that could generate that threat first. I don't believe any such force is in play just yet, although there most certainly were scouts, and watchers between the thrust line and the river. To be a threat they would/must consist of thirty or more I would think, which begs the further question of why or how to continue on with those threats moving at will along your flanks.

Threats are something that must be dealt with. One in one location is fairly easy, as we have seen in this threads speculation. You leave a force to deal with it, either contain it or shoo it away, then by pass and continue onward. Two on the other hand especially two from different directions is another matter all together. That's when a commander starts to think is this trip really necessary. 

In police work are you not first taught to contain, then access, then act? Same here old friend, and I would venture to say that if you had two different threats from two different directions, you containing would be much the same as with one, but your accessment and actions after the containment would be quite different. 

[azranger]

I would also add that Steve's various rides over the years, have only shown one thing, that it is possible to ride where he rode. That is valuable knowledge for we must assume the places that were no go to him, would also be no go to those a hundred forty years before. It does not however answer the question of what routes would the tactician use, to further meet his objectives. While telling us where he would not go, it does not tell us all the possibilities of where he could go. Keep in mind here "no go" and "not go" are two different things. It takes more than riding around a piece of ground. It must be done with an eye both toward objective and tactics.

I understand what you are saying and if it were only me picking a route and with some knowledge of where I wanted to go it would be as you say. My first rides were with the Real Birds leaving from the house crossing the LBH and up on the bluffs. There are so many routes from there to the boundary of Reno-Benteen it is just a ride. Once we start back down Cedar Coulée there are less options and when are close to MTC you can view the terrain for egress on the other side. It has several stretches of bluffs and just a few points running into MTC that look passable. The Real Birds are not battle detail folks. They are horsemen and raise bucking horses. So any route they pick is just what looks best.

We also rode with Chip Watts who does know the battlefield very well. He had a ride (horses are now retired) that leaves from his facilities on Reno Creek goes the back way and follows the old road to just below the Benteen area. From there he rode down Cedar Coulée into MTC. In order to egress you have to get around the steep sided gully and so you move downstream and egress right where the Real Bird's do. 

The next year I received information about a map made by scout that was with Custer. That map shows movement down Middle Coulee so I told Chip we wanted to go that way. We rode to the cut across the loaf that extends from Wier and  separates Cedar in Middle. We also rode on top of Wier because we could and I challenged Chip for us to ride down the face before we get to old to do it. We did but the rest of our party did not. So we rode down Middle and stuck to the west side because it was wide and also closer to cover and concealment. So in Middle as you suggest you could ride a wide path but you still end up in MTC. From there you go almost straight across to the egress point that is obvious.

Last Summer I rode with Faron Iron. He owns property in Cedar Coulée. We went down Cedar Coulée and had to move toward the river to bypass the erosion gully. Just a few days before Will Hutchison and Australian police officer and myself rode with James Real Bird. We egressed at the same place we had numerous times. With Faron as we climbed he turned to the right instead of going straight up. When we topped out we were on Luce. 

So we have three persons egressing at the same place because it looks like the best egress. We have a map from a participant for moving down Middle Coulée and we arrive on Luce where the artifacts are shown on the map.

So although I agree in part with you I believe it is more likely than not the route. There are not that many egress areas and Curley states they went straight across. That is exactly what you do from Middle.

When we arrived on Luce I did not know where we were but I could see the W shape was created by bluffed up terrain and then knew where we were.

Regards

Steve

[quincannon]

Tom: You will get my weary ass on a horse on the sixth Sunday in June.

Is Dave coming out this year. I have two boxes of ACW books for him, that would cost me a fortune to mail. Anyone coming through Colorado who is likely to see him, I am in need of your services.

[quincannon]

And I am in agreement that Middle is the most probable route.

What I was getting at though is you had guides that have lived long or grew up on that property, and they are aware of all of its terrain mysteries. Put yourself in the position though of a first time rider on that ground with no guides, and the stress of battle. My inclination would be that there would be both hesitation and more than a few missteps, which is something you do not have to worry about with more experience on the terrain and aided by a guide.

Ultimately what I want to do with posts like these, is to instill in anyone who reads us that there is such a thing as the fog and friction of battle, the unexpected. the nail that lost the show, that lost the horse, that dismounted the king, that lost the battle. Stuff you can not account, and make no allowances for. Truth be told that is my greatest heartburn with Wagner, no frigging FOG or FRICTION, no loose tolerance, the screws put on too tight.

[yanmacca]

Chuck, just by looking at the area which the ‘W’ is located, shows that if the troopers were firing to east, then they would be shooting at targets sky lining along the crest of Luce ridge, as it looks like the ‘W’ is on the military crest and all what would be in view is the actual crest of Luce.

Any firing to the east would be along Blummer-Nye-Cartwright ridge, were the ground to the east is in full view, giving the column a LOS of Wolftooth etc.

The 'W' does look like they were firing west, as the JSIT map show, the column had Indians on both sides.

[quincannon]

I don't think anyone can ever tell which way they were firing from the W. I believe it is east, because that is the only place we know of any opposition. Look here at the bigger picture. Both sides are ascending the ridge at the same time. The Indians reach the top first, and as you say are sky lined, at that point the leading element of Custer's battalion dismounts and engages them, with the aim of driving them off the ridge top. Once done that element of the battalion remount, move further up hill to insure the Indians have cleared off, then turn left and ride in a parallel course to them along the ridge tops. or perhaps slightly down the east side. The Indians aim is delay, so they move toward the ridges a time or two more. only to be met by this same element, who stops, dismounts, fires, and repeats as necessary.

I don't know what JSIT was trying to tell us with Indians being on both sides. One of those mysteries I guess. What I do know though is that it would be a complete act of insanity to continue northward for the main column, having "threat sized" bands of Indians to the east and west. I must then make the assumption until later corrected by uncovered fact, that those to the west were not threat sized, while those to the east were. Wolf Tooth's band was stronger than any one of Custer's five companies. That is a threat. My current working hypothesis is that those to the west were scouts, watchers, and directors. I don't think it accidental that there was sufficient force to meet and drive Custer back at Ford D. Tom is working on this with his coming visit.

Also would not surprise me one bit that had Custer gone to B, he would have found a fairly large force waiting for him on the west side of Greasy Grass Ridge, between there and the river. They would have never been seen until you were on top of them. I don't know that either. What I do know is that past Ford A, there were only two places that you can ford that river, as an organized military force. D is better than B, but you can make the crossing at both places. If I know that, and you know that, you can bet your last farthing that the Indians who lived there knew that, and at first alarm, there would be warriors heading for both places, and presumably others out tracking Custer, to determine his intentions,

[yanmacca]

This is what gets me, If the column was taking time to fire at elements like Wolftooth and other smaller bands, being camp security of just rogue elements who got across to MTC pretty quick, then how come we have small vulnerable groups like the Crow scouts and the F Company detail taking advanced rides like they didn't care a jot!.

The Crows claimed they got as far as Bouyers bluff and saw soldiers riding down MTC, apparently the F detail managed to arrive on Calhoun hill well ahead of the main column, well so Grey says.
Surly these Crows and soldiers would be crazy to ride out so far in that enviroment, or was it not as bad as we seem?

[quincannon]

Good questions, and only my thoughts.

You are assuming that the column was taking time. I don't. I think the main body was making the best time north they could under the circumstances. What I do think is that a portion of the column only was dealing with Wolf Tooth.

Gray says there was a company F detail. Best practices say there would be some small body, five or six, riding point ahead of the main column. What I say is what Gray says makes sense for someone to do that, but his saying it was from F lies somewhere between Gray blowing smoke up your ass, and Gray having access to a very big crystal ball. Gray chooses F primarily, because he thinks F was in the lead, of probably E in his vision of the Custer fantasy.

If those Crow with Bouyer were anywhere near Bouyer's Bluff then you can bet every dime you own that there were no visible (to them) Indians anywhere near that area of Medicine Tail Coulee.

Crazy is as crazy does. None of those three Crows died that day, and that means to me they were not all that crazy. The scout's job is to see, and not be seen. Just like the family cat, you only see them when they want you to. Firing into the village, if that is what they really did, was crazy for a scout in the midst of hostiles. So you can bet the family fortune that there was no one near them if they did.

[yanmacca]

Chuck, would this column have any flankers like what you and Justin used remind us all of.

We do have small groups of shell cases along both flanks of the route the column took from the floor of MTC, up to Luce and the the crest of B-N-C ridge.

The yellow lines is what could be the main route of the column, the red boxes are the small groups of army cartidge finds;

[quincannon]

Well Ian, it depends upon your vision of what the "main column" was doing. I do not think the "main column"  got anywhere near the tops of those ridges as your yellow lines would indicate. I believe the main column of at least three and more probably four companies, as does Colt, backtracked back down into Medicine Tail Coulee, probably followed the bottom most contour line, around the west side of those ridges until they came to the junction of Medicine Tail and Deep Coulees. The only one following those yellow lines were the company charged with shooing away Wolf Tooth, and keeping him at bay and under observation. The top most segment of that yellow line where it nears the park boundary then would be at or near the place where the two elements of Custer's battalion joined together. In fact the main column may have had to wait a few moments for the Wolf Tooth chasers to join up. Believe it or not that is what Wagner says, although he has one part of the column coming back from Ford B, while the other was navigating across the ridge tops. It is also consistent with JSIT.

As to the cartridge cases (areas marked in orange), the most probably reason they are there is that it is indicative of a place that the Wolf Tooth shooers stopped and dismounted to fire. We really don't know how close to the Wolf Tooth came. and instead of a straight line which we have a tendency to imagine, it very well could have been some sort of zig zag affair. That OR they may have gotten there in some later stage of the battle, fired by captured carbines for instance. We just don't know, and there are no forensics to guide us. Remember these finds were a long time before Scott and Fox, so while they are most probably from 25 June, we really don't have any provenance for them. 

[herosrest]

F Company detail has a grounding in participant record, like it or leave it, there is account from Peter Thompson.

"We had just passed through this camping ground when we discovered a single tepee standing near a large clump of cottonwood trees. The sight of this tepee caused a commotion among us. Lieutenant Cook rode rapidly up to Major Reno, giving him orders to take three companies of the left wing, cross the Little Horn River to its left bank and proceed down that stream. He then ordered a detail of Company. F which was in advance with headquarters to investigate and find out the contents of the tepee. This left Captain Benteen with three companies of the left wing and one of the right, as Captain McDugal's company was rear guard and had charge of the pack train. General Custer then took Companies C, E, F, G, and L intending to go down the right bank of the stream, under cover if possible. We soon learned that a large band of Indians were in camp a short distance down the river. The plan marked out was to attack the Indians in the following manner: Major Reno was to cross the river to its left bank and proceed down until he struck their village and endeavor to keep the attention of the Indians until Custer had time to pass down the right bank and cross over and attack them in the rear. (source Brown & Willard, 1924, p153)

Relevance - Thompson is contentious for considerably more than the high profile observation of Custer down in the bottom, away from his HQ and command. The above text is an example of stuff which drives battle students nuts and in this instance that is the pro Reno bent. Thompson felt strongly that Mj. Reno let the regiment down.

The text also offers difficulty with Benteen's whereabouts.

[herosrest]

Assuming that Cartwright's finds are battle related^* they appear to have indicated troops being on foot.

Supplementary evidence for this action may have been provied by 7th Infantry's Henry B. Freeman as item '4' on the battle sketch in his Journal of the expedition. His information is open to interpretation and is a matter which I have discussed several times with conservatively minded students. Freeman may have identified the site of Cartwright's finds in accompanying Company D to the battleground on 27th June 1876. That is a little known detail of Benteen's mission that day. Freeman discovered Keogh's body and arrived to it before Benteen, who followed a different route. Freeman left Keogh's Agnes Dei in place and Benteen recovered it. Freeman sketch Scholars dismiss data given by Freeman as mistaken, with regards 'some' of the distances he rode as indicated on the sketch. This is scholars being very 'dumb'. So dumb that it is stupid. Freeman marched through ACW and all over the Plains for 10 years including the Fetterman disaster, and knew 1 mile from 2. He understood on 27th June 1876, that the village was only one half as large as its footprint because it had moved down the valley.

The Freeman Journal
^*
1. Godfrey travelled the terrain post battle and identified a faint trail which he remembered in 1886 when talking the battle with Gall. He did not report battle relics and by 1917 he knew to go looking for them during his annual visit to LBH.
2. It is known the Superintendent Grover salted the terrain with spent cartridges taken from Ft. Custer. 
3. Cartwright concluded that relics he discovered indicated dismounted skirmishing. The troopers horses were therefore retired under cover and may have been attacked and or run off. 

William A. Allen link Interesting guy, stagecoach driver along Little Bighorn valley, after arriving at Billings in 1877 after visiting the battleground in August 1877 and many times afterwards. Interesting descrition of the terrain, relics and his idea of it.