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Post by quincannon on Aug 18, 2020 13:46:56 GMT
Yes. It does resemble what JSIT has to say. The thing of it is that while we know the northern part of the map is conjecture, because that part of the trail was obliterated by battle, what Godfrey draws on his map makes good tactical sense.
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mac
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Post by mac on Aug 18, 2020 14:25:11 GMT
Ian I think the Smith notation on the map may indicate that Smith's body was found on LSH with the others named, and yes the map does resemble Wolftooth. I note Wolfie has them coming down Deep Coulee to Calhoun Hill and then following Battle Ridge. Cheers
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Post by yanmacca on Aug 18, 2020 14:34:00 GMT
What that route also tells me is that they were heading to ford d and took precautions to sweep around behind any topographical features to do it. That's if Godfrey is correct of course.
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Post by quincannon on Aug 18, 2020 14:51:26 GMT
I'm not so sure about Smith Mac. It appears to me Godfrey has drawn a line there marked Smith, but I may be misreading that line among all the other "lines". Supposing he does intend to show Company E, marked as Smith though, it would make sense for him to do it in his 1892 story, because he has Company E "escaping", and you must start that escape from somewhere. Maybe then the notation "Smith: is that somewhere, according to Godfrey. I would also expect that Godfrey never put Company E on Cemetery Ridge in his thoughts on the matter. He may or may not have seen any bodies on that terrain feature, but if he did, there were probably only a few, and he could explain them to himself as being cut off and run down outliers, rather than representing a position formerly occupied by Company E.
I don't believe that Godfrey had any notion that Cemetery Ridge had been a battle position. Why would he consider it in the 1892 version? The only reason Cemetery Ridge is important today, is that we know, having discovered the probable events surrounding Ford D, that Cemetery Ridge would be the most logical first fall back position from the ford. the first high ground available, therefore the first lifeboat occupied.
What would have been interesting for us today is if Godfrey did have knowledge of Ford D. I wonder how much more the conjectural part of his map there in the north would resemble what Wolf Tooth/JSIT had to say. I would expect them both to be quite similar, in that the terrain there only really offers one or two ways to skin the tactical cat in an approach to D.
Sometimes I think we all expect to much from these people, all of these people. They were just like we are. They see, they don't see. They think, but sometimes there is an absence of thinking. They are inquisitive, and yet they ignore. They are human, just like us, and we give them powers, wishfully, that we do not ourselves have, and are disappointed when they disappoint.
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Post by quincannon on Aug 18, 2020 14:56:16 GMT
I agree Ian, that route would be the one to go to Ford D on, and staying just below the crest on the east side of Battle Ridge is exactly how to go there tactically. Don't think Godfrey knew they were heading to D though, although he may have surmised but not said it in the absence of any proof. When one thinks about it though that is the only place they could have been heading. It is the only objective in the area. Certainly Custer would not come all that way north with the intent and objective of putting a defensive position of Battle Ridge.
I think we really have to be careful when we read accounts like Godfrey's especially those accounts put out in the public domain like Century Magazine. The Army, as an institution, is very funny about such things. They don't mind if you write history, as long as it is not controversial history, meaning that the Army frowns greatly upon one of its members making controversial statements, that fly in the face of conventional thought, or upend someone's apple cart in public. Those things, done by a smart Army officer will be done after he retires not while he is still serving. They also really don't like innovative thought by active officers brought to public attention. I guess they feel that if some big mouth wippersnapper is telling the Army how to do its business, then the impression left on the public, is that the Army is presently not doing its business. I have heard tell, although I do not know it as cold hard fact, that Gavin's 1956 article in Collier's Magazine, what turned out in the end to be a landmark piece "Cavalry And I Don't Mean Horses" was the reason Gavin never got a fourth star and was retired before his usefulness was over. Less than ten years later though Gavin's thoughts in that article were operational, and an entire division had been built around them.
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azranger
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Post by azranger on Aug 18, 2020 15:59:41 GMT
That the point Ian
Godfrey saw a trail right after the battle leading to east and south. He doesn't claim he followed it then. He states he dismisses it because the theory had all 5 companies moving to Ford B. What theory is he talking about that would have been discussed within a few days of the battle?
What he had 10 years later was a Sioux source and it fits with what the Sioux did during the battle. They went up Medicine Coulee but not in time for heavy engagement at Luce or Nye Cartwright. Those engagements were done by returning Cheyenne hunters and the few first responders of mixed Sioux and Cheyenne. The harrassed by but did not kill a single soldier. I would say horses but some horse bones had been found.
Whatever the group was they made across MTC up Luce and across Nye Cartwright. This is a substantial distance and there are Indian firing site both east and west. There is also smaller soldier sites that look as if detail went to flank these Indians sites. I base that upon looking at the actual sites marked by metal markers in the ground. The W we see on the artifact map is formed by the terrain. It has a ledge that you could not jump a horse off of to respond. The smaller group of soldier cases look like something I would have done in Vietnam. The large group is supression fire or misses. While the smaller details move west and east on the flank of the Indian sites. Whatever happened there are no soldier bodies there and no watershed to wash away the artifacts.
The N/C artifacts are on a line toward the Calhoun area. There is still no markers in Deep Coulee. What I will do next year is look at how you get ingress into Deep Coulee and egress out. My working map ends on NC since it obvious that they went to the Calhoun Area.
So I do not believe that Godfrey drew an actual route and its not much different than the old topo map of the battlefield. It looks like a suggested area of travel rather than an actual route. I am going to ask Culpepper to put the Godfrey map on a topo map or better yet on Google Earth Pro.
I don't see his drawing going through Luce and Nye Cartwright and it has to do that.
What I can't believe is that some don't think Godfrey got wrong. He has CIL no closer north than the markers and E and F no closer to the river than LSH. That would mean our 5 company movement and everyone else's 2 company movement north of LSH is wrong. The artifacts prove Godfrey wrong. They went north of LSH.
Regards
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azranger
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Post by azranger on Aug 18, 2020 16:06:14 GMT
If you look at Godfrey's map it shows mostly Sioux positions.
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azranger
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Post by azranger on Aug 18, 2020 16:10:02 GMT
To reach Luce you ride directly across from Middle Coulee. You can also reach N/C by staying on a north course.
They Cheyennes according to JSIT saw Custer coming toward MTC. Where on Godfrey route would that be?
Regards
Steve
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azranger
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Post by azranger on Aug 18, 2020 16:40:54 GMT
Curley states he saw the gray horses move down MTC and others go straight across.
Martin states he went within 600 yards of Ford B and cut back to his route. Martin sees Reno in the valley. Where could he see that?
Thompson see fighting near Ford B. Soldiers remaining in the timber hear firing. (Are they hearing firing from Luce)
A scout who was there draws a map of Custer's movement down Middle Coulee
A Sioux draws Gray Horses coming out of MTC and in front of Greasy Grass. (Godfrey has the gray horses no closer than LSH)
JSIT shows what a Elk Horn Scraper believes occurred. (Godfrey does not have the Cheyenne on his map except for the first responders which had a mixture. That response was up Deep Coulee. That would be after the movement through Luce and N/C. The Cheyenne accounts have Luce and N/C contact but only from small numbers of Cheyenne. )
So all of the above fits the split as described by Curley. Godfrey's account fits Curley's observation of the split with some going straight across.
I don't think Godfrey tried to draw an actual route. If he did and it doesn't go through Luce and N/C its in error. I believe he saw the trail made by C,I and L. I think they were there at two separate point in time. They would have to be if all 5 companies were to move north.
Godfrey for sure gives the account that Fred, William, and Clair believe. C,I, and L move no further north then where the markers are located. Donahue believes that also with only E and F and Custer moving north. He has them moving out BRE and returning across Cemetery Ridge. This would include all artifacts discovered of movement north of LSH.
So all five companies moving north and only E and F moving north are consistent with the latest artifact finds. Both are in conflict with Godfrey's map.
Regards
Steve
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azranger
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Post by azranger on Aug 18, 2020 16:58:04 GMT
Benteen shows activity on Cemetery Ridge and also shows dead bodies north of BRE that he believes were there. Since Benteen drew his map from his observations we can kind of see where he had to be. We don't have any field notes from Godfrey made shortly after the battle. We have him stating he saw a trail near the Calhoun Area.
I think that trail came from Deep Coulee and had passed through the numerous soldier and Indian sites starting form Luce.
The best part of Godfrey's account is that it confirms what Curley stated he saw. He saw some soldiers going straight across MTC and Godfrey saw evidence of that at the Calhoun Area. Godfrey doesn't attempt to follow the route in real time. He comes back 10 years later and gets with the Gall account.
I think in the end we will never have definitive proof of all the details but as Gordie told me in 2009 you only have to make sense to yourself. Gordie dealt with the Cheyennes and their accounts which caused him to form his north to south flow at the end of the battle. Godfrey relied on the Sioux account has Gall moving up Deep Coulee.
The good thing for me is that they are both right to some degree in my opinion.
Gordie is absolutely correct in that there was a north to south flow at the end of the battle. Was it E and F only or was it all five companies?
Regards
Steve
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Post by quincannon on Aug 18, 2020 17:54:08 GMT
Please tell me something here connected directly to your field of expertise. When you as doing an investigation and disconnects in testimony arises, or you suddenly discover that if someone was where they say they were and when they say they were, and did not see something, that you believe they should have seen, what do you do? I would imagine that you would go back to the person or persons involved and ask more questions, or probe deeper into what they have previously said during the course of the investigation. Is that correct, or not? Your answer is the one that will be accepted without question.
I think that is what I have been trying to get across as the difference between an investigator and an analyst. The analyst, in this particular case, is somewhat like the conducting of an investigation into a hundred forty four year old cold case, where all the principals and witnesses are dead. You have I am sure seen those periodic TV shows on trying to solve the case of Jack The Ripper. Those folks doing that may be investigators by profession, but what they are doing on those TV shows is analyzing the testimony and evidence left since 1890 or so. They cannot get any clarification of testimony. In some cases the evidence may have been reported but no longer exists. In some cases there may have potentially been some known at the time hot button issues, that could not be explored at the time, and that we are not aware of. While the investigator in the course of his duties can obtain answers to clarifying questions, the analyst can not.
Such is the case with so many areas and aspects of the LBH story. I will give only one example and await your answer and further comment
Gall tells Godfrey in 1886 that he and Iron Cedar observed from a "high place" Custer's column on the ridge line to the east. Now one thing we know by this statement, is that Gall and Iron Cedar were standing on the ridge that constitutes the first line of bluffs. We know this because Gall told us so. We do not know exactly where that was, but for the most part anywhere along the ridge will do. We also know that Iron Cedar was the first to observe an additional (other than Reno) threat to the village, and that was the reason he went to get Gall in the first place. We also know that Medicine Tail Coulee lies between those two ridge lines, and as such for our purposes here, becomes to us a fairly open mini-valley. What the analyst would then assume is that if those two could see troops on the far ridges then they could also see any troops that were nearer and in the coulee. Both were in their direct front, and as far as I know the position of viewing would be such that both could be seen. We also know that if troops were moving north on two axis of advance, they would be doing so at the same time, give or take a moment or so. We can also determine that any threat from Medicine Tail Coulee would be more immediate than the threat from the troops on the ridge, simply because they were nearer possible access to the village.
So, when Gall tells Godfrey what he and Iron Cedar saw, we can make the assumption that they saw troops moving along the ridge line to the east and nothing of any troops in Medicine Tail Coulee. Admittedly Godfrey did not ask the question - did you see anyone else at the time. There was probably no need to do so, because logic tells you that Gall, Iron Cedar and company would have then set off in pursuit of the greater and nearer threat, those troops that were in the coulee, rather than what we know he did, that being gathering his forces to block the rear of Custer's column. Perhaps his intention was let the Cheyenne hit Custer in the nose, and he would hit Custer in the tail, as he was reeling backward from the Cheyenne blow.
We can't know these things to the perfection standards of a modern investigation, because we can't ask the clarifying questions that we would all like to ask, or probe deeply for more information, where the witness may be reluctant to provide that information. We can only analyze what has been done in the past.
I don't know why you feel that you have to be a horse holder for Gordon Harper, as you have been prone to do all these many years since his passing and the publication of his book. His work stands alone, and is probably as good as analysis can get. His work needs no justification from what I can see. What he says, what the Cheyenne say, and what the Sioux in the south have to say is completely consistent with one another, when you lay all the pieces out on the table. He did good work, and while he might not be completely correct in all aspects, operating as he did with a hundred thirty year gap between the event and his working on it, his approach was honest and sincere, and needs nothing more in my opinion said about it other than honesty and sincerity of purpose. Those that insist that his work is junk are themselves junk peddlers and Three Card Monty dealers, and why anyone would pay attention to what they are selling baffles me. You though were his friend, and as such feel the natural instinct to express that friendship by defense.
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azranger
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Post by azranger on Aug 18, 2020 19:32:12 GMT
Please tell me something here connected directly to your field of expertise. When you as doing an investigation and disconnects in testimony arises, or you suddenly discover that if someone was where they say they were and when they say they were, and did not see something, that you believe they should have seen, what do you do? I would imagine that you would go back to the person or persons involved and ask more questions, or probe deeper into what they have previously said during the course of the investigation. Is that correct, or not? Your answer is the one that will be accepted without question. That would be the norm and why you have to interview as many people as possible. Of course you would go back but it is a skill of a good investigator to not lead a witness to get them to recall some without suggesting it to them. Camp was ambitious but he did a lot of leading questions.I think that is what I have been trying to get across as the difference between an investigator and an analyst. The analyst, in this particular case, is somewhat like the conducting of an investigation into a hundred forty four year old cold case, where all the principals and witnesses are dead. You have I am sure seen those periodic TV shows on trying to solve the case of Jack The Ripper. Those folks doing that may be investigators by profession, but what they are doing on those TV shows is analyzing the testimony and evidence left since 1890 or so. They cannot get any clarification of testimony. In some cases the evidence may have been reported but no longer exists. In some cases there may have potentially been some known at the time hot button issues, that could not be explored at the time, and that we are not aware of. While the investigator in the course of his duties can obtain answers to clarifying questions, the analyst can not. I think in law enforcement you have both investigation and analysis. A true skilled investigator should do both. If all the cold cases are only done for TV I would be shocked and so should anyone else. The statute of limitations rules out follow up on some cases. Our fraud cases can go back 10-20 years. I took Doug Scott's metal detector class in Buffalo, Wyoming and the skillset and analysis are the same. The analysis on the battlefield was in part done from a law enforcement lab in Nebraska. We do the same here in Arizona as far as paring with analysis and investigation.
A lot of investigations are strictly analysis and don't result in someone being cited or arrest. We are still looking for someone using a British .303. We can reconstruct what he did and where he standing and where the deer was located but we have no witness or suspect.
I think in this case we have eyewitnesses and analyst at work. Certainly Maguire wasn't there but he analysed something to come up with his maps. 140 years later the markers are consistent with his map.
So when I look at the artifact site on Luce my analysis is that they were shooting at the Indian to the west. From my Vietnam experience my analysis is the smaller soldier site to the north was a flanking maneuver to fire upon the Indians.
What I would say is analysts are really opinions rather than facts in most cases. To say a particular .22 firearm did something is what the crime lab would never say. They would say it is consistent with because there are so many 22 firearms that even at 1 in a million 24 would be an exact match.
I think our field officers would lean more to investigations as you suggest but are law program would use analysis more frequently.
Such is the case with so many areas and aspects of the LBH story. I will give only one example and await your answer and further comment Gall tells Godfrey in 1886 that he and Iron Cedar observed from a "high place" Custer's column on the ridge line to the east. Now one thing we know by this statement, is that Gall and Iron Cedar were standing on the ridge that constitutes the first line of bluffs. We know this because Gall told us so. We do not know exactly where that was, but for the most part anywhere along the ridge will do. We also know that Iron Cedar was the first to observe an additional (other than Reno) threat to the village, and that was the reason he went to get Gall in the first place. We also know that Medicine Tail Coulee lies between those two ridge lines, and as such for our purposes here, becomes to us a fairly open mini-valley. What the analyst would then assume is that if those two could see troops on the far ridges then they could also see any troops that were nearer and in the coulee. Both were in their direct front, and as far as I know the position of viewing would be such that both could be seen. We also know that if troops were moving north on two axis of advance, they would be doing so at the same time, give or take a moment or so. We can also determine that any threat from Medicine Tail Coulee would be more immediate than the threat from the troops on the ridge, simply because they were nearer possible access to the village. So I would throw in immediately that what Sioux knew is limited to their location. The Cheyenne see soldiers from their location near Ford Ds.
I think that CIL or all 5 if you like cross at least as far east as middle coulee and could not be observed until they egressed. The Sioux respond in Deep Coulee which the wide end of the pie shape formed by the drainages. The Cheyenne see movement from above MTC and realize there is a second group of soldiers. They get their horses and move toward BRE.
The Luce artifacts were from contact by a Cheyenne hunting party returning down MTC and also first responders moving up Deep Coulee. I think the Godfrey map shows that Gall used Deep Coulee. What I see is that Godfrey is not using any Cheyenne accounts in his analysis so that would eliminate the encounters north of LSH.
So, when Gall tells Godfrey what he and Iron Cedar saw, we can make the assumption that they saw troops moving along the ridge line to the east and nothing of any troops in Medicine Tail Coulee. Admittedly Godfrey did not ask the question - did you see anyone else at the time. There was probably no need to do so, because logic tells you that Gall, Iron Cedar and company would have then set off in pursuit of the greater and nearer threat, those troops that were in the coulee, rather than what we know he did, that being gathering his forces to block the rear of Custer's column. Perhaps his intention was let the Cheyenne hit Custer in the nose, and he would hit Custer in the tail, as he was reeling backward from the Cheyenne blow. If Gall is responding to troops observed they would most likely be on Luce and N/C. E and F would be moving north. So the timing issues is could those Indians that responded at Ford B drove Custer off before Gall came across MTF and saw troops to the west and moved up Deep Coulee to engage them.We can't know these things to the perfection standards of a modern investigation, because we can't ask the clarifying questions that we would all like to ask, or probe deeply for more information, where the witness may be reluctant to provide that information. We can only analyze what has been done in the past. We can do both. If Benteen states his route was rough and had defiles you can ride and form an opinion. I would agree at best for the rest we have consistent with accounts or we can eliminate things impossible. I don't know why you feel that you have to be a horse holder for Gordon Harper, as you have been prone to do all these many years since his passing and the publication of his book. His work stands alone, and is probably as good as analysis can get. His work needs no justification from what I can see. What he says, what the Cheyenne say, and what the Sioux in the south have to say is completely consistent with one another, when you lay all the pieces out on the table. He did good work, and while he might not be completely correct in all aspects, operating as he did with a hundred thirty year gap between the event and his working on it, his approach was honest and sincere, and needs nothing more in my opinion said about it other than honesty and sincerity of purpose. Those that insist that his work is junk are themselves junk peddlers and Three Card Monty dealers, and why anyone would pay attention to what they are selling baffles me. You though were his friend, and as such feel the natural instinct to express that friendship by defense. Gordie was my friend for sure. But when I went to the battlefield and talked with Donahue and Doug Scott on a tour I was convinced Gordie was correct, Activity began in the Ford Ds area and some soldiers moved away from there. They could have used BRE to move back but all theories to the north south flow have activity on Cemetery Ridge. Benteen drew the line on field drawing which shows the route north to south.
Gordie hated Reno and Benteen so we didn't share all the same ideas.
Regards
Steve
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Post by yanmacca on Aug 18, 2020 20:00:28 GMT
How about then, an advance by three companies with the other two companies acting as flank guards, the main column goes from middle coulee up to Luce and then N/C and across deep coulee, one of the flanking companies moves part way down MTC and across Butler hill and across deep coulee, the other flanker company has took a wider route and came up behind battle ridge from the east.
This would give a reason for so many trails.
Don’t forget that we think that firing from Luce was towards MTC, but giving that Wolftooth and maybe more bands had been out further east, could give Custer a reason to place flanking companies from both rouge bands to the east and others in MTC.
They would all meet on BRE.
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Post by quincannon on Aug 18, 2020 21:29:37 GMT
Your first sentence Steve is the answer to my question. Didn't read the rest as it was not part and did not pertain to the question asked. Thank you for your response.
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Ian that is interesting. If you did not have that western most flanking company moving very far away from the main body they were protecting, it is certainly possible, that together that which could be seen (everything except the eastern most flanking company I suppose) could very well be confused as being one body of troops, by someone observing from the ridge formed by the bluffs nearest the river. What it would then appear to the observer as, would be two parallel columns moving in the same general direction. Excellent. Too bad we can't dig Gall up and ask him to describe what he saw in more detail that could give us a hint of the formation being used.
People in the intelligence business use two parallel scales to evaluate any piece of intelligence. The first is the intelligence itself, and how that particular piece of information fits in with all else that is known about a given item of interest. If it fits in, then most times the report is accepted as valid. If it does not fit in, then most times the report is rejected OR subjected to far more scrutiny to insure if this single piece might be the good stuff and all the rest is bad. The second is the reliability of the person reporting the information. As an example Curley may have been reporting the complete truth, but his reliability as a reporter is considered bad, while say Gall has a good reputation for reporting, but is feeding you information that is in error. The process of evaluation then becomes a balancing act, where your chances of being right are equal to your chances of being wrong. Then you add into the mix the possibility of purposeful deception by the enemy, and you really have a mess to deal with
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mac
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Post by mac on Aug 19, 2020 6:04:25 GMT
Whatever the group was they made across MTC up Luce and across Nye Cartwright. This is a substantial distance and there are Indian firing site both east and west. There is also smaller soldier sites that look as if detail went to flank these Indians sites. I base that upon looking at the actual sites marked by metal markers in the ground. The W we see on the artifact map is formed by the terrain. It has a ledge that you could not jump a horse off of to respond. The smaller group of soldier cases look like something I would have done in Vietnam. The large group is supression fire or misses. While the smaller details move west and east on the flank of the Indian sites. Whatever happened there are no soldier bodies there and no watershed to wash away the artifacts. AZ I agree with your map analysis. One question though. What direction is the firing from the W towards?
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