Bonafide scans

[yanmacca]

Here is a scan of the Bonafide map covering the area around Blummer-Nye-Cartwright-Luce Ridges, as you can see the trail of army cartridges are in purple and any Indian afrtifacts are in red. You can clearly see a purple "W" as a column of company moved Parallel to Luce ridge. There looks to be another detail actually on Luce, maybe flankers? The line of cartridges grow larger as the move along the crest of BNC ridge.

[quincannon]

Great post Ian. Mike will appreciate it, and so do I in that I had not realized that skirmish line extended as far as I did along the ridge to the left. Having it blown up sure helps.

[yanmacca]

See if you can enlage this Bonafide scan as it is a much more detailed map which also covers more ground. I think it may be better if you downloaded it onto your hard drives and enlarge it at your leisure, as the enlagement on this site impares the quality.

[Deleted]

Well, that's a very helpful and revealing map and shows NO NEED for 'secret code' is describing map locations.  This clearly shows a defensive line along the Northern Military Crest of Nye-Cartwright Ridge and the Southern Military Crest of Luce Ridge, so one could just refer to the "Nye-Cartwright-Luce Ridge defensive line as shown by cartridge case artifacts displayed on the out of print Bonafide map".  This provides an easy to locate description and source for someone who has not been a part of the discussion, doesn't know about or have the Bonafide Map, and saves them from having to try and find the appropriate thread or read 266 pages of material, not all of which is focused on the discussion.

[quincannon]

Not only does it show that line Mike, the line is over an extended area, which very well could indicate that most if not all of the five companies were engaged there, plus its location generally fits with the trail Godfrey discovered on 27 June 76, and whose location was verified by Gall ten years later when he was at the battlefield along with Godfrey and Godfrey's orderly Penwell. It is also consistent with a split and flanking movement taking place, bringing into the fight troops on the leftmost part of that line along the  Blummer-Nye-Cartwright portion of the ridge complex, while the head of the column was addressing those nearer the W on Luce Ridge. If I had to guess based on the relative size of the respective artifact fields it would be two at Luce, while three flanked and ended up on B-N-C Ridge.

[Deleted]

I generally Concur.  And could the small group on Luce Ridge proper be the command group?  Looks like the right place to be to me for him to get the best overall picture of the battle.  And while we don't know timing, the small groups extending out from the main line could be:


Groups that moved to get better fields of fire?

Prior positions as the regiment consolidated on the ridge?

Groups moving north toward Custer Hill?

EDIT:  Is that a refused flank on the 3300 closed contour line or an intermediate position as they come up from the river?

DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN

[quincannon]

Could be a number of things Mike. It's a pretty large area so I would think any movement being done, especially to the extreme left would be done mounted. The position atop Luce appears to be the best place for command and control of the battalion, but I don't think Custer would have been there, based upon his personality. My thinking is that he would have gone with any maneuvering element, meaning he would have been off to the left somewhere.

The 3300 position does look like a refused flank, but could be something else, a fire stopper for that gap between the two main positions for instance. I suppose though that fire stoppers and refused flanks are differences with no differentiation.

What is completely unknown though is were these positions occupied at the same time. If not then who knows, among the several other things those artifact fields could represent.

[Deleted]

Hey Infantry Guys!

Tell me your thoughts on the 3300 position as a defensive position for the Custer Battalion. Figure 200 guys in a rough circle 5 meters apart yields a 1000 meter perimeter with a diameter about 320 meters. A Forlorn Hope of course, but could inflict maximum punishment, appears from Google Earth to have good fields of fire and micro-terrain would have provided some cover.

Main problems, not near water, little or no concealment.

Would be better if they had entrenching tools which while good for digging, also with the shovel turned to the pick angle, a nice hand to hand weapon. I bet that caused a "Why didn't anybody think of that?" moment for somebody after they decided to issue individual small soldiers to each soldier.

[yanmacca]

If the troops could shoot, then this would have been a great help, the Indians could move and fire without being hit, this gave them the confidance to get close, once they got too close the skirmish line may have broke and troops ran in terror, which could have been behind the routs on cemetery and Calhoun.

AZ wrote a good line once about the Indians faith in good or bad medicine, if the troopers started to knock the warriors down with good musketry, then this was bad medicine, but if the kept missing, then this was good medicine, therefore a good day to fight.

[quincannon]

The position is not ideal, but better than anything further north. It could be held until relieved if the attack was not pressed too hard. My personal felling is that there would probably be no energetic effort to overrun it. Rather, I would think that the Indians would decide on containment, with some local attacks, and in preventing any link up with troops in the south. The place was far enough away from the villages to allow the Indians to contain while they withdrew the village.

[yanmacca]

I was thinking that myself, why waste lives just to show how brave you are, they would have had two groups of soldiers all hemmed up and going nowhere, they would not dare try to attack again, so just leave them.

[quincannon]

I'm not an Indian, but that is the way I would approach it as someone schooled in tactics. It takes twenty years to replace and Indian lost in combat. It takes (at the time) a simple telegraph message to bring Army replacements into play for future operations.

My personal take on why they were willing to expend casualties in the actual battle, is that Custer's final positions on the field constituted a clear, present, and close danger to the viability of the village location, and had to be dealt with, while the Reno/Benteen position did not.

[Deleted]

QC: That was my thinking as well. If this deployment was before the probably proibable excursion to the north, it was still too spread out to successfully defend, but at this point I don't think they had incurred many casualties. Obviously Custer was still offensively minded so I doubt that the course of action would have occurred to him. Still, an interesting thought for Tuesday Century thinking, I guess. The 1891 markers appear to show even more dispersion than this deployment. Neither one is mutually supporting.

[yanmacca]

I know that any troops on cemetery pose a threat to the village, but they soon went after Benteen after his battalion appeared on Weir peaks, I could be wrong but they showed no signs of stopping short of wiping the command out.

[quincannon]

I have often thought Mike of what would have been the outcome if Custer occupied a village overwatch position near the village, but did not attack. Depending upon where that position was it just may have fixed the village in place, with the Indians knowing that any movement of the village would bring the entire regiment down on the trailing ends like hell's fire and damnation. The Indians would attempt to screen of course, but they would also have to provide all around security for the village column spread out over many miles, and with a hard riding six hundred that screen should be able to be penetrated fairly easily. Would the Indians being willing to chance that, I just don't know.

Ian:  Weir is very close to the center of the village, and that would be just as unacceptable to the Indians as Custer's final positions in the north. If the soldiers were more than a mile away, and could be easily contained, I would think the Indians would feel they were best watched but largely left alone.