The exhaustion of the cavalry horses and the ground (4-5 miles of hills and gulleys) bwtween the Reno group and the Custer group prohibited any mutual support of each other and the inability to message each other was a guarantee that the groups could be defeated in detail.

When the Custer group began its retreat, they went NORTH rather than south toward the Reno and Benteen groups thus extending the distance between the groups rather than going SOUTH toward a link-up.

The distribution of the sites of the deaths of the troopers with Custer reveals that they as a group made no proper defense of themselves with the exception of one group. It also shows that Custer’s two groups did link up as well, but were defeated in detail.

There is no issue of any one’s courage, but there is clearly an issue that Custer’s leadership was lacking and his assumption that the Indians would run was flawed. They didn’t come together to be wimps. They came together to fight and did. The won two major battles in one week.

If asked 6 hourse before the battle, I believe Custer would have said his greatest fear would be that the indians would escape. I agree with a recent commenter that Reno was sent forward to scout. But, having recognized the battlefield, I agree with the author’s point that Custer then attempted a flanking manuever and expected Maj Reno to recognize and react or at least hold.

Had Reno held his position in the timbers things would have been very different. Warriors would have had to deal with a two pronged attack. Many women and children were fleeing to the west. It’s even conceivable that the bulk of the warriors may have followed to protect them. Custer wrote of this tactic in a previous battle.

If guilty of anything, Reno may be guilty of being drunk on duty, emotionally tramatized beyond an ability to command and failure to recognize and react in an appropriate military manner.

I believe arceological finds have demonstrated that Custer deployed elements of his command in pickets. Horses were slain to provide fighting positions. Custer’s demise bears all the signs of a military command to the end.

Reno’s every man for himself retreat from the timbers, to me, is the most terrifying part of the battle. As men were funneled into choke points trying to ford the river and being cut down one by one… terrifying!

Benteen failed Custer’s command to “come quick”. Benteen stopped at Reno and did not come to Custer’s aid as directed. This is clear violation of his commanders orders. While with Reno, Benteeen did command the defense as Reno was ineffective. Men with them said Benteen was responsible for their survival. While this defense in commendable, Bentenns jealousy and hatred of Custer led him to abandon his commander and his men to their fate.

I do not intend to disparage the valor or effectiveness of the warriors during the battle. I only write this becamse Custer has been intolerably smeared by history and the two culprits, Reno and Benteen, got off scott free.

Thanks to our author for highlighting these important issues and keeping the discussion alive!

Maybe Mr. Tassey has had past experience constructing tangled webs of government/conspiracy thought sometime in the past, but I doubt he was being shot at when doing so. George Custer had two mortal wounds (left temple, and left breast), hardly the side of the body for a right-handed person. Or is that also part of the conspiracy?

Custer’s command perished with 210 men to be exact (13 officers, 193 enlisted men, and four civilians). I am unaware of a man named Ridgely even being on the payroll in 1876. However there has a tendency to be more survivors of the battle than there has been people killed at it.

Iroquoian tribes often burned their enemies at the stake, the Lakota and Tsitsita (that’s the Sheyhela (Cheyenne) word for themselves for you novices trying to keep score here) did not. By 1876, killing your enemy on the battlefield was more favorable than dragging them back to camp for some sort of fiendish torture.

David Humphrey’s Miller’s book does not cite one Indian source, therefore it is not worth the paper it is printed on and should be disregarded as a scholastic interpretation. Use it at your own peril, for in forums such as this, you will be made to look rather foolish, and in record time.

All of you who believe there were any whites at all in the Sioux/Cheyenne camp on 25 June 1876 had better read (and I mean read, just don’t buy it and then let it collect dust) Wooden Leg : A Warrior Who Fought Custer by Thomas Marquis. Marquis was a doctor for the Cheyenne in the late 1800-early 1900’s. Many of the battle combatants communicated there experiences with Marquis through sign language. Wooden Leg, 18 at the time of the fight, stated without hesitation, there were no whites in the camp.

Custer’s orders to Reno were to attack and that Custer would support him (Reno), not back him up. Reno was the first to use the word “support” but that was during the Court of Inquiry at the Palmer House in Chicago in January 1879. Since no one knew where the village was, and if it was moving, it was very difficult to give exact orders at to Reno’s specific movement.

Curley, the Crow Scout, was with Custer when the left and right wings of the battalion met on Calhoun Hill. If Custer was wounded, then Curley would have mentioned it to Russell White Bear and Walter Camp. The fact that it was omitted and that Custer was with the right wing on Nye-Cartwright Ridge obviates the fact that he was wounded (or killed) at the river. The officer of which you speak was most likely Algernon Smith, whose body was found on Last Stand Hill near Dr. Porter, whereas his company was found scattered between 300-400 yards from his corpse.

The Indians are no more or les s noble than any other race of people…they were just out numbered.
CR, the military could not possibly keep all whites out of all Indian territory…there was too much of it.

Back to the Little Big Horn….there were actually three white captives in Sitting Bull’s camp Ridgely and two companions. Ridgely
I believe this is confirmed by information at the Library of Congress. However, it is also documented in a couple of books..so if you research it properly, Im sure you’ll find it.

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