From: buckley@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (BUCKLEY  CHARLES RAY)
Subject: Re: Greatest Military Blunders of All Time
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 04:05:40 GMT

In article <Oct.7.23.51.08.1992.16252@dropout.rutgers.edu> mcgrew@dropout.rutgers.edu (Charles Mcgrew) writes:
>
>	It did however, save the lives of the other columns. This was
>	also aided by Reno's cold feet. As one of Reno's troops said
>	later - If we hadn't have been led by a coward , we would all
>	be dead now. (Or at least a paraphrase of his statement).
>
>... its not clear to me that men of the 7th actually thought Reno a
>coward.  The regiment soon after later petition to have Reno named
>commander of the 7th.  Certainly he did the only possible thing that
>could have saved his command.
>
True. He ran. Benteen assumed functional command once the remaining companies
were reunited. Reno, however suggested leaving the wounded behind on the night
of the 25th. This goes a bit beyond reason. They had successfully held off
a far superior force for quite a while and were expecting reinforcements any
day - either from Crook or Terry.

>   Custer is ultimately the bad-guy here; splitting his force into
>three parts (Benteen, Reno, and himself commanding a part each), and
>formulating a, shall we say, incautious battleplan.  I think Custer's
>best bet would be to try and push the hostiles toward Terry, and in
>conjunction with Crook (whom Custer did not know was stopped at the
>Rosebud fight), crush the hostiles.  That is, Custer should have
>skirmished; to be generally offensive while being specifically
>defensive (if that's vague enough for you.)  Of course, he couldn't be
>sure how many hostiles he was dealing with when he made the plan, but
>once he *did* know, his actions were reckless.
>
Reliable recon would have been nice. Or more precisely -  more reliable analysis
of the existing data. Custer is ultimately at fault here. His plan was pretty
much his normal mode of assult which worked quite effectively against smaller
villages. The sheer speed in which Custer's command was wiped out shows that
it was worse than any other course of action.


Custer's command was wiped out in less than an hour. The 'hostiles' were able
to deploy sufficient manpower to completely overwhelm one column, repulse
another, and generally make a nuisance of themselves everywhere. That they
were able to do this even while taken by surprise, is incredible. No war leader
of the tribe would have had time to assemble his men first or even have intel
legence on Custer's forces. By later testimony, Sitting Bull (I think) claimed
that the wiping out of Custer's column was not lead by anyone. It was instinctie. Later when there was time to think, they were unable to dislodge the remaining
soldiers from their defences. If 2/3 of the 7th Cav was able to hold out against
a planned attack, the entire command might have survived had a different plan
been used.


>   He may have thought that the only chance to save Reno was to attack
>himself, although it is not clear that he knew what Reno's situation
>actually was (certainly he would have heard the firing from Reno's
>fight.)   
>
Unlikely. Custer bore the brunt of the assult. I doubt if anyone heard or cared
if Reno was getting fired upon. Custer also had a tendency to leave his
subordinates in sticky situations.

>   There is another factor: that the commanding officers all around
>thought that the major danger was that the hostiles would disperse,
>rather than coming to battle.  Custer probably thought that once he
>was committed to a fight, his only option was all-out attack with the
>forces to hand.  Unfortunately, his "forces to hand" had been diluted
>so badly (by Custer himself), that he was overwhelmed.  (Of course,
>his political ambitions had something to do with it too, he having
>peddled himself as The Great Indian Fighter, he could hardly have
>anything but a great victory on his belt.)
>
True. Running for president does have a tendency to erode rational thought :)

>	In any case the battle at Little Bighorn only accounted for
>	some 300 casualties on all sides. I for one think that it will
>	forever be relegated to second string status.
>
>... quite.  The "battles" of the Indian Wars were, by European
>standards, insignificant.  The impact of the Greasy Grass fight were
>the totality of the disaster (the Fetterman disaster involved the loss
>of significantly fewer troops), the rarity of complete defeats of the
>US Army in fights with the hostiles, and the relative well-known-ness
>of the commander involved.  As far as the overall subjugation of the
>West goes, it didn't matter a whole heck of a lot (since the hostiles
>dispersed after the Custer fight anyway.)
>
>	Strategically, Terry's forced retreat sealed Custers fate
>	and decided the capaign long before Custer even arrived in the
>	Little Bighorn Valley.
>
>... uh, don't you mean Crook?  (If you're thinking of the fight on
>the Rosebud, that was Crook's force.)

I stand corrected. My old unit the 3rd Cav was there. (Considering that I was
assigned to it as an Air Force sergeant shows that there are still some
quirks in the US military.)
>

Charles Buckley       BB-48 USS West Virginia  - you can't keep a good ship down


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