User talk:Miskwito/Notes

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[edit] Commendations and One Suggestion

First, if it's not too presumptuous of me to do so, I'd congratulate and commend you both for the objective clarity of your summary and the direct, grammatical, clear, and NPOV qualities of your writing.

My only suggestion is that the phrase "attempted to ford the river at the northern end of the camp" be amended to something like "moved his battalion into position on the ridges across the river toward the northern end of the camp with the apparent intention of attacking the village in a pincers movement."

The classic interpretation of what actually happened to GAC's command remains the only one that has a preponderance of evidence in its favor, especially since the initial theories of first Terry's command and later of officers of both Terry's and Reno's detachments have received continual re-confirmation by the archaeological digs that have occurred intermittently since 1984.

That interpretation goes something like this:

a) GAC divides the regiment into three battalions. Reno and Benteen's stories are well-known and documented.

b) GAC and five companies head in a generally northern direction toward the head of the Lakota/Cheyenne encampment, seen intermittently from a distance by some of Reno's and Benteen's men, as well as by Trumpeter Martini and the one or two others who were detached from the command before the fight.

c)Custer detaches Co. C, Lt. Algernon Smith's famed "Gray Horse Troop," down precipitous Medicine Tail Coulee in a "reconnaissance in force," a maneuver that gives that troop maximum flexibility to gather intelligence and/or launch a feint and/or actually engage the enemy.

d) GAC, now near the crest of Nye-Cartwright Ridge, sees for the first time the extent of the encampment and (I know this isn't PC or popular)prudently begins to drop off companies in strong defensive positions on or near the top of this ridge facing the village below, first Calhoun's Co. L and then Keogh's Co. I. Custer himself is with his brother Tom's Co. C and Yates' Co. F as they move to the slightly higher ridge now known as Last Stand Hill. They are ostensibly waiting (fruitlessly) for Benteen's battalion to arrive as reinforcements and with the packs of extra ammunition for the projected pincer attack on the village.

e)But while GAC is deploying these companies, Smith's Co. C has been met at the ford of the river to which Medicine Tail Coulee debouches by Uncpapa chief Gall and several hundred warriors who have turned away from the Reno fight to protect the threatened center of their village with its concentration of women and children. Gall smashes into the Gray Horse troop, who set up a short lived skirmish line in the tall grass and apparently never reach the river itself. The skirmish line is decimated, and the survivors of the company move in disorganized fashion up toward the ridge where Custer is deployed defensively. Some of the E company survivors are trapped in the Deep Coulee by Cheyenne leader Lame White Man, who though killed on his ride through the coulee rallies the Cheyenne to kill all the soldiers in the coulee and then combine with Gall's onrushing Lakota to overwhelm in detail first Calhoun's company and then Keogh's.

f) Crazy Horse and the Oglalla with significant elements of the Northern Cheyenne, sensing the possibility of encirclement, cross the river to the north of the encampment while the remnants of GAC's command - Co F mostly in tact and a few survivors from C and E - are dealing with Gall's warriors who are now pressing in on three sides.

g)As a visit to the battlefield shows, Custer's last remaining soldiers are not on the crest of Last Stand Hill, and the topography would have prevented them from seeing Crazy Horse's encircling move. Crazy Horse's band floods over the crest of the hill and destroy what is left of the command.

This is the interpretation best supported even by recent archeology. No significant number of cavalry shell casings, bullet fragments, or body parts such as bone fragments have been found near enough to the river to warrant the assertion that there was an organized attempt by any element of the GAC battalion to ford the river. It is possible that the Indian accounts,as noted by genuine authorities like W.A. Graham and Richard Upton (who accurately describes these accounts as "radically conflicting stories")of such an attempt may be alluding to a soldier or two who lost control of their horses and plunged into the river, or even to confusion in memory between Reno's attack and Custer's. In any event, no hard physical evidence supports the contention that the majority of GAC's battalion ever got any closer to the river than they were when they fell.

I know this is unnecessarily over-long, but I wanted to explain my suggestion about replacing that one phrase. If you left the phrase in, your piece would still be greatly superior to what is in the Custer article now. Sensei48 04:40, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks so much for all that info. It's certainly not overly-long! The phrase was actually a carry-over from the current version in the article that I didn't delete. I'll get rid of it. --Miskwito 20:22, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Custer Edit

Welcome back to this little corner of Wiki/www from your brief but noted hiatus, and thanks for posting your excellent and NPOV re-write of the LBH section of the GAC article. My guess is that there will be assaults on it from "both sides" of the advocacy controversies regarding Custer, but you have at the very least given us all a better and more clearly objective article as the main focus in proper measure and weight for a biography. Sensei48 15:53, 7 October 2007 (UTC)