John

Your impassioned misconceptions are noteworthy but still wrong. I do not "praise" Custer, I only point out facts. Custer did make some mistakes but what commander doesn't make mistakes. One fact in particular is that the battle took place no where near the Rosebud. Obviously Custer was not shot "crossing the Rosebud". You're being "into" Indian ar history you should know that. Perhaps you meant crossing the LBH at medicine Tail Coulee? There is no factual evidence that any soldiers crossed the LBH there. There was an exchange of fire when the soldiers crossed Medicine Tail Coulee (verified by Indian accounts and archeological evidence) near the LBH, perhaps that is what you meant?

Discipline was indeed harsh in the Army back then. Custer used no methods that weren't in common use by every other commander. It was the way things were.

As to the cavalry tactics; had the 7th been trained and actually the "elite" fighting force most think it was (it wasn't by the way) then things would have been quite different. It was known by Custer and all other officers with any Indian fighting experience that the warriors would fight to protect the women, kids and old ones. They also knew if you captured any of the woman, kids and old ones the warriors were loathe to fight. They also knew the Indians seldom stood and fought in pitched battles but would use delaying actions until the village escaped. They also knew you shouldn't ever run from Indians during a fight. Custer knew the Indians would fight. The problem was many of the soldiers weren't trained and many of the soldiers and officers had little or no Indian fighting experience. They lost tactical stability and broke and ran. Soldiers do not fight when running and the Indians took advantage of that. Besides, if the reason was "there were to many Indians" how is it that Custers battalion held them off for 2+ hours? How is it those same Indians, now armed with 200+ M1873 and thousands of rounds of ammuntion, were unable to "massacre" the Reno/Benteen contingent the same way? If there were "to many Indians" and that worked against Custer then why not against Reno/Benteen? The reason is tactical stability and the Indians loathing of a standup fight against soldiers armed with M1873s. Another point to ponder as to why Custer, and all the other officers of the 7th, wasn't concerned about all those Indians was because there was supposed to be over 4,000 soldiers converging on the LBH. Unfortuneatley what Custer did not know was that rook had gone fishing and Terry had Gibbobs column lost in the Tullock.

"He was discovered by the indians? yeah, a couple of kids herding livestock." There may be some kids herding livestock in that vicinity these days but there wasn't any then. I don't think you've read very much of the 1876 Campaign as you claim. You'rte making to many erroneous statements to write it off as a onetime mistake.

"so they blamed the officer who saved a portion of the 7th. Assuming you are referring to Reno? If so you are wrong. It was Benteen who actually "saved' that portion by lending tactical stability to a rather inglorious route. The problem was that in doing so he abanded his orders from Custer. The 'dark secret" kept by the surving officers "for the good of the Regiment" was that had they gone to "the sound of gunfire" as several officers and a 1SG wanted to the Indians very well might have broken off and at least some of Custers men would have survived. As it was they didn't. Actually it was everyone above Custer who blamed him to cover their own culpability in this disaster.

Perhaps you should reread some of the books you've read or read some of the newer ones. You might learn something new.

Larry Gibson