re: Not a word about Custer

I understand a few people might not have heard of Custer...

mostly a few millennials - who were given an education based on feels.

So Custer was probably cut out of the curriculum.

You should sue your schools...they didn't give you an education; they gave you an indoctrination.

I mean honestly; if you don't know Custer's Last Stand...you are totally out of touch with not even American history but American pop culture history. That's like not knowing what the hell this is all about:

He got what was coming to him.

There was no reasonable position by the time he was overwhelmed. He was against a vastly underestimated force of Sioux. They thought that they were going against the 800 or so Sioux who had not come into the reservation that year. The "resistors." What they did not know is that Sitting Bull had mustered all of the reservation Sioux who had been allowed to leave the reservation for the annual buffalo hunt. Just weeks prior to the battle, Sitting Bull was able to muster over 1800 additional Reservation Sioux to fight. Custer did not know he would be engaged in battle with them. His fatal error was a lack of good intelligence on the situation. When he split his regiment into three columns with him leading one and Benteen and Reno leading the others, he had doomed them before it even started. The Lakota Sioux and their Cheyenne allies were waiting for the attack on the heels of the smaller skirmishes that had taken place in the preceding weeks. Reno's command was blind to what they were approaching as there were hills that separated their (what was supposed to be a don't allow any escape) route from the main enormous Sioux camp. By the time they emerged from the back of the hill into view of the camp, the Sioix were there in force waiting for them. They were attacked by an overwhelming force and tried to retreat back across the field and the creek to higher ground but only a small number made it to temporary safety. Many were killed in close quarter combat in the creek and on the opposite bank. Those that did get across were lucky to merge with Benteens command just as they were coming up from the Southern cut off route. Benteen had heard the battle and had moved to join Reno's. At this point, they circled the wagons atop the bluff and held off the Sioux attack. Most of the Sioux attacking Benteen and Reno at first left to join Crazy Horse and his hundreds who were engaged with Custer to the North. Custer was in the worst position imaginable. Isolated with no support and under attack by at least 1000 Sioux and no real avenue for escape. Benteen and Reno continued their defense against but a remnant of the overall Sioux/Cheyenne force even after hearing the battle that was being waged across the hills from their bluff. In fact, they didn't even know that Custers entire command had been slaughtered until days later.

The fact is a gross miscalculation of the enemies strength doomed the regiment from the start.

I would have more respect for him is he'd lead a bayonet charge into the face of the enemy.

Custer was an absolute idiot.

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Custer was an absolute idiot.

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How would you know?

Granted he was bottom of his class at West Point.

But bottom of your class at West Point and everybody else in 1860 is night and day.

But to entertain your point, at least provide facts:

In his four years at West Point, Custer amassed a record-total of 726 demerits, one of the worst conduct records in the history of the academy.

A fellow cadet recalled Custer as declaring there were only two places in a class, the head and the foot, and since he had no desire to be the head, he aspired to be the foot.

History books. And he got his men and himself slaughtered.

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If you want the most famous soldier (not a general), then Sgt. York, Audie Murphy, & Pappy Boyington all come to mind.

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The man on the street is not going to know them better than Custer. And Boyington wasn't a soldier. But he did have a TV show.

Custer and his brother (Tom) both "Let us say, not a type person one should not look up too".


Tom was known for his mistreat of prisoners and one Indian (Rain-in-the-Face) he went to far with was very likely the one that killed him at the Little Big Horn.

I have over 30 books on the battle and will say:

Myles Keogh is the only body not mutilated.

C company Lt. Harry Harrington is the person that almost got away.

Mitch Bouyer is the person that the Indians talked about the most, being one of the last persons killed in the charge to the river off the hill towards the Deep Ravine at the end of the battle.

The last soldier killed near the Deep Ravine is a Sgt, I can look up his name.

You still have 2 side of the fight, Benteen defenders and the Custer defenders.

Blaming Reno and Benteen by the Custer faction goes out of the way to come up with theories that do not fit the facts, Custer spilt his command into 4 columns in the face of over welling numbers of Indians and none of the smaller 3 combat commands had the power to fight the number of Indians there that day.

When most think of Indians, they think of Sioux. Yet that tribe moved west from Minnesota, taking hunting territory from other tribes. And they wouldn't have been who they were without horses brought to America by Spainiards. Badass bunch, though. Sitting Bull was much more interesting than Custer.