"Benteen or Custer?" Topic

YouTube link

This showed up in my feed just now.
Yes, it's AI narration. 🙄
But, whose side are you on?
Me? I favor Benteen.

Darn. I should have cross posted to American Indian Wars. Totally slipped my mind.

Recently read Nathaniel Philbrick's book The Last Stand, which is a very well written and well researched book. There is an incredible amount of collected data and analysis done on this battle, and Philbrick brings it together cogently. Hard to not see Benteen's leadership as a factor that saved a large part of the Seventh Cavalry. I was surprised, I had never realized what a long and brutal fight Benteen and Reno had to make in order to survive, after Reno was driven out of the village and back across The Little Bighorn.

Ruh roh, slippery AI slope, I ain't going there!

Having walked the ground, Benteen seems to have understood the situation and made the best of the situation (which was BAD)

Benteen openly disobeyed orders. The message sent was, " Benteen, big village be quick. Bring packs. Ps, Bring packs." He failed to follow the order. He could have made it, Boston Custer and Autie Reed were with the pack train, and they made it to Custer.
That being said, if Benteen did rush to Custer I think his command would have been wiped out as well.

Although I think Benteen was a good soldier and clearly needed to safe Reno's command. He was in a snit that day over Custer's orders for his command. He lagged behind after receiving Custer's orders to be quick and join him and I think his hatred of Custer did play a role in the defeat that day.

I'd say Grattan has the right of it: if the LBH is Benteen's best as a soldier, it's not his best as a subordinate. I suspect he wilfully misinterpreted Custer's pre-contact orders, and then was in no particular hurry to bail Custer--and five troops of Benteen's fellow soldiers, let us not forget--out of a tight spot. Could Benteen & Co have saved Custer? Unclear. Timing was tight, and I'm still a little surprised some fraction of Custer's command wasn't still alive on Custer Hill when Terry arrived.

But as for Custer, if you need officers who will take risks to achieve objectives, ignore nay-sayers and drive a unit hard to gain a victory, a Cowpens, a Little Big Horn or--dare I say it?--a Task Force Baum is part of the package. No good complaining when the bill comes due.

Custer made the biggest mistake. He trusted to "Custer's luck" (which he viewed as famous and always good). Any wargamer could have warned him about trusting in luck. Sometimes it's bad.

Team Benteen all the way.

Benteen.
I visited the Washita Battlefield, assuming Elliott had gotten far from the rest of the regiment, and it was just one of those unfortunate things that happen. When I got there, I found he had died less than two miles (3 km) from Black Cloud's village. It is open ground from the village until you get to the woods where Elliott and his men died. My understanding was that they ran into a large bunch of "hostiles" very suddenly, and there would have been no chance for the rest of the regiment to charge to the rescue. However, no effort was made to send help, nobody was sent to find out what was the cause of the firing. The officers of the 7th understood that that an effort to aid Elliott might not be successful, but that effort was not made.

Less than two years earlier, Captain William Fetterman had led 81 men in an attack on Sioux warriors that turned into a trap. Fetterman and all his soldiers were dead in about 20 minutes. By the time the small column of reinforcements had reached a point where they could see the battlefield, it was all over and the mounted warriors were dispersing.

The point is not that we can mathematically calculate that Elliiott and his band of a quarter of the men Fetterman had would be wiped out in five minutes, or that Reno and his 120 men attacking the southern end of the Sioux village on the Little Big Horn would all be dead in just 30 minutes. It does indicate that, when fighting Native Americans, things could go very wrong very quickly, and once the fight started, the clock would very definitely be ticking. I read about the fighting at the Little Big Horn and come away feeling that Custer was more concerned with finding the best place to attack than with any great urgency for launching an attack.

Grelber

True,

But Elliot did not inform Custer when he took off and Custer had no idea where he was. Also the 7th had come under heavy pressure from villages also along the Washita.

That's a tough question. Custer was very much a do what I say and not what I do kind of Commander. I don't think I would last a day with him. Benteen's performance on Reno Hill was superb. He did save the rest of the command as Reno was an empty suit. So based on that I'd have to go team Benteen. The fact that all of Custer's command makes that decision easier. I agree about the Elliot comments not informing Custer. Indians were massing and it would have been foolhardy to search for him. Since Custer was dead he takes all the blame for the battle deserved or not. His subordinate Commanders certainly at a minimum
performed poorly following his orders that day.

On a side note while I see informed discussion here the posts I read elsewhere on the net about the LBH and Custer are wildly uninformed, nasty and sometimes just fantasy. History is certainly not something the masses are aware of.

Thanks.

John

Interesting dilemma. I've read the Philbrick book several times, and also Evan Connell's "Son of the Morning Star", repeatedly, which is simply superb as history and as a narrative. (And the 1991 TV movie made from Connell's book is a masterpiece.)

My feeling is that it's a draw -- plenty of blame to go around. Reno lost his head, it's pretty obvious, but his orders were badly judged. Custer's overarching mistake was his haste to go on the attack and failure to conduct a thorugh reconnaissance (or listen to his Indian scouts who tried to warn him). That major error led to the errors that followed, from his subordinates, who failed him (why didn't he replace those sub-commanders before that campaign?). Reno panicked under fire and Benteen was lethargic in his movements and seemingly disinterested in moving toward Custer's presumed position. Benteen did show resolve in shoring up a defense for his and Reno's commands, but if the Indians had not lost interest in continuing the fight that next day, the rest of the regiment might have been destroyed just the same.

I share the belief of some scholars -- that Custer underestimated the number of "hostiles" camped at the Little Bighorn and their willingness to fight a pitched battle and assumed, over confidently, that he could repeat his tactics from earlier fights like the Washita, just attack the Indian village or camp from different directions, with surprise, and watch them scatter. This time, it played out very differently. The movie of "Son of the Morning Star" emphasizes this interpretation -- Custer takes his command out on a wide, circling movement and then sweeps down toward the river valley and is aghast at what is revealed: "This isn't the end of the village -- it's the middle!" And then all hell breaks loose.

The parallels between what happened at Little Bighorn and Isandhlwana, and only a few years apart, are astonishing to me.

Well, considering the two battles in this campaign are the only time the Indians were in such large numbers and they did NOT run. I sort of understand the Army and Custer's thinking. Preventing their escape was what was paramount. After all, he started the battle because he believed the camp would scatter after he was detected. He in fact had not been discovered. If one thing was certain, it was that a scattered camp was almost impossible to capture. I think the vast majority of folks are not aware of those facts.

Thanks.

John

Yep, agreed. Indian fighting was a strange sort of warfare; a few commanders knew what they were doing, including Custer most of the time -- but "the best laid plans of mice and men…." etcetera.

He should have taken those Gatling guns! Heh.