Post by tbw on Feb 27, 2010 20:52:50 GMT -5
JOHN S. GRAY - HIS LAST CAMPAIGN
Perhaps nothing is more distracting in today’s research efforts than the numerous futile attempts in emulating John Gray and his excellent works. Though many today suspicion that he made errors in judgment when it came to his time-motion studies, what cannot be dispelled is his theories nor the very works he put forth. Because ultimately it comes full circle in all research efforts put forth to the same point in time, where all fall into the abysmal depths of the unknown, how Custer arrived where he did, when he did and how Benteen arrived where he did, when he did.
John Gray’s own research to a fault was flawed to be sure. But what it provided to the field was more than what most bumbling amateurs today could ever fathom, and does little if any good in honoring that which he so nobly advanced. His work as he would tell us if he were alive today was so much more than about gait speeds of horses, which is where most rank amateurs who delve into this today, place full emphasis and wrongly so. In the same vein he would also tell us that military experience isn’t an absolute necessity when researching nor discussing these issues. As a Doctor and a Scientist, Gray excelled and did something no one else before had ever done or thought to try. Those who tear his works apart today know little of his research efforts. And fail miserably at emulating his style, let alone the substance, without which the style means nothing.
John Gray used in his book ’Custer’s Last Campaign’ the standard gait speeds that was established by the military at that time. We now have so called “horse experts” who take issue with the military of that time.
We have today self proclaimed “horse experts” who try to say “I ride horses, so quite naturally, I’m a horse expert and know all about how fast a horse can go.” That’s like saying, “I ride in Jets airplanes, so quite naturally, I’m a jet airplane expert and know all about how fast a jet airplane can go.” One supposes these people, eat, sleep and live with their horses quite naturally. But that would be far from the truth, wouldn’t it? No one isn’t saying there aren’t “horse experts” out there, just as there are “jet airplane” experts out there. The credentials is what I worry about the most. By this, I mean I wouldn’t want the so called “horse expert” to pilot my jet aircraft without a license. And likewise, I’m quite sure most who claim “horse expertise” in this field on those forums so associated with the LBH have no credible credentials when it comes to their “horse expert” status there. Riding a horse is one thing, which I also have done and still can do, but claiming that one is a “horse expert” because of it and saying the military in 1876 didn’t know their own gait speeds, is quite another.
John Gray in his works took established events and from those events established a timeline from what the participants stated. If he didn’t know, or it wasn‘t stated, he filled in with gait speeds consistent with established military practices of the era. This methodology served him well, and he was able to establish his own theory of what took place. But, like most bumbling researchers today, Gray didn’t let the participants tell him what happened, he tried to impose his own theory over what they were saying. A small segment of this can be demonstrated here, and it is quite simply letting those who participated tell the story and from that draw the conclusions. Keep in mind here I am not criticizing Gray. For without Gray I would not have been able to have discovered how to do this kind of research. It was Gray’s own research that led me to this, and had Gray done this without preconceived notions, he himself would have, I believe published something very much like this had he lived.
There was a pivotal moment in the LBH story. That moment was when Reno departed Custer and started his journey towards the village. It was from this moment on that history takes a back seat to the events that unfolded before Custer’s eyes and ears. We have very few accounts of what happened after, and those accounts are not consistent nor are they within the realm of knowing any kind of gait speed when Custer would have been so close to contact with the Indians. In this case gait speed should only be attempted as a last resort, if it isn’t known. This also directly comes from Gray’s analysis.
Our first concern here is sightings and stated times. While these too are not consistent, what one must try to do is find among the statements, something that binds them together. Something reliable. Perhaps one of the most compelling if not reliable of statements comes from Lt. Varnum. He stated that he observed the White Horse Troop near “point 2” (on the Maguire Map at the Court of Inquiry) as Reno’s skirmish line formed. This point is 1/4ths of a mile west of Weir Peak, and 3/4ths of a mile southeast of Medicine Tail Ford. One of the first men to hear of the firing downstream was F. Girard. He said he heard firing downstream about 10 to 15 minutes prior to Reno’s retreat to the bluffs. He also gave a timing element in one of his sighting statements that gave the Custer’s gait, when figured from his stated miles and speed, at about 6.5mph. What is interesting about this gait speed is, it is about 6 miles from where Reno departed Custer to monument hill. If Custer maintained an average 6.5 mph gait speed throughout the journey downstream, he would have arrived near there in less than an hours time. One of the timing checks on this gait speed is again Varnum’s sighting at point “2”. Point “2” is 2 & 3/4th miles from where Reno departed Custer. And it would have taken the White Horse Troop about 25 minutes to have traversed that distance going 6.5mph. This 25 minutes in time most students would agree was about the time it took Reno to go the distance he went to set up the Skirmish line. And those who rode with Reno reported that it took about 5 minutes to reach the river 5 minutes to ford, and about another 15 minutes to get to the point where the set up the skirmish line - about 25 minutes in all. That these two corroborate each others statements, is a fact, and so far the averaged established speed of Custer’s advance downstream to the point where Reno set up his skirmish line some 25 minutes later was indeed 6.5 mph. Notice here the gait speed was extracted from what the participants said, in this case F. Girard, not some insignificant stray thought or theory.
What most modern researchers try not to understand is the great hurry that Custer was in. They use other participants statements like Martin who states a yardage figure when going to the top of some hill. They think this hill is Reno Hill, but it is not. Martin was stating that distance to the top of that particular hill from the place where Custer let some of his troopers water their horses. This watering place was never stated by Martin nor anyone else as to location. And was always thought to be, but never proven to be near Reno Creek. And in fact if one reads Martin’s account closely, this hill and watering place is more closely associated with the latter half of Custer’s ride down the right bank than the first half.
Then comes the “military experts”. Those so called, who have had modern military training, and thus know better than the rest of us, who have not. Yet in the very heat of battle what was demonstrated was what all those military experts should know. Reno’s valley fight demonstrated to everyone the mass confusion and panic that sets in when the bullets fly and the arrows penetrate. What some saw, undoubtedly they observed, the when and the where could be questionable, but undoubtedly they observed it. Some of them observed Reno retreating not 5 minutes after the skirmish line had formed. Some of them said that the open skirmish line lasted 35 minutes. Some said they stayed in the timber after retreating 15 minutes, some said they didn’t stay in there long at all, maybe 5 minutes. These varied accounts all confuse the timing of that overall event and lead many to rely upon made up horses gait speed rather than use common military sense to figure things out.
Reno stated at the Court of Inquiry that the rapid firing of the skirmish line lasted about 20 minutes. This 20 minute figure is crucial to our understanding of how long that skirmish line existed before it began to fall back to the timber. Now either those guys on the skirmish line either ran for their very lives back to the timber or they did not. From the testimony that was presented at the COI, they did not, it was a controlled retreat back to the timber. Even F. Girard stated those movements correctly even though he wasn’t skilled enough to know what they were doing, by his statements alone, it can be discerned that it was a controlled measure directly related to getting all of those men back to the timber safely. These maneuvers and fire controlled measures took about 10 - 15 minutes to execute. And it was done with great skill or more men would have been killed when they turned their backs to the Indians and ran. Near the end of these maneuvers was about the time when F. Girard with DeRudio’s confirmation, heard the firing downstream. The elapsed time since the skirmish line formed? 30 to 35 minutes. In 30 minutes Custer would be another 3 & 1/4th mile from point “2”, this figured at that 6.5 mph figure derived from F. Girards statements. Again this is an average speed not something where he had a cruise control set and that’s the exact speed he went all the time!
What is proven here is the plausibility of the action and the events as they relate one to the other. This was John Gray’s single greatest contribution. Never before had anyone tried to relate these events and correlate them as Gray had done. And it wasn’t the gait speeds derived in absence of any contributing participant, as some researcher try to do today, that made his work great, but rather the events and how they did relate to other events that surrounded them that John Gray realized was the vital key. If we today can relate one event to another and surround that with yet another and another ad infinitum, the gait speeds can be derived from the events themselves and become a mere footnote to the story. This John Gray knew and sincerely hoped one day to help solve the mystery’s along the LBH before his passing. As we who study his works today can well attest, his works was a work in progress, and a work cut short. But there is one thing that he would agree about, it is unjustly unfair to compare anything modern to anything that happened back in 1876. Whether that is the gait speeds of horses or modern military standards. The conditions and conditioning of the horses were and are vastly different today than they were in 1876. The conditions & standards applied to military conditioning of men are vastly different today than they were 130 years ago. The logistical support for these conditioning efforts are unknown, and any similarities drawn between modern and past by those with military experience today are more supposition than fact. Gray was more careful in his analysis than careless to assume that the modern military could contribute any answers than what had already been discovered. And while a horse may go faster than 7mph, and a humvee can go faster than 14 mph, only conditions and time would tell how either would perform on any given day. One is an animal with limitations upon endurance, the other dependent upon the soldier putting gas in the tank and making sure the engine ignites to drive the wheels. The simplicity of the one and the complexity of the other cannot be appreciated until one endures the hardships imposed upon the era in which each existed and were used in the army. John Gray understood this difference and never tried to apply modern standards to the horses gait speeds, and by the same standard he never applied modern military knowledge to an era where it did not belong. For whatever flaws his works may have had, they do not share that burden.
Perhaps nothing is more distracting in today’s research efforts than the numerous futile attempts in emulating John Gray and his excellent works. Though many today suspicion that he made errors in judgment when it came to his time-motion studies, what cannot be dispelled is his theories nor the very works he put forth. Because ultimately it comes full circle in all research efforts put forth to the same point in time, where all fall into the abysmal depths of the unknown, how Custer arrived where he did, when he did and how Benteen arrived where he did, when he did.
John Gray’s own research to a fault was flawed to be sure. But what it provided to the field was more than what most bumbling amateurs today could ever fathom, and does little if any good in honoring that which he so nobly advanced. His work as he would tell us if he were alive today was so much more than about gait speeds of horses, which is where most rank amateurs who delve into this today, place full emphasis and wrongly so. In the same vein he would also tell us that military experience isn’t an absolute necessity when researching nor discussing these issues. As a Doctor and a Scientist, Gray excelled and did something no one else before had ever done or thought to try. Those who tear his works apart today know little of his research efforts. And fail miserably at emulating his style, let alone the substance, without which the style means nothing.
John Gray used in his book ’Custer’s Last Campaign’ the standard gait speeds that was established by the military at that time. We now have so called “horse experts” who take issue with the military of that time.
We have today self proclaimed “horse experts” who try to say “I ride horses, so quite naturally, I’m a horse expert and know all about how fast a horse can go.” That’s like saying, “I ride in Jets airplanes, so quite naturally, I’m a jet airplane expert and know all about how fast a jet airplane can go.” One supposes these people, eat, sleep and live with their horses quite naturally. But that would be far from the truth, wouldn’t it? No one isn’t saying there aren’t “horse experts” out there, just as there are “jet airplane” experts out there. The credentials is what I worry about the most. By this, I mean I wouldn’t want the so called “horse expert” to pilot my jet aircraft without a license. And likewise, I’m quite sure most who claim “horse expertise” in this field on those forums so associated with the LBH have no credible credentials when it comes to their “horse expert” status there. Riding a horse is one thing, which I also have done and still can do, but claiming that one is a “horse expert” because of it and saying the military in 1876 didn’t know their own gait speeds, is quite another.
John Gray in his works took established events and from those events established a timeline from what the participants stated. If he didn’t know, or it wasn‘t stated, he filled in with gait speeds consistent with established military practices of the era. This methodology served him well, and he was able to establish his own theory of what took place. But, like most bumbling researchers today, Gray didn’t let the participants tell him what happened, he tried to impose his own theory over what they were saying. A small segment of this can be demonstrated here, and it is quite simply letting those who participated tell the story and from that draw the conclusions. Keep in mind here I am not criticizing Gray. For without Gray I would not have been able to have discovered how to do this kind of research. It was Gray’s own research that led me to this, and had Gray done this without preconceived notions, he himself would have, I believe published something very much like this had he lived.
There was a pivotal moment in the LBH story. That moment was when Reno departed Custer and started his journey towards the village. It was from this moment on that history takes a back seat to the events that unfolded before Custer’s eyes and ears. We have very few accounts of what happened after, and those accounts are not consistent nor are they within the realm of knowing any kind of gait speed when Custer would have been so close to contact with the Indians. In this case gait speed should only be attempted as a last resort, if it isn’t known. This also directly comes from Gray’s analysis.
Our first concern here is sightings and stated times. While these too are not consistent, what one must try to do is find among the statements, something that binds them together. Something reliable. Perhaps one of the most compelling if not reliable of statements comes from Lt. Varnum. He stated that he observed the White Horse Troop near “point 2” (on the Maguire Map at the Court of Inquiry) as Reno’s skirmish line formed. This point is 1/4ths of a mile west of Weir Peak, and 3/4ths of a mile southeast of Medicine Tail Ford. One of the first men to hear of the firing downstream was F. Girard. He said he heard firing downstream about 10 to 15 minutes prior to Reno’s retreat to the bluffs. He also gave a timing element in one of his sighting statements that gave the Custer’s gait, when figured from his stated miles and speed, at about 6.5mph. What is interesting about this gait speed is, it is about 6 miles from where Reno departed Custer to monument hill. If Custer maintained an average 6.5 mph gait speed throughout the journey downstream, he would have arrived near there in less than an hours time. One of the timing checks on this gait speed is again Varnum’s sighting at point “2”. Point “2” is 2 & 3/4th miles from where Reno departed Custer. And it would have taken the White Horse Troop about 25 minutes to have traversed that distance going 6.5mph. This 25 minutes in time most students would agree was about the time it took Reno to go the distance he went to set up the Skirmish line. And those who rode with Reno reported that it took about 5 minutes to reach the river 5 minutes to ford, and about another 15 minutes to get to the point where the set up the skirmish line - about 25 minutes in all. That these two corroborate each others statements, is a fact, and so far the averaged established speed of Custer’s advance downstream to the point where Reno set up his skirmish line some 25 minutes later was indeed 6.5 mph. Notice here the gait speed was extracted from what the participants said, in this case F. Girard, not some insignificant stray thought or theory.
What most modern researchers try not to understand is the great hurry that Custer was in. They use other participants statements like Martin who states a yardage figure when going to the top of some hill. They think this hill is Reno Hill, but it is not. Martin was stating that distance to the top of that particular hill from the place where Custer let some of his troopers water their horses. This watering place was never stated by Martin nor anyone else as to location. And was always thought to be, but never proven to be near Reno Creek. And in fact if one reads Martin’s account closely, this hill and watering place is more closely associated with the latter half of Custer’s ride down the right bank than the first half.
Then comes the “military experts”. Those so called, who have had modern military training, and thus know better than the rest of us, who have not. Yet in the very heat of battle what was demonstrated was what all those military experts should know. Reno’s valley fight demonstrated to everyone the mass confusion and panic that sets in when the bullets fly and the arrows penetrate. What some saw, undoubtedly they observed, the when and the where could be questionable, but undoubtedly they observed it. Some of them observed Reno retreating not 5 minutes after the skirmish line had formed. Some of them said that the open skirmish line lasted 35 minutes. Some said they stayed in the timber after retreating 15 minutes, some said they didn’t stay in there long at all, maybe 5 minutes. These varied accounts all confuse the timing of that overall event and lead many to rely upon made up horses gait speed rather than use common military sense to figure things out.
Reno stated at the Court of Inquiry that the rapid firing of the skirmish line lasted about 20 minutes. This 20 minute figure is crucial to our understanding of how long that skirmish line existed before it began to fall back to the timber. Now either those guys on the skirmish line either ran for their very lives back to the timber or they did not. From the testimony that was presented at the COI, they did not, it was a controlled retreat back to the timber. Even F. Girard stated those movements correctly even though he wasn’t skilled enough to know what they were doing, by his statements alone, it can be discerned that it was a controlled measure directly related to getting all of those men back to the timber safely. These maneuvers and fire controlled measures took about 10 - 15 minutes to execute. And it was done with great skill or more men would have been killed when they turned their backs to the Indians and ran. Near the end of these maneuvers was about the time when F. Girard with DeRudio’s confirmation, heard the firing downstream. The elapsed time since the skirmish line formed? 30 to 35 minutes. In 30 minutes Custer would be another 3 & 1/4th mile from point “2”, this figured at that 6.5 mph figure derived from F. Girards statements. Again this is an average speed not something where he had a cruise control set and that’s the exact speed he went all the time!
What is proven here is the plausibility of the action and the events as they relate one to the other. This was John Gray’s single greatest contribution. Never before had anyone tried to relate these events and correlate them as Gray had done. And it wasn’t the gait speeds derived in absence of any contributing participant, as some researcher try to do today, that made his work great, but rather the events and how they did relate to other events that surrounded them that John Gray realized was the vital key. If we today can relate one event to another and surround that with yet another and another ad infinitum, the gait speeds can be derived from the events themselves and become a mere footnote to the story. This John Gray knew and sincerely hoped one day to help solve the mystery’s along the LBH before his passing. As we who study his works today can well attest, his works was a work in progress, and a work cut short. But there is one thing that he would agree about, it is unjustly unfair to compare anything modern to anything that happened back in 1876. Whether that is the gait speeds of horses or modern military standards. The conditions and conditioning of the horses were and are vastly different today than they were in 1876. The conditions & standards applied to military conditioning of men are vastly different today than they were 130 years ago. The logistical support for these conditioning efforts are unknown, and any similarities drawn between modern and past by those with military experience today are more supposition than fact. Gray was more careful in his analysis than careless to assume that the modern military could contribute any answers than what had already been discovered. And while a horse may go faster than 7mph, and a humvee can go faster than 14 mph, only conditions and time would tell how either would perform on any given day. One is an animal with limitations upon endurance, the other dependent upon the soldier putting gas in the tank and making sure the engine ignites to drive the wheels. The simplicity of the one and the complexity of the other cannot be appreciated until one endures the hardships imposed upon the era in which each existed and were used in the army. John Gray understood this difference and never tried to apply modern standards to the horses gait speeds, and by the same standard he never applied modern military knowledge to an era where it did not belong. For whatever flaws his works may have had, they do not share that burden.
