Martin's account of watering the horses

[tbw]

According to John Martin, Custer at some point in his excursion down the right bank of the LBH happened upon a 'watering place', where according to Martin they watered their horses for about 10 minutes. Again, like Benteen's morass, this watering place has never been satisfactorily located. Some claim, because of the way Martin stated it, that this 'watering place' lay somewhere on the North Fork of Reno Creek, but the rest of his statement doesn't align with the facts concerning where Custer should have been when & where Varnum sighted the white horse troop on the bluffs as Reno's skirmish line deployed. This 10 minutes of delay in Custer's advance down the right bank prior to the skirmish line's deployment places both Martin's 'watering place' and the place he 'departs' Custer from all out of perspective to what actually occurred.

[joewiggs]

Forgive me for such a long delay in response as well as an inadequate one. I recall Martin referring to an area describe as a "small butte on the flatt at North Fork creek", where Custer watered for 10 minutes or so. I don't recall Martin referring to a second watering place.

[tbw]

Source? Please state the source. I'm not being, ahem... like some "Over there" (sorry about that), an idiot. I would just like to know, which source you are using for this information. Thanks

[joewiggs]

I'm sorry Dennis. I should have done so. Page 268 of Gray's book is a double page map pointing the area out.

[tbw]

Yikes - Gray! Shame on you. Gray is a theoretical book not a source. While, as I’ve have stated many times, his time-motion studies have forever changed the way we view this battle, and to that end we do owe him our gratitude, I am very reluctant to use anything of his timeline as positive proof of anything. What has come from his time honored efforts, others have warped into merely what a horse could have done by its gait, and not what the rider wanted that horse to do. Gray didn’t do proper on-site research, nor did he delve deep enough into the proper sources to discover where the terrain features the soldiers described were; features such as the Morass, the watering place or the Burning and/or the Lone Tepee. He also used Wallace’s time and many other factors which skewed his analysis all out of proportion to what happened. Many today try to emulate him, and just as many fall into the same snares, traps and pitfalls as he did.

Gray thought that he had everything “fitting perfectly”, and as he stated “everything had to fit” or he had to go back and find out why it didn’t. We have today, people doing this very same thing, and saying the very same thing, that everything they’ve discovered “fits perfectly”. But there is several elements in all their baseless theories that will never ever fit, if they don’t get it right, and that is the exact location of the Morass, watering place, and those tepee’s; that’s right, I said tepee’s, as there was more than one, or for that matter, more than 2. And this “watering place” Martin mentions, figures prominently into the story. Get it’s placement wrong, which many do, and you get the wrong timeline, just as Gray did. Keep placing it there, and just like him, it will forever remain the mystery wrapped inside an enigma forever debated and challenged by those who would and should bring never ending questions and speculation about that “perfect fitting” theory.

The only Id about that watering place that I am aware of was Martin’s statement about watering there. And I don’t ever recall him stating it the way you state it here. This is the way the myths about those “locations” are born. It starts with some baseless and unfounded research and the rest pile on, and legend becomes history because "it fits".

[joewiggs]

Ooops! I don't agree with Gray's time qualities that he seems to insist upon as being just about being perfect. The map, however, made sense to me as it shows the watering place being 1 mile and 1/2 away from where Custer halted afterwards as Martin said it was.

[tbw]

Well, I wouldn’t say that what you believe is wrong. Heck, anyone can believe anything they want to. It’s not for me to say. If you’re asking me that’s one thing, quite naturally, if I am offering it, that’s another. Opinions are like that. Just an opinion, nothing more, nothing less.

Do I value you opinion? Heck yes! As I do anyone elses. I may not personally believe it myself, but that doesn’t necessarily make me right and you wrong. I still know people who believe that Gray’s analysis is right and would argue with anyone that is it. Are they right? Well, when it comes this this subject, until it rains cats and dogs, and donkeys fly we really wont know. And since its historically done neither and is not going to, that’s probably going to be a very long time.

[Cutter]

Seems to me I'm better of not being all that well versed in what Grey said, fogs the mind, so to speak.
"What has come from his time honored efforts, others have warped into merely what a horse could have done by its gait, and not what the rider wanted that horse to do."

[tbw]

Not at all Cutter. What other people chose not to learn from him, is not necessarily what others will. What he did, involved so much more than horse gaits. And I think he would personally be insulted, if he thought that’s all people really had really learned from what he did. Sure, when each of us reads a book we take a different perspective and perhaps see something different in the text, in the construction, etc. And this can be a good thing. But its like reading about the American Revolution and forgetting who they were fighting against, when you take only part of what an author uses as a basis of fact for the whole. Gray didn’t use strictly horse gaits to get his data, he used empirical data that was stated by the men themselves, and sometimes what the Indians said as to the time of day and distances. He paid close attention to the “time” and “distance” details to acquire that data, and only used horse gaits as a last resort to fill in a data set that could not be acquired otherwise. But, this surrogate ’filler’ still had to conform to what he referred to as a “surrround”. In other words it had to match other data that surrounded it. So even then a strict ’horse gait’ or assumed ’horse gait’ wasn’t something he threw out for consideration, it still had to conform to what his data said about that situation.

In a larger sense, this is what we do when we discuss a smaller detail of the battle, and others remind us of something that snaps us back to a realistic view. For instance, Custer being seen on the bluffs. The when and the where have to match with the timing of the battle along with the place, not just for Reno’s men, but for Custer’s part of the battle as well, then factor into this Benteen’s troops, and the Indians and what they all said and it becomes a lot more complicated than just “saying it”. Where does Gray's work help with this? You wont know until you read it.

[Cutter]

Yup, that's a fact. Thanks.

[tbw]

Not a problem. As I said, I still like Gray, what he did was fantastic, and you wont know what he did until you read his work. As far as his theory, you'll have to judge for yourself.

[davel]

Sorry, I'm a little confused here (which is nothing new). Are we talking about two watering places alluded to by Martin or just one ??

[tbw]

I can see where that particular conversation would be confusing. And I fear the fault may have been mine for this interpretation. But just remember Davel, nothing about this battle is ever clear enough for any of us, or we wouldn't be here.

I am only aware of one place and I think Joe would concur with that - that Martin makes mention of. Its in the Reno Court of Inquiry. Page 388 BF edition:

Q: After Major Reno went ahead, state if General Custer remained on that side. (He's referring to Custer being on the right side of Reno Creek, and Reno being on the left)

A: Yes, sir. We went on a jump all the way.

Q: How near did he go to the river there?

A: He did not go near the river at all. We struck a little creek where we watered our horses. That was the only place we halted.

Q: Was that after Major Reno had gone ahead?

A: Yes, sir.

Q: Had Major Reno gone to the left of the creek?

A: Yes, sir.

Q: What order did Custer give there?

A: He sent his compliments to the commanders and directed them not to let the horses drink too much, that they had too much traveling to do that day.

Q: How long were the horses drinking?

A: About 5 minutes.

Q: How long was the halt there?

A: About 10 minutes altogether.

Q: Tell how fast General Custer's column then went, and tell all you know about what direction, and how far from the river, and whether you could see anything on the other side of the river.

A: General Custer left that watering place and went about 300 yards in a straight line, then after that, he turned to the right a little more and traveled that way four or five hundred yards, then there was a kind of big bend on the hill, he turned these hills and went on top of the ridge. All at once we looked on the bottom and saw the Indian village, at the same time we could see only children and dogs and ponies around the village, no Indians at all. General Custer appeared to be glad to see the village in that shape and supposed the Indians were asleep in their tepees.

Q: As you went down on the right bank of the river?

A: Yes sir. On the ridge.

Later in testimony...

Q: Could you see the river as you went down?

A: Yes, sir, we could see the river when on the top of that ridge, then we went down a ravine and could not see the river or timber or anything else.

Q: Did you hear any firing as you went down?

A: No, sir.

Q: How fast did General Custer move?

A: Always at a gallop.

Q: Was everybody galloping?

A: Yes, sir, some of the horses wanted to go ahead all of the time.

Q: If you can tell the distance, state how far you had gone from the watering place to the place where you could look down and see the village.

A: I should judge it was about an hour and a half (he meant a mile and a half - I think this is what Joe was alluding to earlier) after we left the watering place till we got to that place (the ridge). There were hills to go up and down and we could not go so fast.

Later in testimony...

Q: Tell what direction you were then going. (after leaving the ridge)

A: We went more to the right from that ridge and went down to a ravine that went to the river. At the same time Gen. Custer passed that high place on the ridge or a little below it he told his adjutant to send an order back to Captain Benteen.

The testimony continues and there is no doubt as to which messenger he was referring to, himself. The court didn't mistake it for Kanipe nor may I add was his name hardly ever brought up, yet his message was just as important, if not more, than Martin's, yet Kanipe wasn't called to the court... interesting, but I digress

[joewiggs]

Jun 5, 2010 20:02:00 GMT -5 Cutter said:

Seems to me I'm better of not being all that well versed in what Grey said, fogs the mind, so to speak.
"What has come from his time honored efforts, others have warped into merely what a horse could have done by its gait, and not what the rider wanted that horse to do."

God bless you Cutter, I thought I was the only one. I'm on my fifth reading of Gray and I'm just getting to the point where I think I know what he is talking about. Dennis' summation is right as to Martin's testimony of the location of the watering point.

I agree with you also when pointing out that too many people define his work as a "History of Horse Gaits" instead of looking at a fine piece of work as Dennis stated.