Let The Common Soldier Speak

[tbw]

Dec 28, 2012 19:57:20 GMT -5 whitebull said:

I get what you are saying and , you ask some good questions that need to be answered if we are gonna understand how this battle unfolded.
What I can't wrap my head around is that is it not true that Custer was sent to capture the Indians with just what he had?

In other words, how come no one figured out he was out manned and out gunned before they sent him out to capture a village to big to be captured in the first place?

I think you might have answered your own question.

The old Cavalry, just right after the close of the Civil War could easily engage the Indians and defeat them no matter what their numbers were. The reasons for this was weaponry. The Indians couldn't inflict any long range fire and had to close on the Cavalry to engage them at close quarter fighting. As time went on the Indians started acquiring the white mans weapons and by the time of the LBH, had significant numbers of them.

So did he underestimate or even not realize the Indians had as many repeaters as they did? If I remember my archaeology on this, I think the Indians had something like about 400 white mans guns. If that number reflected say about a third the numbers of warriors total, and then half that number of modern weapons, 200, reflected the number of warriors that had repeaters, that would have had a considerable effect on what did happen. The Winchesters and Henry's had from 13 to 17 shells in their chambers. The hail of fire they could unleash would have been devastating had their numbers been used more in one battle than the other. Even a 100 such repeaters on Custer's battlefield, on the average, without reloading, they could have expended 1500 bullets on their targets in less than a minutes time. Thats 6 to 7 bullets expended for every man that Custer had there on that battlefield. Overkill? Or overun?

[joewiggs]

I agree with tbw! Weaponry! The moment the Indians were able to drawn with close range to the soldiers their numbers were sufficient enough to wreck havoc among the unmounted troops. A withering fire from the Indians must have contributed to a substantial amount of deaths and serious injuries among the soldiers which canceled out their ability to mount a counter attack. A crisis such as this would have induced a psychological impact, among the soldiers, which in all likely hood induced mental debilitation further affecting their will to fight negatively.