Excerpt

Forget what you know about the Battle of the Little Bighorn! This study is based on the known tactical deployment and horsemanship aspects of the Custer era cavalry; and it will reveal a very untraditional reconstruction. It will not be based on the Hollywood non-military thinking and the many false theories called Custer Myths. It will be based on the horse clues that Walter Camp recorded during his twenty-three years of research with participants who were there. And, as a horseman, this authors fifty years of unraveling their memories.

For the most part the fighting on the Custer Battlefield was a dismounted infantry action. The warriors also fought dismounted except when moving from one action scene to another. They just followed what the army did. When the soldiers dismounted to fight on foot in one place, so did the warriors.

When Curly took Walter Camp over the Custer Battlefield environs in 1908, Camp soon became convinced that some, if not all of Custer's companies, had tried to cross at the Minneconjou Ford, (Ford B) at the mouth of Medicine Tail Coulee.

On the same hand, Camps contemporary, John Stands In Timber, was convinced that at least some of Custer's soldiers had gone to another set of fords farther to the north. His conviction was formed when his fellow Cheyenne informants guided him over a trail that went northward from Medicine Tail Coulee to a set of fords a considerable distance downstream. If the battalions with Custer were operating as separate military units, than both sources of information could be correct. Did Custer divide his forces Medicine Tail Coulee; and if he did, why?

We know from Walter Camps research that Captain Myles Keoghs First Battalion went to the Ford B area. And after an aborted river crossing they were forced to retreat they then deployed on what is now known as the Finley and Calhoun Hill areas. The Second Battalion, under Captain George Yates, were Strands In Timbers northbound soldiers that attempted to cross at the lower fords. This startling conclusion is based on knowing the correct battalion assignments made on June 25.

For far too long, writers have placed Company L in the wrong battalion! Along with the now identifiable terrain that the two Custer Battalions traveled over, and with the armys regulated rate of march of their horses, we can now create a blueprint of the time, distance and events as they unfolded. Thanks to modern cavalry reenactors, who with great diligence have reconstructed the protocol for the deployment of the Custer era Cavalry, we can now fill in the blanks. This new knowledge gives us far more logical military scenarios.

Within minutes of the departure of John Martin from the Fourth Halt in Medicine Tail Coulee, Custer ordered Yatess Second Battalion, consisting of Companies E, F and L, into motion. Their mission was to circle around to the North, and attack the rear of the encampments on Onion Creek. To do this they would have to cross the river farther downstream. Once across the river, they were to attack the Onion Creek villages from the downstream (north) side. This flanking movement was like the multi-front deployment at the Washita Fight against Black Kettles winter village.

The startling conclusion that the Great Custer divided his forces in the face of a superior number of enemy flies in the face of most Custer researchers. But the simple fact that two separate army units were now in operation cannot be denied, not if both Walter Camps and John Stands In Timbers sources are correct. Having two military units moving in two different directions is the military strategy of a double envelopment, a pincer movement with two separate attack fronts.

This was the original intent of Custer, who may have thought the villages that Varnum had seen were just in the upper valley. Custers earlier departure from the Lower Ash Creek Valley proves that he intended to execute the same style of pincer movement on the opposite downstream side of the villages that Reno had been ordered to attack.

But now, in Medicine Tail Coulee, Custer discovered that there were additional villages much further downstream. If he continued the attack the northern side of the Upper Camps, he would leave warriors from these new villages in his rear. This was not an acceptable military scenario.

If Custer attacked the southern end of the new Onion Creek camps, then their North side would be left open for the possible escape of the lodges. Sending one of the two battalions on an end run northward was a cut and dried plan for any experienced combat officer. What is not apparent is that Custer did not seem to be aware of the size and strength of these downstream villages. Nor did he know of the total failure of his subordinates, Reno and Benteen, either to hold their positions or to come to his aid with reinforcements. Custer now needed Benteens reserve Fourth Battalion to replace the Second Battalion which was on its way north to attack these newly discovered encampments. Two previous orders had already been sent to Benteen to come to Custer's advanced front in Medicine Tail Coulee.