Custer's Last Stand on The Military Channel

[Will Ketchum]

Just noticed that Custer's Last Stand on The Military Channel.  Archeologists and forensic scientists are doing some studies on the troopers. 


Will Ketchum

[Frenchie]

Is that the one where there was a grass fire over the battlefield and they were finding shell casings, finger bones and even partial skeletons that had been hidden for more than a century? They did forensics on everything and could identify individual men and weapons, and follow a fighter's path over the field. They described how men were deployed, how they were killed, and proved that the "last stand" was a quick, confused mêlée instead of the organized defense that legend has made it. I have it on VHS, it's fascinating.

[Will Ketchum]

Yup that's the one.  I took a few notes and here are my observations as I typed them on my computer as I watched"

they maintain that Custer was outgunned

besides the 45-70 cases from the Army trapdoor rifles cartridge cases for Henry. Spenser, Sharps carbine  and the Colt1872 open top were found on the battle field.

Errors:  Called a spur a stirrup.  They determined that the Indians had a lot of repeaters but they didn't mention bows.  Why because they could find cases at the Indian's fighting position but there probably wouldn't have been that much evidence of bows & arrows there.  That would have been found near the soldier's positions. 
Called the hill calvary hill.  They must have been near Jerusalem.

Main conclusion:  from the lack of a large amount of Army cases and no discernable pattern on Custer's Hill they feel that there wasn't a heroic last stand but rather a disorganized resistance that only lasted minutes.   It was interesting that by using modern ballistic forensics they could track the movement of various firearms during the battle.

There was more but that was what I wrote down.  I missed the first few minutes.  All in all I think I would watch it again.

Will Ketchum

[Major 2]

I watched it again....I recall the news of the fire and subsequent archeology dig.
Hard to believe it was over 20 years ago. With the forensics still on going today.

one of the coolest outcome was:
Markers 33-34, "U.S. SOLDIER, 7TH CAVALRY, FELL HERE, JUNE 25, 1876"
The renowned forensic anthropologist, Dr. Clyde Snow, studied all remains found over the battlefield and he discovered something quite extraordinary of the remains from markers 33-34.

The bones suggested that this person was of Caucasian-Mongoloid mix. The teeth were worn down as pipe smokers teeth would wear. The mother-of-pearl button would have been worn on civilian clothing. Soldier cartridges found presents a strong argument that he was of the Custer Battalion firing at the warriors and, they in-turn, were firing back at him hence the Indian bullets. There was only one person in the Custer Battalion that fit this description and that was Mitch Bouyer. To complete the detective work a video overlay of the only known photograph of Bouyer, with the photos of the bones of the skull they found, show they fit like a glove.

In 1988, a marker for Mitch Bouyer replaced one of the 33-34 U.S. Soldier markers.
Putting a name on a unknown marker.

[Will Ketchum]

I thought that interesting to.

One thing I would like to know about the fight is that across the Highway (87) there is or was small gas station.  When we were there in 77, 101 years and 1 day after the fight, we stopped for gas and a phone call.  There was a marker for a soldier who had fell there.  This is well West of the river and the opposite side from Custer's Hill.  I have often wondered how he got there?  Did his horse spook and run wild through the entire encampment?  Perhaps he was persued on foot or his body was dragged there?  I have never read or seen any mention of this marker any place>

Will Ketchum

[St. George]

My friend - Doug Scott - was the Chief of the Rocky Mountain Division of the National Park Service, and supervised the field work done after the grass fire that stripped the landscape bare and allowed more to be discovered.

It was a pretty amazing feat - civilian metal detectorists and students painstakingly going over the ground, locating and mapping the battle's progress until the eventual end.

Dick Harmon used modern forensic photography and comparison to map individual warriors and soldiers' movement from position to position by their fired cartridge cases.

They've co-written a number of things - all well worth reading, if you're student of the Indian Wars and battlefield archaeology.

They are:

'Archaeological Insights Into the Custer Battle: An Assessment of the 1984 Field Season'
 
'Archaeological Perspectives on the Battle of the Little Bighorn' 

'They Died with Custer: Soldiers' Bones from the Battle of the Little Bighorn'

Vaya,

Scouts Out!

[Major 2]

Perhaps one of Reno's men ?.... they were across the river.

[Four-Eyed Buck]

Always that possibility, Major............Buck

[Will Ketchum]

It was a pretty amazing feat - civilian metal detectorists and students painstakingly going over the ground, locating and mapping the battle's progress until the eventual end.

A guy I use to buck skin with was one of the detectors.  He was one of the formost metal detecor operators in the country at the time.  Over the years he managed to come up with enough metal parts of a trapdoor rifle to build one.  He use to tell of many of his exploits metal detecting.  It was facinating and something I always thought I would enjoy doing but just never got into it.

Will Ketchum

[Major 2]

Back in the eighties I was invited by Robert Carr (State archaeologist for Florida) to be the front line on an Indian midden.
It was the (now called) Taylor Creek feeder of Lake Okeechobee,  The area was dry as the creek had changed course in the 1890's.
I was called in because of my knowledge of Seminole Indian War Infantry & Dragoon uniforms & accoutrement's.
We had several hits on our detectors almost immediately. A had hard time just flagging and not digging.
Final mapping, proved the location of Gen. Taylor's attack on the Seminoles at the Battle of Okeechobee Christmas Day, 1837.

[Fox Creek Kid]

All the trees felled for countless tomes on this battle have finally come to the grand conclusion reached by Fred Benteen upon seeing the area where Custer perished. He succinctly said that it was no battle but a rout. 

Another point, the battlefield has been "contaminated" for countless years by souvenir hunters which would have probably only reconfirmed the obvious. Higher hopes are held for a virtually untouched battlefield only recently discovered on private land on MT, the site of the Baker Battle of August 1872.

[Delmonico]

I was reading somewhere recently that there is a new site being studied west of the river and north of the village, there seems to be some evidence that a detachment from Custers group may have made it to a position west of the river and north-west of the village, but were driven back.  Had this group been able to capture a bunch of the women and children who fled that way out of the village it had the potentual to have changed history. 

BTW the folded rim copper case ammo that is said to have caused all the problems with the extractors in the Trapdoor (a folded rim is hollow like a true rimfire) had been condemed by the army before the 7th left ft. Abraham Lincoln.  The Army supply system had not got the newer solid rim rounds (ballon head) to there before they left.  Later these copper cased rounds were replaced by the stonger brass cases.

Also the famous "left behind" Gatling guns were not 45-70 like many assume, but the older more troublesome 58 rimfire ones, the Army did not buy any 45-70 ones till later and to my knowledge no 50-70 ones.

[Books OToole]

Youv'e seen him on the silver screen
   with his yellow hair a fly'n.
Clamly he surveys the scene
   a good day to be die'n.

Standing on the battle field
   his pistols just a smoke'n.
They said he was the last to yeild
  but they must have been joke'n.

Like ants they swarmed on his command,
  Like bees the bullets hummin.
No time for a final stand,
   Custer died a runnin.

They chased him up the hillside
   in the bullets and confusion.
The overwhelming landslide
  brought it to a quick conclusion.

Just who fell first and who was last
  there's no way to be knowin.
But surely through the gates of hell
  he knew he was a go'n.

The devils danced as he went down
  in a hail of arrows commin.
Out on the wild Montana ground
  Custer died a runnin.

Sorry, I couldn't resist.  These are the lyrics sung by The McDades to the tune of Gary Owen done very fast.


Books

[Delmonico]

I've got it by "Cowboy Celtic."

[Fox Creek Kid]

BTW the folded rim copper case ammo that is said to have caused all the problems with the extractors in the Trapdoor (a folded rim is hollow like a true rimfire) had been condemed by the army before the 7th left ft. Abraham Lincoln.  The Army supply system had not got the newer solid rim rounds (ballon head) to there before they left.  Later these copper cased rounds were replaced by the stonger brass cases.

http://www.oldammo.com/november04.htm

[Delmonico]

That information was in a book that I have out on loan right now.  The book is "The Custer Myth" but I can't remember who wrote it.  Like a lot of history written at a later time it ain't always right.

[Silver Creek Slim]

That information was in a book that I have out on loan right now.  The book is "The Custer Myth" but I can't remember who wrote it.  Like a lot of history written at a later time it ain't always right.

William A. Graham 

Slim

[Delmonico]

I think what I was refering to is in the section on the Reno trial.  If I'm not mistaken somewhere in that book it says that Custer had the infantry 45-70 ammo issued to the 7th rather that the Cav. 45-55 because it was better at long range.  Of course if this is true it also would have contributed to the overheating and case sticking problems.   

[Silver Creek Slim]

Theodore W. B. Goldin
1858-1935
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=7932477

I just stumbled across this. He is buried at Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Cemetery in King, WI. He was in Reno's command at the Little Big Horn.

Slim

[Books OToole]

Not enough is said about Marcus Reno.  The army made him a scape goat for Custer's blunder.  Accounts that I have read, written by those who were there, give me the impression that Reno was the hero.  He led his men to the high ground, cuting through overwhelming numbers.  Reno saved his command.

Books