Excellent video, Siobhan. Well done. This video presents a picture of Custer that many people don't see, or even acknowledge. The historical details and facts you presented shatters the delusion that George Armstrong Custer hated Native Americans, and relished killing them indiscriminately. "Custer had a heart like an Indian", damn straight. If modern society were to ever study the man, by watching videos like this, their views of him would certainly change for the better. Custer is one of the most misaligned, misunderstood figures in American history, and it takes videos like this to set his reputation aright.
@Eadbhard thanks so much. He was as complicated and flawed as the rest of us. But he understood and lived by a warrior ethos, so how could he not admire some of the actions of his peers even if they were the enemy? It's easy to forget people are individials and make decisions for a hundred different unknowable reasons, they don't all have text books on historical context at their fingertips 😉 Custer is too often the scapegoat of the Indian Wars. So glad you see that too. Wasn't sure what kind of reception this video would get, so your comment is especially appreciated 🙏🎉
@@SiobhanFallon7 That's Custer's appeal - he was complicated and flawed, just like the rest of us. When it came to fighting, however, he had no flaws; ironically, he's mostly remembered for losing a battle. Yes, George Armstrong Custer is one of the greatest scapegoats in American history. Anytime a discussion comes up about the wrongdoings done upon the Native American by the white man, Custer's name will inevitably enter the conversation. Custer takes the blame for every atrocity. It's all wrong, of course. Perhaps if the uninformed many ever take the time to watch your videos, Custer's 'fall guy' status will change. Strong work, Siobhan. Do keep it up.
@Eadbhard You're the best. Thank you. You and I see eye to eye about how Custer's legacy has been mishandled and mis-remembered by history. I appreciate your insightful words. I was just arguing with someone who said my video was "sad" and all wrong. You cheered me up immensely 🎉🎉🎉🎉🙏💕📚
In your words: " . . . I am more interested in the people rather than the fight." This is what draws me to your channel. I have changed many of my opinions of GAC because of your insights. Also, your use of photographs and quotes in this video is the best I've seen from any You Tube history channel. The extra time you are taking to put all this together is much appreciated. Amazing work Siobhan!
Excellent episode Siobhan. It’s refreshing to hear Custers thoughts on the Native American people. I believe he had a great respect for them as adversaries as well as scouts. Thanks for sharing your research with us! Take care now!
@oneida41859 thank you, Oneida. Really appreciate that. We usually just get the negative. I was surprised at some of these sentiments myself so it seemed like a video worth sharing 🙏
Taking in your work is like reading the chapters of an exquisite non fiction historical novel. The personal quotes of Custer; the attention to details as necessary to the story at hand; and your obvious love of the subject matter all help weave a riveting story line. I'm so glad to have found your UA-cam channel! More please 😊....Bob from Michigan
Excellent. Thank you as always. I had heard Custer once wrote that he felt the army had a duty to protect smaller tribes from the attacks of larger tribes. Thats probably not exactly how he worded it .
@talkietoaster4626 I know there's a Sheridan quote about how the Army had to protect their Arikara allies the same as they'd protect white settlers from attacks by the Lakota. If you find the Custer quote, please let me know!
Like him or despise him, and I wouldn't be his biggest fan, he was a very brave individual and that can't be doubted. As you said, Siobhan, Custer shouldn't be judged by modern day standards. History is never black and white. Any historian worth their salt takes the times in which these people lived into account. People of all races and creeds then were just as intelligent as today, maybe even more so. Nothing drives me madder than modern day people with political agendas trying to impose their very uninformed and narrow minded belief systems on any historical figure. Custer, his calvary colleagues and Native Americans are great examples of this. Keep up your fine work, Siobhan! Niall.
@niallfitzpatrick6568 Niall, I've just started work on a new video about the Irish in the 7th Cavalry. You've shared some great info in the past. Let me know if you think of anything I ought to read as I start researching this 🍀
@@SiobhanFallon7 Are you infatuated with Custer simply because he was of Irish descent, Siobhan? That's really sad. If you would like to meet some Irish heroes who took the side of the oppressed rather than the oppressor, you might look into John Reilly and the St. Patricks Brigade of the Mexican American War. Those were some heroic men.
@clayoreilly4553 what are you talking about? That's just silly. I know of plenty of Irish heroes and if Custer is some diluted Irish stock, that's fine, but he's as American as they come, born to poor blacksmith / subsistence farmers in Ohio. I think you should watch more of my videos since you seem to know very little about Custer's history or his role in fighting the Confederates and slavery (you can't get more oppressed than that) to keep the Union intact, which established his military credentials (and his sanity). The Seventh Cavalry also spent years in the South doing Reconstruction duty and arresting members of the Klu Klux Klan. However, I just started working in a video about Irish soldiers in the Seventh Cavalry that you might be interested in, coming soon. And I also have two videos up about Captain Myles Keogh from County Carlow you might want to watch., and the reasons he chose to continue as an officer in the US Army after serving with distinction during the American Civil War 🍀
These videos are fantastic! Great content, production value, and delightful narration. I've been binge watching all your playlists and was so excited for a new video. Don't change a thing!
I agree Custard & old Jeb Stewart crossed paths a couple of times. I must say though Custard kinda jumped the gun a bit with Longstreet in that he wanted to accept Lee's surrender from what I've read. Custard was a brave man!
@ericcrawford3453 ha ha yes I think Custer tried to get them to surrender to him? And they kind of chuckled at him? I need to find that story. He was an ambitious man 😉🤣
Siobhan, your presentations are awesome- today’s history lesson brought tears to my eyes/ as we who know the Real not the Reel Custer, today remember his heroic leadership and success at East Cavalry Field on the Rummel Farm 3 miles East of Gettysburg, but i love that as we recall the “Custer America forgot”(Prof. Greg Urwin), you reminds us of the Custer of Plains Indian history is more, much more than than the stereotypical myth of the ruthless descriptions given by the illiterate arm chair quarterbacks! Thank you sister- it’s an honor to be among historians as yourself!
@sathanumanskhalsa912 thank you, my friend! Like all history (and all things), the closer we look, the more we see. Custer is more than Little Big Man and memes. 🙏📚
Nice work Siobhan bringing some justice for Custer. So many times we heard about the despite he had for Native Americans and all the while so called historians and writers fed on these stories and it was too bad. The idea of the Native Americans wanted to seek revenge on him at the Little Big horn because of his so called hatred was another myth from that battle. Your story told us of a totally different Custer. Thank you.
Great video. Just finished the book To hell With Honor by Larry Sklenar. Excellent read, also pulling apart alot of Custer myths..Whilst not painting Custer as a hero, the book also points out throughout, he also wasnt an indian hater or fool either and the fate of the 7th can be shared out equally amongst others from the top down..
@@sabresix7933 Agree totally. Custer was a human being and the last time I checked, we humans have both good and bad points. We can be both very kind and very cruel. Custer was a man of his time. I'd even hasten to argue he was more of a progressive when it came to native Americans than the majority of hus compatriots, whether that was down to the romantic myth of the "noble savage" in his early years, his experience fighting alongside Crow, Akikra and Osage scouts or admiration for the skills of the hostiles fighting skills l don't know (probably a mixture of all three). A British cavalry officer called the native Americans (can't remember which tribe though) the "finest light cavalry in the world" and I'd agree with him. Maybe Custer felt that way too. What's not widely known is that a significant number of the 7th Cavalry were made up of Irish and German immigrants, many of whom couldn't ride a horse correctly. There are so many myths about Custer and the battle of the Little Big Horn it can actually get kinda annoying when people insist on a myth being correct despite being proven evidence to the contrary. And don't even get me started on the myths surrounding the Titanic!
Very nicely done. I have read my lie on the plains as benteen. Call it several times You have captured very nicely. It's absolutely the spirit of the writing in that book. At least for the most part. Custer was not some blood thirsty. War crazy person. It has always seemed to me that he was proudest of. His accomplishments in the field that did not involve fighting. This was an important look behind the myth at the Natural man. A very astute summary,
@barbaraanneneale3674 thank you, Barbara! I agree with you. Custer was a man of contradictions, like so many of us, and I do think he tried to be fair and good in his own way.
Just finished reading "A Life on the Plains" by Custer. I was suprised as you have shown in your video the admiration that he had for the Indian tribes. The reputation he has of being irreverent and vain did not match how he wrote. I tried to explain that to others, but they are convinced that Custer despised Indians. Good video...thanks.
Thanks, Siobhan, for this overdue adjustment of proper context for Custer's opinions of Indians. Very much a man of his time, and loyal to his nation, yet he had the ability to see and judge people for their merit. Too often, it would seem, general opinion has assumed Custer had little to no respect for Indians. Perhaps, this is linked to the widely held belief that he completely underestimated the Indians at LBH, and therefore must not have had much respect for them. Perhaps, some of the revisionist, 20th century print and motion picture media was influential to this end. Regardless, I think your video today will go some distance to forcing some reassessment of opinion in open minds.
@josephstabile9154 thank you, Joseph! Custer does seem to appreciate individuals and I was surprised myself at some of the comments he made. On the one hand, he wanted to seem like a fearless Indian fighter, and yet his admiration kept sneaking into his prose.
Well done. My course of study is the trail of tears and the aftermath. The Custer saga dovetails in this venture and I have found much written information by his scouts as well as Bloody Knife. I was impressed at his words on his respect and affinity towards G.A.Custer and his hatred towards the Sioux people for their discrimination and abuse towards him because of his mother who was an a Arikara. Would you be planning to do, or have you already done a feature on this amazing man? Thank you for the enlightening work you present and as always I will be waiting anxiously for what you bring next
Actually it was a tactical victory for Custer's command. The Sioux left the battlefield in possession of Custer's troops and the objective of making the Sioux leave Crow land was achieved.
@31terikennedy Teri, very true. And Custer did manage the objective of bringing the NA to battle rather than have them scatter. Unfortunately for everyone, really. The human loss for the US Army, but also the crack down that followed upon the tribes. No one was a winner ultimately.
@@SiobhanFallon7 How long did the Last Stand fight last, two hours? Custer ran out of ammo and that's when he was overrunned. Benteen had his orders , chose not to obey them and got away with it because Grant was behind it. Custer was at LBH because the Crow wanted Army help to expel the Sioux from Crow land . Some tribes got along and some didn't. The Sioux didn't and something had to be done.
There was something about the educational system of 19th century West Point that made men highly literate and observant. This shows in the civil war memoires of Grant, Sheridan, Longstreet, and many others. And perhaps you, Ms Fallon, could make a video to compare the opinions and observations of General custer with those of his boss, General Sheridan.
@@ciarandoyle4349 that's a great idea. Thank you. I will mull it over! I've just started working on a video about Irish immigrants in the 7th Cavalry, but I'll put your suggestion on my list!
@@SiobhanFallon7 Their books got me through the Covid lockdowns anyway. And if I might make a comment in passing, Sheridan mentions a type of education that existed in Ireland before the national schools system was established, the "hedge school". He doesn't use the term, but his description of his own elementary education shows that this form of schooling was carried over from Ireland to rural Ohio. These "hedge schools" no longer existed after the 1830s and the younger Irish cavalrymen who died at Little Big Horn would likely have attended the Irish national schools.
@@ciarandoyle4349 interesting! I know very little about Sheridan, but his Irish heritage makes me curious to learn more. 🍀 Thanks for that bit of background on him!
@@SiobhanFallon7 Really nice nation, I spent many a good time there. From what I'm reading they're having another dry year there-thank goodness they invested in sea-water desalination technology in preparation for the occasional droughts.
@pimpompoom93726 there has been rain this year but I think it is less than they needed, and there was very little snow in the Troodos Mts which is never a good thing. Cyprus is beset with issues but it is wonderful place and is proving a good partner to the USA.
@@SiobhanFallon7 I'm Greek descent, hence my interest in Cyprus. They are a good partner to the USA, I hope America recognizes that in it's regional policy in the future. Happy 4th to you and yours, as overseas Americans!
I think custer respected indians,and i think he respected those who stayed free,in the end custer was a soilder,and his job was to fight against anyone or country he was ordered to do so,good video 🙏🇬🇧
@KenDignam thanks so much, Ken. He was a soldier, and he could appreciate good soldiering and the bravery and tactics of his foe. And I think, as some of his comments showed, he didn't always agree with the US government, but he was duty bound to the Army and to follow the orders he was given. He was in a tough place himself sometimes. I appreciate your kind comments and hope to here from you again! 🙏 Please let me know if you like any of my other videos! 🎉
Custer fought Indians the only way he could. The Indians superior knowledge of the terrain and skilled horsemanship made it impossible for the cavalry to catch them and unless the Indians were willing to fight nothing happened. Therefore, Custer was reduced to either capturing the families of the warriors or removing their horse herd. The warriors would negotiate when their families were in jeopardy or they had but one horse to rely on.
Not sure if Crazy Horse was even a part of the fight on Last Stand Hill. Usually he is given credit for breaking the line of troops between Captain Keogh and Lt Calhoun.
@@SiobhanFallon7 I can back this one up, Siobhan. According to existing evidence Crazy Horse was credited with splitting Myles Keogh's Company l from Calhoun's L company. I've seen a BBC documentary showing Crazy Horse attacking Custers section but that was pure dramatic licence. Maybe that's where the commentor saw this?
@davidlord7364 honestly, as a military spouse who has lived within the military community for more than 20 years, any successful officer needs a big ego. How else can you risk men's lives? Any leader must be certain he/ she is right. Like doctors maybe. A battlefield or an operating table is not the time to second guess ones self.
@frankmorris4790 Frank, that's a neat insight. I do always wonder why it's not more highly recommended to those studying the Little Bighorn, and nothing reveals the man more than his own writing and thoughts. And the more I read up on the Washita, which Custer outlines in great detail in My Life, the more I can see the parallels between the two campaigns.
After the Civil War the Union military was not about to tolerate any insurrection from any source. As soldiers they respected their foes bravery but a lasting peaceful society was their mission.
After a 150 years of hearing about custers fate and possible follies at lbh its harder to differentiate the man and the myths from reality of whom he was and was not. The man obviously had a big ego thats not in question but his thoughts and actions are without a doubt unknown to most. History has pictured him as a brave and rash leader that his ambition and wreckless irrational behavior got him and his men killed. Honestly custer thought he had a successful plan or he wouldn't have attacked he knew death and in death he could not have achieved the glory he so desired.
@tbenedict6335 I think you are right. He did not go into that fight expecting or wanting to die. His last recorded words were to tell his men that if they succeeded, they'd be able to head home to their duty station, Fort Lincoln. That's where his wife was waiting for him.
Most modern Native Americans are part white. It's statistically rare to find a truly full-blooded Native American. I have read accounts about Custer having fathered a child with a Cheyenne woman. It would not surprise me if that were true. Soldiers, trappers, hunters, and scouts along the isolated frontier far from the European settlements tended to have relations with Native American women. I am willing to bet that a few soldiers of the 7th Calvary actually have mixed-blooded descendants somewhere out there. Usually, if a tribe has a half-white member, that individual grows up and marries another Native American. After several generations, the children look full-blooded but are actually 1/4 white, 1/8, etc. In modern times, I often see "full-blooded" Plains Indians who appear to have some distant white ancestry. The person could have been a French fur trapper. Or maybe a member of the 7th Calvary. It's speculation to a large degree, but DNA testing could uncover a lot of that.
@@microsofty5778 I'm a data scientist with a background in biochemistry. It depends on how you define "pure". If you look at government enrollment, a tribe like the Navajos will have documents that list most of them as "4/4". But if you look at DNA, there is some degree of admixture with Spanish ancestry. The Navajos have a clan called the "Mexican Clan" near Shiprock. That Mexican Clan has intermixed with other Navajo families for over a hundred years. So, a Navajo of the Mexican clan is likely 1/4, 1/8, or 1/16 Spanish. Any family they marry into will have that Spanish ancestry intermixed partially. But it wouldn't be noticeable to outsiders. However, to those who grew up on the reservation like me, I know the variation is there. I can see it. I knew a Navajo from Shiprock with curly hair and grayish eyes - obviously part Spanish. I collaborated with a historian from UNM once about the topic regarding DNA and partial Spanish ancestry of "full-blooded" Native Americans in the southwest. He said it was common. So, that means over half of Navajos could literally be part Spanish - but just a small amount that most people can't tell. And many will vehemently deny it's there. But the DNA testing could uncover a lot.
It's been told that a graveyard in my area of Berea Kentucky there's a tombstone of an African American soldier that says he rode with Gen. Custer. It's terribly overgrown and neglected
Bloody Knife was with Reno's battalion. He was right next to Reno when he was killed by a head shot. That prompted Reno's panicked retreat from the timber.
He was shot near Major Reno. Custer sent him with Reno and the scouts as the first wave of troops to engage the Indian village. I'll put the links here to my videos on Bloody Knife!
@@unpob and here is Part II: Bloody Knife, The Indian Scout Who Fought & Died for Custer ua-cam.com/video/vpPzw-4w8Hc/v-deo.htmlsi=cMzTx4obYqOpLAcU Please let me know what you think!
It may seem petty after the fact but I blame the movie: Little Big Man. It portrayed the Sioux in the best of light which was fine, but it showed the 7th Cavalry as mean and cold hearted. The worst was showing Custer as a madman, only out for glory for himself. This idea of Custer as a glory hound on that day is founded on some faulty after the battle "reporting". After the battle the Sioux abandoned or moved the part of the camp closest to Reno's initial attack, but they did not leave. They set up on the opposite side of the camp. When the word came that Terry was approaching, the entire camp packed up and left. When Terry's forces surveyed the battle site they looked at the "footprint" of the camp. Of course it looked huge because of the shifting of lodges. Someone decided that only a madman would attack a Indian camp that big with the forces available on that day. Custer did attack, therefore he must have been a madman. This idea of Custer as one brick short of a load has persisted in some cases to this day. I think that is what the movie Little Big Man dramatized as fact. Especially Custer's last scene on Last Stand Hill. This movie and others since have made Custer fair game for unfair criticism while ignoring the fact that the Sioux and Cheyanne were just better motivated on that day. This was in my mind the beginning of the revisionist we have today where "white man bad" and "white man always has been bad and always will be".
I could not agree with you more. Little Big Man created the unhinged Custer and that's the image that lingers, nevermind that the actual book it was based on was a novel, and that the movie decided to use the script to make an anti-war statement. I am rather new to this study, and had all the same assumptions about Custer myself until fairly recently. And, especially as a military spouse, I see the injustice and chasm between the actual man and the villian we have made him with lazy history and journalism. He wasn't perfect, I know, but he is more than most realize. Great point about the size of the camp being exaggerated by the move/ footprint, as well as the testimony of 7th eyewitnesses whose first reports claimed 1,500 to 3000 "hostiles", but by the time of the Reno Court of Inquiry and mass scrutiny into their actions, suddenly claimed 8 to 9000.
Huh? Here are Terry's orders. Please show me where it says Custer needs to wait for reinforcements? "Headquarters of the Department of Dakota, Camp at Mouth of Rosebud River, Montana Territory June 22nd, 1876 Lieutenant-Colonel Custer, 7th Calvary Colonel: The Brigadier-General Commanding directs that, as soon as your regiment can be made ready for the march, you will proceed up the Rosebud in pursuit of the Indians whose trail was discovered by Major Reno a few days since. It is impossible to give you any definite instructions in regard to this movement, and were it not impossible to do so the Department Commander places too much confidence in your zeal, energy, and ability to wish to impose upon you precise orders which might hamper your action when nearly in contact with the enemy. He will, however, indicate to you his own views of what your action should be, and he desires that you should conform to them unless you shall see sufficient reason for departing from them. He thinks that you should proceed up the Rosebud until you ascertain definitely the direction in which the trail above spoken of leads. Should it be found (as it appears almost certain that it will be found) to turn towards the Little Bighorn, he thinks that you should still proceed southward, perhaps as far as the headwaters of the Tongue, and then turn toward the Little Horn, feeling constantly, however, to your left, so as to preclude the escape of the Indians passing around your left flank. The column of Colonel Gibbon is now in motion for the mouth of the Big Horn. As soon as it reaches that point will cross the Yellowstone and move up at least as far as the forks of the Big and Little Horns. Of course its future movements must be controlled by circumstances as they arise, but it is hoped that the Indians, if upon the Little Horn, may be so nearly inclosed by the two columns that their escape will be impossible. The Department Commander desires that on your way up the Rosebud you should thoroughly examine the upper part of Tullock's Creek, and that you should endeavor to send a scout through to Colonel Gibbon's command. The supply-steamer will be pushed up the Big Horn as far as the forks of the river is found to be navigable for that distance, and the Department Commander, who will accompany the column of Colonel Gibbon, desires you to report to him there not later than the expiration of the time for which your troops are rationed, unless in the mean time you receive further orders. Very respectfully, Your obedient servant, E. W. Smith, Captain, 18th Infantry A. A. J. G
@@SiobhanFallon7 another good book on the LBH is; Lakota Noon by Gregory F. Michno. He breaks down the battle in fifteen minute increments or so using the Sioux participants recollections and testimonials. The Indians never condemned Custer and neither does the author. In my mind Custer tried to cross the river to take the women or the horses or just surround the camp. When he was rebuffed, he withdrew to the bluffs and sent for reinforcement that never came.
From Kate Bighead/ Antelope Woman, Meotzi's cousin, interviewed by Dr. Marquis: "My cousin, a young woman named Me-o-tzi , went often with him to help in finding the trails of Indians. She said he told her his soldier horses were given plenty of corn and oats to eat, so they could outrun and catch the Indians riding ponies that had only grass to eat. All of the Cheyennes liked her, and all were glad she had so important a place in life. After Long Hair went away, different ones of the Cheyenne young men wanted to marry her, but she would not have any of them. She said that Long Hair was her husband; that he had promised to come back to her, and that she would wait for him. She waited 7 years, then he was killed. Meotzi mourned when she learned of his death. I was not then with those people, but I heard that she cut off her hair and gashed her arms and legs for mourning. Her heart was much the more sad on account of his having been killed in a battle where the Northern Cheyennes fought against him. About a year later she married a white man named Isaac. They had several children. One of her daughters is now a middle-aged woman living with us Northern Cheyennes on Tongue River. The mother lived to old age and died in Oklahoma 6 years ago, some time after Christmas (in January, 1921), but her name is continued among us. A little granddaughter of mine is known to us as Meotzi. At times the young people joke her: "You are Custer's Indian wife."
I had begun to feel hateful towards indians just from the content always representing the settlers troubles and hardships the horrific attacks and daperdations hearing how someone on the ground at that time didn't just see that was helpful towards those feelings I didn't like feeling
@@microsofty5778 If there was a genocide of the indigenous they would not need reservations and millions of acres of land set aside for them. You know who truly had genocidal intent toward the tribes? Other tribes. To eradicate their enemy tribes would have been a great victory for them and they relished the opportunity to do so. In the general scheme of things, the tribes in the western US were a relatively small issue until the late 19th century and even then they were controlled rather quickly. It was inevitable. There was no way that a relatively small group of people (the tribes), spread across thousands of miles of territory were ever going to be compatible with the encroaching tide of non-native settlers. The individual soldiers were not genocidal either. They would much have preferred to be in garrison at a fort, warm, getting fed vs dying at the hands of a people they had no quarrel with.
No, well not really. He was the Whiteman was superior type. Most were then. He did have respect for a worthy opponent though at least in print. But don’t confuse that with respect with their culture. I refer you to the lone tepee on his last day.
@@SeanRCope huh? Because he burned the lone tipi (maybe) to signal to Terry where he was, after the Arikara scouts had already eaten all the food left for the dead warrior inside to see him through his final journey? Sean, how does that say anything decisive about how Custer viewed all Native American culture?
@@SeanRCope He was a product of his time. He was actually more respectful of Native American culture than most of his contemporaries and I'm not a fan of Custer. Even though he was a cranky and jealous git, l think Benteen was the better officer. I think there would have been no survivors of the 7th who went with the Custer column if he hadn't taken control of the situation on June 26th, and I don't think anyone would dispute that. Any surviving troopers records definitely backs that up. Using the burning of the Lone Teepee as evidence for your case is sorta silly, to be honest. If only everything was that simple. I'd advise you to read more about the subject because you seem to be projecting your prejudices on Custer. As I said I'm definitely not a Custer fan boy but when history is concerned you havd to not only try to be objective, which is why primary sources are always the best starting point, but to also try your best to put yourself in the shoes of the people at that time.
Technologically, the whites were superior to the native people. The incident surrounding the lone tipi is telling in that enemy tribes, who served as scouts, disrespected the dead warrior inside and his culture by disturbing his death lodge, eating food, etc. Based on your assessment are those warrior/scouts not just as guilty by their actions?
The Anglos should have stayed east of the Mississippi and the Spanish should have stayed south of the Rio Grande and west of the Rockies. And left the plains to the American "Indians" and the Bison. If you had did this then you would have had real border security. Anglo greed has probably cost you all of North America now.
@Slievenamon who is the "you" in your statement, Eddie? I wasn't there, and you weren't either. Who knows what you and I would have done if we were? Probably just tried our best to protect our families and live in a way that made us proud. 🤷🏼♀️
In the same vein as your post, if certain larger tribes had stayed where they first settled in the lower 48 states and Southern Canada, many smaller tribes and indeed entire villages would have lived on. However, some tribes such as the Sioux [[ Lakota ]] invaded territories that others claimed and wiped them out. [ including killing, capturing, and enslaving entire villages] If Europeans { Americans } had stayed out of the Great Plains, I doubt this would have EVER resulted in real border security.
From your repeated use of ethnic labels, I have to assume you're not Anglo, and probably see ethnicity in everything, maybe down to tribal ethnicity. It is still a semi-free country, so, if you embrace xenophobia, it's your choice. But don't bet the farm just yet. You see, the clash of a neolithic, nomadic lifestyle and the march of 19th century civilization across the plains was bound and destined to happen; it's happened the world over, throughout time. Modern civilization always displaces non-technological, nomadic civilization because it brings more perceived advantages than disadvantages. It is a practical value judgement, NOT a moral or ethical judgement. And, for better or worse, it has been the way of the world since mankind left caves.
That was never going to happen. The lifestyle of the plains tribes was doomed as they fought one another, overfunded and killed the buffalo for profit, and displaced one another. Their way of life was not compatible with the tide of settlers eager for land. Your “should have” statement is one that is idealistic but very naive and emotionally based.
Very balanced view of Lt.Col G.A.Custer. Very enjoyable!
@walterbrown9651 thank you, Walter! Always good to hear from you!
Excellent video, Siobhan. Well done. This video presents a picture of Custer that many people don't see, or even acknowledge. The historical details and facts you presented shatters the delusion that George Armstrong Custer hated Native Americans, and relished killing them indiscriminately. "Custer had a heart like an Indian", damn straight. If modern society were to ever study the man, by watching videos like this, their views of him would certainly change for the better. Custer is one of the most misaligned, misunderstood figures in American history, and it takes videos like this to set his reputation aright.
@Eadbhard thanks so much. He was as complicated and flawed as the rest of us. But he understood and lived by a warrior ethos, so how could he not admire some of the actions of his peers even if they were the enemy? It's easy to forget people are individials and make decisions for a hundred different unknowable reasons, they don't all have text books on historical context at their fingertips 😉
Custer is too often the scapegoat of the Indian Wars. So glad you see that too. Wasn't sure what kind of reception this video would get, so your comment is especially appreciated 🙏🎉
@@SiobhanFallon7 That's Custer's appeal - he was complicated and flawed, just like the rest of us. When it came to fighting, however, he had no flaws; ironically, he's mostly remembered for losing a battle.
Yes, George Armstrong Custer is one of the greatest scapegoats in American history. Anytime a discussion comes up about the wrongdoings done upon the Native American by the white man, Custer's name will inevitably enter the conversation. Custer takes the blame for every atrocity. It's all wrong, of course. Perhaps if the uninformed many ever take the time to watch your videos, Custer's 'fall guy' status will change.
Strong work, Siobhan. Do keep it up.
@Eadbhard You're the best. Thank you. You and I see eye to eye about how Custer's legacy has been mishandled and mis-remembered by history.
I appreciate your insightful words. I was just arguing with someone who said my video was "sad" and all wrong.
You cheered me up immensely 🎉🎉🎉🎉🙏💕📚
In your words: " . . . I am more interested in the people rather than the fight." This is what draws me to your channel. I have changed many of my opinions of GAC because of your insights. Also, your use of photographs and quotes in this video is the best I've seen from any You Tube history channel. The extra time you are taking to put all this together is much appreciated. Amazing work Siobhan!
@webbsamples Oh Webb!! You always may me feel like the hard work put into these videos is worth it! Thank you so very much 🙏🤗
Excellent episode Siobhan. It’s refreshing to hear Custers thoughts on the Native American people. I believe he had a great respect for them as adversaries as well as scouts. Thanks for sharing your research with us! Take care now!
@oneida41859 thank you, Oneida. Really appreciate that.
We usually just get the negative. I was surprised at some of these sentiments myself so it seemed like a video worth sharing 🙏
Taking in your work is like reading the chapters of an exquisite non fiction historical novel. The personal quotes of Custer; the attention to details as necessary to the story at hand; and your obvious love of the subject matter all help weave a riveting story line.
I'm so glad to have found your UA-cam channel! More please 😊....Bob from Michigan
@bobg9458 thank you Bob!! 🎉🙏
I am so glad you found me too and I hope to hear more from you!!
Come on you Wolverines! 😉
Excellent. Thank you as always. I had heard Custer once wrote that he felt the army had a duty to protect smaller tribes from the attacks of larger tribes. Thats probably not exactly how he worded it .
@talkietoaster4626 I know there's a Sheridan quote about how the Army had to protect their Arikara allies the same as they'd protect white settlers from attacks by the Lakota.
If you find the Custer quote, please let me know!
Oh your probably right.
Another great vid. Thank you.
@frankperkin124 much appreciated, Frank 🙏🎉
When I hear people putting down Custard I always bring up the fact that he was a brave man. They don't like that.
@@ericcrawford3453 he was, no matter what. Good point, Eric.
@@ericcrawford3453 It's CUSTER. Not Custard. Have some respect and get his name right.
Well, he was certifiably nuts. And obsessed with power and glory. That's for sure. And that's what got him killed.
I know they do, This all comes from the Left in our country. All ignorance posing as knowledge.
@clayoreilly4553 huh? Certifiably? You have seen the certificate that says this? 😉
Like him or despise him, and I wouldn't be his biggest fan, he was a very brave individual and that can't be doubted.
As you said, Siobhan, Custer shouldn't be judged by modern day standards. History is never black and white. Any historian worth their salt takes the times in which these people lived into account. People of all races and creeds then were just as intelligent as today, maybe even more so.
Nothing drives me madder than modern day people with political agendas trying to impose their very uninformed and narrow minded belief systems on any historical figure. Custer, his calvary colleagues and Native Americans are great examples of this.
Keep up your fine work, Siobhan!
Niall.
@niallfitzpatrick6568 thank you, Niall!!
@niallfitzpatrick6568 Niall, I've just started work on a new video about the Irish in the 7th Cavalry.
You've shared some great info in the past. Let me know if you think of anything I ought to read as I start researching this 🍀
@@SiobhanFallon7 l will indeed, Siobhan.
@@SiobhanFallon7 Are you infatuated with Custer simply because he was of Irish descent, Siobhan? That's really sad.
If you would like to meet some Irish heroes who took the side of the oppressed rather than the oppressor, you might look into John Reilly and the St. Patricks Brigade of the Mexican American War. Those were some heroic men.
@clayoreilly4553 what are you talking about? That's just silly. I know of plenty of Irish heroes and if Custer is some diluted Irish stock, that's fine, but he's as American as they come, born to poor blacksmith / subsistence farmers in Ohio.
I think you should watch more of my videos since you seem to know very little about Custer's history or his role in fighting the Confederates and slavery (you can't get more oppressed than that) to keep the Union intact, which established his military credentials (and his sanity). The Seventh Cavalry also spent years in the South doing Reconstruction duty and arresting members of the Klu Klux Klan.
However, I just started working in a video about Irish soldiers in the Seventh Cavalry that you might be interested in, coming soon.
And I also have two videos up about Captain Myles Keogh from County Carlow you might want to watch., and the reasons he chose to continue as an officer in the US Army after serving with distinction during the American Civil War 🍀
These videos are fantastic! Great content, production value, and delightful narration. I've been binge watching all your playlists and was so excited for a new video. Don't change a thing!
@@alohamatthewshields Oh yay, Matthew, so good of you to say!
You just made my day 🙏😉
Custer did not hate the rebels either. He and Rosser remained friends during and after the war.
@@brycesuderow3576 Indeed. That's what I say in the first slide... 😉
I agree Custard & old Jeb Stewart crossed paths a couple of times. I must say though Custard kinda jumped the gun a bit with Longstreet in that he wanted to accept Lee's surrender from what I've read. Custard was a brave man!
@ericcrawford3453 ha ha yes I think Custer tried to get them to surrender to him? And they kind of chuckled at him? I need to find that story. He was an ambitious man 😉🤣
@@ericcrawford3453Custer not Custard.
@@h.w.barlow6693 sorry my bad, my phone dose this to me
Makes perfect sense to me.
Siobhan, your presentations are awesome- today’s history lesson brought tears to my eyes/ as we who know the Real not the Reel Custer, today remember his heroic leadership and success at East Cavalry Field on the Rummel Farm 3 miles East of Gettysburg, but i love that as we recall the “Custer America forgot”(Prof. Greg Urwin), you reminds us of the Custer of Plains Indian history is more, much more than than the stereotypical myth of the ruthless descriptions given by the illiterate arm chair quarterbacks!
Thank you sister- it’s an honor to be among historians as yourself!
@sathanumanskhalsa912 thank you, my friend!
Like all history (and all things), the closer we look, the more we see. Custer is more than Little Big Man and memes. 🙏📚
sath,,Well Said! :)
@@Jay_Hall he is pretty good 😉
Nice work Siobhan bringing some justice for Custer. So many times we heard about the despite he
had for Native Americans and all the while so called historians and writers fed on these stories and it was too bad. The idea of the Native Americans wanted to seek revenge on him at the Little Big horn because of his so called hatred was another myth from that battle. Your story told us of a totally different Custer. Thank you.
Thanks so much, Gar. There is always more to the story, no? I really appreciate your kind words 🙏
Great video. Just finished the book To hell With Honor by Larry Sklenar. Excellent read, also pulling apart alot of Custer myths..Whilst not painting Custer as a hero, the book also points out throughout, he also wasnt an indian hater or fool either and the fate of the 7th can be shared out equally amongst others from the top down..
@sabresix7933 yes! I read that book awhile ago and it was hugely eye-opening
@@sabresix7933 Agree totally. Custer was a human being and the last time I checked, we humans have both good and bad points. We can be both very kind and very cruel.
Custer was a man of his time. I'd even hasten to argue he was more of a progressive when it came to native Americans than the majority of hus compatriots, whether that was down to the romantic myth of the "noble savage" in his early years, his experience fighting alongside Crow, Akikra and Osage scouts or admiration for the skills of the hostiles fighting skills l don't know (probably a mixture of all three).
A British cavalry officer called the native Americans (can't remember which tribe though) the "finest light cavalry in the world" and I'd agree with him. Maybe Custer felt that way too.
What's not widely known is that a significant number of the 7th Cavalry were made up of Irish and German immigrants, many of whom couldn't ride a horse correctly.
There are so many myths about Custer and the battle of the Little Big Horn it can actually get kinda annoying when people insist on a myth being correct despite being proven evidence to the contrary. And don't even get me started on the myths surrounding the Titanic!
Very nicely done. I have read my lie on the plains as benteen. Call it several times You have captured very nicely. It's absolutely the spirit of the writing in that book. At least for the most part. Custer was not some blood thirsty. War crazy person. It has always seemed to me that he was proudest of.
His accomplishments in the field that did not involve fighting. This was an important look behind the myth at the Natural man. A very astute summary,
@barbaraanneneale3674 thank you, Barbara! I agree with you.
Custer was a man of contradictions, like so many of us, and I do think he tried to be fair and good in his own way.
@@SiobhanFallon7 He was using the "Indian Wars" as a stepping stone to the Presidency. Pure greed, plain and simple.
Another Master Class from Siobhan! Congrats! :) Onward and Upward.
@@Jay_Hall thanks so much, Jay!! 🎉
Thank you for another great video. Looking forward to your next.
Thanks, Cash!!
Superb as always. Thank you for this important view of a very misunderstood and misrepresented American Icon.
So good of you to say, Carbine! Thank you 🙏
Another great video. It really helps to lay out the objective (as possible) points from history.
Thank you, Gator!
Just finished reading "A Life on the Plains" by Custer. I was suprised as you have shown in your video the admiration that he had for the Indian tribes. The reputation he has of being irreverent and vain did not match how he wrote. I tried to explain that to others, but they are convinced that Custer despised Indians. Good video...thanks.
@LiamRFerg thank you, Liam!
Lots of character assassination and bad history when it comes to Custer. So glad you too see that he is more than a meme 😉
Thanks, Siobhan, for this overdue adjustment of proper context for Custer's opinions of Indians. Very much a man of his time, and loyal to his nation, yet he had the ability to see and judge people for their merit.
Too often, it would seem, general opinion has assumed Custer had little to no respect for Indians. Perhaps, this is linked to the widely held belief that he completely underestimated the Indians at LBH, and therefore must not have had much respect for them. Perhaps, some of the revisionist, 20th century print and motion picture media was influential to this end. Regardless, I think your video today will go some distance to forcing some reassessment of opinion in open minds.
@josephstabile9154 thank you, Joseph!
Custer does seem to appreciate individuals and I was surprised myself at some of the comments he made. On the one hand, he wanted to seem like a fearless Indian fighter, and yet his admiration kept sneaking into his prose.
Great stuff. Thank you.
@freddygray8058 thanks Freddy! 🙏
Good job... looking forward to your next.... TM
@tommartie1070 thank you, Tim! And I look forward to hearing from you again!
Thank you!
Well done. My course of study is the trail of tears and the aftermath. The Custer saga dovetails in this venture and I have found much written information by his scouts as well as Bloody Knife. I was impressed at his words on his respect and affinity towards G.A.Custer and his hatred towards the Sioux people for their discrimination and abuse towards him because of his mother who was an a Arikara. Would you be planning to do, or have you already done a feature on this amazing man? Thank you for the enlightening work you present and as always I will be waiting anxiously for what you bring next
Well hello, Sunny Jack!!
Yes, I have two videos in Bloody Knife!
I will put the links here...
@@sunnyjacksmack Part I ua-cam.com/video/tTAUuDIn-1A/v-deo.htmlsi=xLmIDdT1eSFEVame
@@sunnyjacksmack Part II ua-cam.com/video/vpPzw-4w8Hc/v-deo.htmlsi=DgMmDX-x8fM3HdJu
@@SiobhanFallon7 You are awesome. I appreciate your personal attention to your viewers. I will be following up on your videos asap.
@sunnyjacksmack thank you!!
I recently watched a movie on UA-cam and saw your name in the credits. Were you an actress? BTW, appreciate your 7th Calvary channel.
@@forwheelinallday ha! Siobhan Fallon Hogan! She's a comedienne who used to be on Saturday night live!
One other thing. Now it is understood why Libby defended him to the end. I t was really never understood until now.
😊 Superb
@@RailfanDownunder thank you!! 🎉
Actually it was a tactical victory for Custer's command. The Sioux left the battlefield in possession of Custer's troops and the objective of making the Sioux leave Crow land was achieved.
@31terikennedy Teri, very true. And Custer did manage the objective of bringing the NA to battle rather than have them scatter. Unfortunately for everyone, really. The human loss for the US Army, but also the crack down that followed upon the tribes.
No one was a winner ultimately.
@@SiobhanFallon7 How long did the Last Stand fight last, two hours? Custer ran out of ammo and that's when he was overrunned. Benteen had his orders , chose not to obey them and got away with it because Grant was behind it. Custer was at LBH because the Crow wanted Army help to expel the Sioux from Crow land . Some tribes got along and some didn't. The Sioux didn't and something had to be done.
A Pyrrhic victory. Arguably the last NA victory was in 1867 by forcing the closure of the Bozeman Trail.
I read "My Life on the Plains," and when the criticism of Custer comes up I defend him.
It does give an entirely different insight into the real man, doesn't it?
There was something about the educational system of 19th century West Point that made men highly literate and observant. This shows in the civil war memoires of Grant, Sheridan, Longstreet, and many others. And perhaps you, Ms Fallon, could make a video to compare the opinions and observations of General custer with those of his boss, General Sheridan.
@@ciarandoyle4349 that's a great idea. Thank you. I will mull it over! I've just started working on a video about Irish immigrants in the 7th Cavalry, but I'll put your suggestion on my list!
@@ciarandoyle4349 they did all write beautifully, didn't they?
@@SiobhanFallon7 Their books got me through the Covid lockdowns anyway. And if I might make a comment in passing, Sheridan mentions a type of education that existed in Ireland before the national schools system was established, the "hedge school". He doesn't use the term, but his description of his own elementary education shows that this form of schooling was carried over from Ireland to rural Ohio. These "hedge schools" no longer existed after the 1830s and the younger Irish cavalrymen who died at Little Big Horn would likely have attended the Irish national schools.
@@ciarandoyle4349 interesting! I know very little about Sheridan, but his Irish heritage makes me curious to learn more. 🍀 Thanks for that bit of background on him!
Custer understood the Native Americans as well as any European and better than most. How are you liking Cyprus, Siobhan? Hot this summer?? 🙂
@@pimpompoom93726 so hot!! But I don't mind! Cyprus is worth it 😉
@@SiobhanFallon7 Really nice nation, I spent many a good time there. From what I'm reading they're having another dry year there-thank goodness they invested in sea-water desalination technology in preparation for the occasional droughts.
@pimpompoom93726 there has been rain this year but I think it is less than they needed, and there was very little snow in the Troodos Mts which is never a good thing.
Cyprus is beset with issues but it is wonderful place and is proving a good partner to the USA.
@@SiobhanFallon7 I'm Greek descent, hence my interest in Cyprus. They are a good partner to the USA, I hope America recognizes that in it's regional policy in the future. Happy 4th to you and yours, as overseas Americans!
I think custer respected indians,and i think he respected those who stayed free,in the end custer was a soilder,and his job was to fight against anyone or country he was ordered to do so,good video 🙏🇬🇧
@KenDignam thanks so much, Ken.
He was a soldier, and he could appreciate good soldiering and the bravery and tactics of his foe. And I think, as some of his comments showed, he didn't always agree with the US government, but he was duty bound to the Army and to follow the orders he was given. He was in a tough place himself sometimes.
I appreciate your kind comments and hope to here from you again! 🙏 Please let me know if you like any of my other videos! 🎉
Custer fought Indians the only way he could. The Indians superior knowledge of the terrain and skilled horsemanship made it impossible for the cavalry to catch them and unless the Indians were willing to fight nothing happened. Therefore, Custer was reduced to either capturing the families of the warriors or removing their horse herd. The warriors would negotiate when their families were in jeopardy or they had but one horse to rely on.
Very true, John. Great points.
Native indigenous peoples still exist. They are not gone.
@@jjdjj5392
Your mother...
Well researched and provides a different view of frontier life and international behaviors. The Grant administration was so awful in this regard.
@78jog89 thanks so much!
Please let me know if you watch any other of my videos as well. 🙏📚
wish Crazy Horse had a go-pro so we could see custer getting hammered
Not sure if Crazy Horse was even a part of the fight on Last Stand Hill. Usually he is given credit for breaking the line of troops between Captain Keogh and Lt Calhoun.
@@SiobhanFallon7 I can back this one up, Siobhan. According to existing evidence Crazy Horse was credited with splitting Myles Keogh's Company l from Calhoun's L company.
I've seen a BBC documentary showing Crazy Horse attacking Custers section but that was pure dramatic licence.
Maybe that's where the commentor saw this?
@niallfitzpatrick6568 yes. Maybe? I think Low Dog was interviewed about Crazy Horse too. I'll try to dig that up 🍀
A complex personality, a brave soldier with a large ego
@davidlord7364 honestly, as a military spouse who has lived within the military community for more than 20 years, any successful officer needs a big ego. How else can you risk men's lives? Any leader must be certain he/ she is right. Like doctors maybe. A battlefield or an operating table is not the time to second guess ones self.
MY LIFE ON THE PLAINS made me a "Custer man".
@frankmorris4790 Frank, that's a neat insight. I do always wonder why it's not more highly recommended to those studying the Little Bighorn, and nothing reveals the man more than his own writing and thoughts.
And the more I read up on the Washita, which Custer outlines in great detail in My Life, the more I can see the parallels between the two campaigns.
After the Civil War the Union military was not about to tolerate any insurrection from any source. As soldiers they respected their foes bravery but a lasting peaceful society was their mission.
@jackdelvo2702 good point, Jack.
@@jackdelvo2702 horseshit...
After a 150 years of hearing about custers fate and possible follies at lbh its harder to differentiate the man and the myths from reality of whom he was and was not. The man obviously had a big ego thats not in question but his thoughts and actions are without a doubt unknown to most. History has pictured him as a brave and rash leader that his ambition and wreckless irrational behavior got him and his men killed. Honestly custer thought he had a successful plan or he wouldn't have attacked he knew death and in death he could not have achieved the glory he so desired.
@tbenedict6335 I think you are right. He did not go into that fight expecting or wanting to die. His last recorded words were to tell his men that if they succeeded, they'd be able to head home to their duty station, Fort Lincoln. That's where his wife was waiting for him.
Most modern Native Americans are part white. It's statistically rare to find a truly full-blooded Native American. I have read accounts about Custer having fathered a child with a Cheyenne woman. It would not surprise me if that were true. Soldiers, trappers, hunters, and scouts along the isolated frontier far from the European settlements tended to have relations with Native American women. I am willing to bet that a few soldiers of the 7th Calvary actually have mixed-blooded descendants somewhere out there. Usually, if a tribe has a half-white member, that individual grows up and marries another Native American. After several generations, the children look full-blooded but are actually 1/4 white, 1/8, etc. In modern times, I often see "full-blooded" Plains Indians who appear to have some distant white ancestry. The person could have been a French fur trapper. Or maybe a member of the 7th Calvary. It's speculation to a large degree, but DNA testing could uncover a lot of that.
@manuelsteele7755 Absolutely! There's even the argument that Crazy Horse was part white!
Not true... more than 60% are pure...
@@microsofty5778 I'm a data scientist with a background in biochemistry. It depends on how you define "pure". If you look at government enrollment, a tribe like the Navajos will have documents that list most of them as "4/4". But if you look at DNA, there is some degree of admixture with Spanish ancestry. The Navajos have a clan called the "Mexican Clan" near Shiprock. That Mexican Clan has intermixed with other Navajo families for over a hundred years. So, a Navajo of the Mexican clan is likely 1/4, 1/8, or 1/16 Spanish. Any family they marry into will have that Spanish ancestry intermixed partially. But it wouldn't be noticeable to outsiders. However, to those who grew up on the reservation like me, I know the variation is there. I can see it. I knew a Navajo from Shiprock with curly hair and grayish eyes - obviously part Spanish. I collaborated with a historian from UNM once about the topic regarding DNA and partial Spanish ancestry of "full-blooded" Native Americans in the southwest. He said it was common. So, that means over half of Navajos could literally be part Spanish - but just a small amount that most people can't tell. And many will vehemently deny it's there. But the DNA testing could uncover a lot.
Were there Buffalo soldiers that rode with Custer?
No, I don't believe there were. There were some African American troops stationed at Ft Lincoln, but they weren't 7th Cavalry.
However I am working on some videos on Isaiah Dorman, the only Black man with the 7th at the Little Bighorn. He was an interpreter for Custer.
It's been told that a graveyard in my area of Berea Kentucky there's a tombstone of an African American soldier that says he rode with Gen. Custer. It's terribly overgrown and neglected
@larna8609 I do not know this story!! If you learn more please let me know and I'll see what I can find too!
@@SiobhanFallon7 I most definitely will
Didn’t bloody knife die near Custer?
Bloody Knife was with Reno's battalion. He was right next to Reno when he was killed by a head shot. That prompted Reno's panicked retreat from the timber.
He was shot near Major Reno. Custer sent him with Reno and the scouts as the first wave of troops to engage the Indian village.
I'll put the links here to my videos on Bloody Knife!
@@unpob here is Part I : Bloody Knife: Custer's Favorite Scout, Gall's Vilest Enemy ua-cam.com/video/tTAUuDIn-1A/v-deo.html
@@unpob and here is Part II: Bloody Knife, The Indian Scout Who Fought & Died for Custer ua-cam.com/video/vpPzw-4w8Hc/v-deo.htmlsi=cMzTx4obYqOpLAcU
Please let me know what you think!
It may seem petty after the fact but I blame the movie: Little Big Man. It portrayed the Sioux in the best of light which was fine, but it showed the 7th Cavalry as mean and cold hearted. The worst was showing Custer as a madman, only out for glory for himself.
This idea of Custer as a glory hound on that day is founded on some faulty after the battle "reporting". After the battle the Sioux abandoned or moved the part of the camp closest to Reno's initial attack, but they did not leave. They set up on the opposite side of the camp. When the word came that Terry was approaching, the entire camp packed up and left. When Terry's forces surveyed the battle site they looked at the "footprint" of the camp. Of course it looked huge because of the shifting of lodges. Someone decided that only a madman would attack a Indian camp that big with the forces available on that day. Custer did attack, therefore he must have been a madman. This idea of Custer as one brick short of a load has persisted in some cases to this day. I think that is what the movie Little Big Man dramatized as fact. Especially Custer's last scene on Last Stand Hill.
This movie and others since have made Custer fair game for unfair criticism while ignoring the fact that the Sioux and Cheyanne were just better motivated on that day. This was in my mind the beginning of the revisionist we have today where "white man bad" and "white man always has been bad and always will be".
Custer was a glory hound who refused to wait for reinforcements. That's what got him (and his troops) killed.
I could not agree with you more. Little Big Man created the unhinged Custer and that's the image that lingers, nevermind that the actual book it was based on was a novel, and that the movie decided to use the script to make an anti-war statement.
I am rather new to this study, and had all the same assumptions about Custer myself until fairly recently. And, especially as a military spouse, I see the injustice and chasm between the actual man and the villian we have made him with lazy history and journalism. He wasn't perfect, I know, but he is more than most realize.
Great point about the size of the camp being exaggerated by the move/ footprint, as well as the testimony of 7th eyewitnesses whose first reports claimed 1,500 to 3000 "hostiles", but by the time of the Reno Court of Inquiry and mass scrutiny into their actions, suddenly claimed 8 to 9000.
Huh?
Here are Terry's orders. Please show me where it says Custer needs to wait for reinforcements?
"Headquarters of the Department of Dakota, Camp at Mouth of Rosebud River, Montana Territory June 22nd, 1876
Lieutenant-Colonel Custer, 7th Calvary Colonel:
The Brigadier-General Commanding directs that, as soon as your regiment can be made ready for the march, you will proceed up the Rosebud in pursuit of the Indians whose trail was discovered by Major Reno a few days since. It is impossible to give you any definite instructions in regard to this movement, and were it not impossible to do so the Department Commander places too much confidence in your zeal, energy, and ability to wish to impose upon you precise orders which might hamper your action when nearly in contact with the enemy.
He will, however, indicate to you his own views of what your action should be, and he desires that you should conform to them unless you shall see sufficient reason for departing from them.
He thinks that you should proceed up the Rosebud until you ascertain definitely the direction in which the trail above spoken of leads. Should it be found (as it appears almost certain that it will be found) to turn towards the Little Bighorn, he thinks that you should still proceed southward, perhaps as far as the headwaters of the Tongue, and then turn toward the Little Horn, feeling constantly, however, to your left, so as to preclude the escape of the Indians passing around your left flank.
The column of Colonel Gibbon is now in motion for the mouth of the Big Horn. As soon as it reaches that point will cross the Yellowstone and move up at least as far as the forks of the Big and Little Horns. Of course its future movements must be controlled by circumstances as they arise, but it is hoped that the Indians, if upon the Little Horn, may be so nearly inclosed by the two columns that their escape will be impossible.
The Department Commander desires that on your way up the Rosebud you should thoroughly examine the upper part of Tullock's Creek, and that you should endeavor to send a scout through to Colonel Gibbon's command.
The supply-steamer will be pushed up the Big Horn as far as the forks of the river is found to be navigable for that distance, and the Department Commander, who will accompany the column of Colonel Gibbon, desires you to report to him there not later than the expiration of the time for which your troops are rationed, unless in the mean time you receive further orders.
Very respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
E. W. Smith, Captain, 18th Infantry A. A. J. G
@@SiobhanFallon7 another good book on the LBH is; Lakota Noon by Gregory F. Michno. He breaks down the battle in fifteen minute increments or so using the Sioux participants recollections and testimonials. The Indians never condemned Custer and neither does the author.
In my mind Custer tried to cross the river to take the women or the horses or just surround the camp. When he was rebuffed, he withdrew to the bluffs and sent for reinforcement that never came.
@@anulfadventures yes! Michno is meticulous!
Custer had a cppl of children by a northern cheyenne woman. He had a native wife.
From Kate Bighead/ Antelope Woman, Meotzi's cousin, interviewed by Dr. Marquis:
"My cousin, a young woman named Me-o-tzi , went often with him to help in finding the trails of Indians. She said he told her his soldier horses were given plenty of corn and oats to eat, so they could outrun and catch the Indians riding ponies that had only grass to eat. All of the Cheyennes liked her, and all were glad she had so important a place in life. After Long Hair went away, different ones of the Cheyenne young men wanted to marry her, but she would not have any of them. She said that Long Hair was her husband; that he had promised to come back to her, and that she would wait for him. She waited 7 years, then he was killed. Meotzi mourned when she learned of his death. I was not then with those people, but I heard that she cut off her hair and gashed her arms and legs for mourning. Her heart was much the more sad on account of his having been killed in a battle where the Northern Cheyennes fought against him. About a year later she married a white man named Isaac. They had several children. One of her daughters is now a middle-aged woman living with us Northern Cheyennes on Tongue River. The mother lived to old age and died in Oklahoma 6 years ago, some time after Christmas (in January, 1921), but her name is continued among us. A little granddaughter of mine is known to us as Meotzi. At times the young people joke her: "You are Custer's Indian wife."
@@SiobhanFallon7 I still want to see a Kate Bighead profile video! I think it would be a great perspective to share.
@Avalanchelodge yes!! Thank you!! I need to do that 🙏
I had begun to feel hateful towards indians just from the content always representing the settlers troubles and hardships the horrific attacks and daperdations hearing how someone on the ground at that time didn't just see that was helpful towards those feelings I didn't like feeling
@dal8963 did this video change those feelings?
The entire American military and government hated the indigenous... They contradicted our manifest destiny...
You need to watch my videos! 🤷🏼♀️
@@SiobhanFallon7 Where you describe America's genocide of the indigenous(?)
@@microsofty5778 If there was a genocide of the indigenous they would not need reservations and millions of acres of land set aside for them. You know who truly had genocidal intent toward the tribes? Other tribes. To eradicate their enemy tribes would have been a great victory for them and they relished the opportunity to do so. In the general scheme of things, the tribes in the western US were a relatively small issue until the late 19th century and even then they were controlled rather quickly. It was inevitable. There was no way that a relatively small group of people (the tribes), spread across thousands of miles of territory were ever going to be compatible with the encroaching tide of non-native settlers. The individual soldiers were not genocidal either. They would much have preferred to be in garrison at a fort, warm, getting fed vs dying at the hands of a people they had no quarrel with.
@@SiobhanFallon7 the one on the murder of Black Kettle?
@microsofty5778 if you mean this one, yes:
ua-cam.com/video/fDCKh1CL5JA/v-deo.htmlsi=QhZXXHlNDEeKHqdu
No, well not really. He was the Whiteman was superior type. Most were then. He did have respect for a worthy opponent though at least in print. But don’t confuse that with respect with their culture. I refer you to the lone tepee on his last day.
@@SeanRCope huh? Because he burned the lone tipi (maybe) to signal to Terry where he was, after the Arikara scouts had already eaten all the food left for the dead warrior inside to see him through his final journey? Sean, how does that say anything decisive about how Custer viewed all Native American culture?
@@SeanRCope He was a product of his time. He was actually more respectful of Native American culture than most of his contemporaries and I'm not a fan of Custer. Even though he was a cranky and jealous git, l think Benteen was the better officer. I think there would have been no survivors of the 7th who went with the Custer column if he hadn't taken control of the situation on June 26th, and I don't think anyone would dispute that. Any surviving troopers records definitely backs that up.
Using the burning of the Lone Teepee as evidence for your case is sorta silly, to be honest. If only everything was that simple.
I'd advise you to read more about the subject because you seem to be projecting your prejudices on Custer. As I said I'm definitely not a Custer fan boy but when history is concerned you havd to not only try to be objective, which is why primary sources are always the best starting point, but to also try your best to put yourself in the shoes of the people at that time.
Technologically, the whites were superior to the native people. The incident surrounding the lone tipi is telling in that enemy tribes, who served as scouts, disrespected the dead warrior inside and his culture by disturbing his death lodge, eating food, etc. Based on your assessment are those warrior/scouts not just as guilty by their actions?
Censoring comments I see, another egoist
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The Anglos should have stayed east of the Mississippi and the Spanish should have stayed south of the Rio Grande and west of the Rockies. And left the plains to the American "Indians" and the Bison. If you had did this then you would have had real border security. Anglo greed has probably cost you all of North America now.
@Slievenamon who is the "you" in your statement, Eddie? I wasn't there, and you weren't either. Who knows what you and I would have done if we were? Probably just tried our best to protect our families and live in a way that made us proud. 🤷🏼♀️
In the same vein as your post, if certain larger tribes had stayed where they first settled in the lower 48 states and Southern Canada, many smaller tribes and indeed entire villages would have lived on. However, some tribes such as the Sioux [[ Lakota ]] invaded territories that others claimed and wiped them out. [ including killing, capturing, and enslaving entire villages] If Europeans { Americans } had stayed out of the Great Plains, I doubt this would have EVER resulted in real border security.
From your repeated use of ethnic labels, I have to assume you're not Anglo, and probably see ethnicity in everything, maybe down to tribal ethnicity. It is still a semi-free country, so, if you embrace xenophobia, it's your choice. But don't bet the farm just yet.
You see, the clash of a neolithic, nomadic lifestyle and the march of 19th century civilization across the plains was bound and destined to happen; it's happened the world over, throughout time. Modern civilization always displaces non-technological, nomadic civilization because it brings more perceived advantages than disadvantages. It is a practical value judgement, NOT a moral or ethical judgement. And, for better or worse, it has been the way of the world since mankind left caves.
That was never going to happen. The lifestyle of the plains tribes was doomed as they fought one another, overfunded and killed the buffalo for profit, and displaced one another. Their way of life was not compatible with the tide of settlers eager for land. Your “should have” statement is one that is idealistic but very naive and emotionally based.