The Truth About General Custer

fmdog44 said:
Like the rest of us you weren't there so you don't know either.
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Agreed. To say it is wrong means you think you know what is right. And well ....... I'm a-gonna' tell ya' something you may not already know. It were Jack Crabb who done went and put down the most reliable account what it was that happened over there at the Little Big Horn. And that's a dad-gum fact!

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Verisure said:
Agreed. To say it is wrong means you think you know what is right. And well ....... I'm a-gonna' tell ya' something you may not already know. It were Jack Crabb who done went and put down the most reliable account what it was that happened over there at the Little Big Horn. And that's a dad-gum fact!

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And you know this because you ‘were’ there? 😅 lol
 
fmdog44 said:
The verbal account I saw the Native Indian said it was obvious some of the soldiers shot each other so they would not be tortured. Also there were so many arrows flying many Indians were found to be killed arrows. Whatever happened I love the Old West history and all phases of it. I would not like to live in those days but I love to read about them. Wyatt Earp is one of the most interesting figures of those days.
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Torturing of defeated enemies was a common practice for Native Americans on the east coast as well. I read several books on the Battle of Wyoming in Pennsylvania. (The original Wyoming was not the state of that name.) The worst account of torture I read was to cut open the abdomen of a prisoner and tie one end of the large intestine to a tree and then chase the prisoner around the tree. Some were simply burned.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Wyoming
 
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custer may well have been an egomaniac, but he was quite well respected by his men during his service in the civil war. But like many people found himself in trouble, courtmartialed for wrong doing and dismissed from the army. Later reinstated and sent out west where he again did well this time againist the american indians.
The references about custer I read many years ago were provided by sacagawea family members. They relate the fact that custer had taken an indian woman to bed and thus considered to have been married to her. after the battle at the little big horn custer was about to be scalped and his bodied ravaged but sisters of the woman he had bedded stopped this because they considered him family. I dont believe custer committed suicide but he may have asked one of his men to kill him, and since as noted above I was not there so officially I dont know! I have been to that battle field years ago! and there is a lot more to the tale!!!!
 
cdestroyer said:
there is a lot more to the tale!!!!
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I am sure there is, but no one is ever likely to know the whole truth. The only survivors were not historians so we can't expect a lot of accuracy in many of the accounts. About all that can be done is to piece together what is known to try and glean a story that is at least consistent with the known facts. Committing suicide or asking one of his men to assist may well make sense, he likely would have assumed capture would mean a long and painful death.

I also feel bad about what we did to the Native Americans, but given history and human nature its was probably and inevitable outcome. Even today similar things happen, perhaps on a different scale and the details always vary, but its happening. In the US today those us of European descent are slowly being displaced by folks from other parts of the world. Fortunately its peaceful (mostly), but the end result will probably be similar. We will be an ever shrinking minority of the population soon. Not saying it good or bad, it just is.

Of course Columbus did not "discover" America, that happened, for humans, many thousands of years earlier. However his exploration was a big part of what first opened the Americas to European settlement and exploitation. Still worthy of note, I don't think we should consider him hero or villain, just a part of history. He does help mark the beginning of an important era. Not sure it he worthy of an official holiday though.
 
I dont call them native americans since there were already a peoples here, instead I prefer to call them american indians, and if you really indulged yourself into the research you will find the "indians" did to other "indians" a lot worse than what the "white" man ever did!!
 
cdestroyer said:
I dont call them native americans since there were already a peoples here, instead I prefer to call them american indians, and if you really indulged yourself into the research you will find the "indians" did to other "indians" a lot worse than what the "white" man ever did!!
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They were natives to this land and the name of this land is America therefore....
 
cdestroyer said:
number one.. custer was not a general at the little big horn!
and why even today people still think columbus discovered america is beyond me!!
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He was always referred to as "the general" because he rose to the rank of major general during the civil war. His last rank was Lt. colonel
 
fmdog44 said "They were natives to this land and the name of this land is America therefore...."

Definition of native (Entry 2 of 2) 1 : one born or reared in a particular place. 2a : an original or indigenous inhabitant. b : something indigenous to a particular locality. 3 : a local resident especially : a person who has always lived in a place as distinguished from a visitor or a temporary resident.

thusly according to fmdog44 since I was born here in 'america' I am a native american... hi ya hi ya woo ya
 
cdestroyer said:
fmdog44 said "They were natives to this land and the name of this land is America therefore...."

Definition of native (Entry 2 of 2) 1 : one born or reared in a particular place. 2a : an original or indigenous inhabitant. b : something indigenous to a particular locality. 3 : a local resident especially : a person who has always lived in a place as distinguished from a visitor or a temporary resident.

thusly according to fmdog44 since I was born here in 'america' I am a native american... hi ya hi ya woo ya
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No Einstein you have it backwards and you are not a native but you might make a fine sqaw. Oh, and thank you for the C & P definition of "native".
 
I don’t know much about General Custer, but if you want to talk about the Civil War and especially the battles at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, you’ve come to the right place. I am not a CW historian, but living close to G’burg, I have studied the war for many years and decided to also include the battle at Chancellorsville.
 
911... my dads side of the family is from west virginia...apparently at the battle of the woods I lost a great great uncle who was shot in the foot and developed gangrene and died...I also lost a great great uncle in a pow camp in ohio from a childhood disease of some sort.....
 
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My great great great grandfather was a Confederate in Picket's Charge, and one of the few to make it up the hill and survive. He spent the rest of the war in an Ohio POW camp. He went to the 50th reunion of the battle and took my grandfather with him, who was about 20 at the time. I grew up hearing those stories over and over again. Here is his Wikitree page: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Burtchaell-141

He is my most recent immigrant ancestor, coming from Ireland in the 1850s. All others were here well before 1800. Don't feel like that makes me a "Native American" in the aboriginal sense, but yes I am native to this land, and feel no attachment to any other.
 
cdestroyer said:
number one.. custer was not a general at the little big horn!
and why even today people still think columbus discovered america is beyond me!!
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That's right. He had been demoded to colonel. IDK whether Custer's men commited suicide. I'm sure some did rather than risk capture. There were less than 300 men vs maybe 7,000 Indians of various tribes! :oops: Talk about being outnumbered.

But, let's not forget, Custer was probably the worst General in military history.
 
cdestroyer said:
911... my dads side of the family is from west virginia...apparently at the battle of the woods I lost a great great uncle who was shot in the foot and developed gangrene and died...I also lost a great great uncle in a pow camp in ohio from a childhood disease of some sort.....
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Well now, that's interesting. There are various lists on the internet of who died at G'burg. If it's not there, I think that you can enter the name yourself. The woods that you refer to, do you know the name? There are a few, but the most notable one is Pitzer's Woods, which is located on Seminary Ridge and was a bloody site to behold on 7/3/1863.

For information purposes only: A lot of men, like thousands of men, died from gangrene after being shot. There wasn't any penicillin at the time, so all they could do was to keep the wounds clean and give the injured morphine for the pain. Many of these victims had to have their limbs amputated to survive.

We have to keep in mind that little to nothing was known about keeping medical instruments clean and sterilized. Infections could also come from dirty instruments. Back then, medics knew nothing about boiling water to sterilize their instruments, including such things as knives and saws for operations and amputations. Cut a leg off with a dirty saw to help prevent gangrene from killing the injured man and they may die anyway from Sepsis due to a dirty saw. Doesn't sound fair, does it?

Each year on 7/1-7/3 the Reenactment of the Battles take place. It's something to see, especially if you have never seen it before. The battle that I find most interesting and exciting is Pickett's Charge. It only lasted about an hour, but had a devastating effect on the South's ability to win the G'burg battles. It was after this battle that Lee decided to withdraw his troops and go back down south and to never invade the North again.

It was 4 months later that President Lincoln gave his famous Gettysburg Address at the new National Cemetery. Years back, my wife and I took a train ride, which followed the path Lincoln took on his way to G'burg to give his Address to the Nation. I think Lincoln's train went faster than ours did. I would bet my house that we didn't go over 15 mph the whole ride.
 
911 I stand corrected after some research I found that I had misquoted my info... it was the battle of the wildernes of which I speak
 
cdestroyer said:
911 I stand corrected after some research I found that I had misquoted my info... it was the battle of the wildernes of which I speak
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No problem. I remember reading about this battle because the hero and considered the best General at the battle of G’burg was General Meade who along with General Grant took on Lee’s army. I think that it was the first battle where Grant and Lee fought it out and no winner was ever declared.
 
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