Great work on all your little big horn videos! I live in “Custer Country” and I’ve learned so much watching the whole playlist. Keep up the great work and I can’t wait to watch more!

Hi, I think the core question is- How many soldiers are missing? aka If there 500? buried and 30 unacounted for then t sounds like the deep ravine should be looked at

Souvenir

Thats because we are barbarians. Our history bears this out. Its who we are...

They were mutilated so when they enter the after life their bodies were messed up.

"I got tired of fighting and wanted to dance"- Chief Rain in the Face

Very interesting. greatly appreciated the topographical views. Wish you had used a larger and more contrasting font when placing identifying names by most of the markers. And BTW the word is ca-val-ry and not cal-vary. Small matter. Common mistake but for historical narrative purposes accuracy, even in small details, adds integrity. Well done.

In their configuration, without having the ability to traverse the guns, I don't think the Gatlings would have made an effective difference for Custer. However, if there had been a way for the trooper firing it to be able to elevate and traverse by hand, then absolutely, they would have been a game changer and probably would have saved Custer and his command from annihilation.

I see Terry not reading the room. He should have realized that, no matter how talented he thought Custer was, Custer was going to glory hound any assignment given him. Custer was going to charge headlong into the first group of Indians that he found, regardless of the consequences on Terry's overall plan. Terry was saddled with a batch of poor quality senior officers. Gibbon's scouts found the Indians, but Gibbon did not keep track of them. Cooke got his nose blooded, but could still have pursued the Indians, or at least kept an eye on them. He also did not advise Terry about what happened at Rosebud Creek. Custer was not the great Indian fighter he was made out to be. He did not listen to his scouts and the only tactic he would have ever employed was a frontal assault. In this sort of situation, explicit orders to Custer were needed. So it is a well made point that Custer had no orders to disobey. But Terry should have known what Custer would do and how it would hamper the former's overall plan. Custer needed his ego salved after his recent troubles. Terry did not realize that Custer only cared about the public perception he could generate, not fulling his smaller role in Terry's overall efforts.

When I was at the Deep Revine, about 15 years ago the place was choked with weeds, brambles and brush. You couldn't walk into it and they had signs telling you not to. It isn't that "deep", but one can see how soldiers would take cover in it. One can also easily see how Indians would have gathered around the edges of the revine and shot down at the troopers inside. I have no idea what happened to the 28 bodies. No one does. It is not a happy place, very little of the battlefield is.

Taking the Gatling guns along, and having them make a difference, would have required a far better tactician than Custer. The leader that was needed was one that would listen to his scouts and explore the terrain before engaging in battle. Even if the issues of getting the Gatling guns to the Little Big Horn and having to aim the guns by maneuvering the whole gun could be overcome, you would need a leader who saw the value in tactics other then a fast frontal assault by cavalry. Maybe set the guns on the high ground and shoot at the village. Probably very few Indians would have been hit, but village would have been hastily evacuated, with the Indians leaving most of their possessions behind. These possessions could then have been destroyed, leaving the Indians is a state where they would have to surrender and be taken to the reservations. This sort of scorched earth tactic was often used. Just finished this book which is a novel where Custer did take the Gatling guns with him. www.amazon.com/Custers-Gatling-Guns-Machine-Little/dp/1926585011/ref=sr_1_1?sr=8-1

Or... Finckle is Einhorn, Einhorn is Finckle...

Don't like the music it detracts from the story

Keough honored by the Indians

Bullshit.. gov and fur traders paid bounties for Native hair. Native hair was long and strong, making it valuable to wig makers in europe and britian. Wig making was a very lucrative business in the 18th century. The wig makers concealed where they got their hair from. Many Europeans and British suffered from syphilis. This disease caused the head to have bald patches. These people were concerned more about fashion than ethics. Some of the upper class knew where the hair came from. Most of them didn't or just didn't care. Our history books hide the truth about this horrific Genocide. Changing Native history has allowed more control over Native Americans . Creating a new history saves them from voiceing apologies

Read a good history book on Red Clouds war. You will get a much more accurate account of the battle than this video.

Sounds like the Government (U.S. Grant) didn't want to expend money and time to and implement measures to find those missing in the Deep ravine. There are too many statements from the Native American Chiefs to dispute the fact there were 20-30 soldiers that lost their lives there and it was like trying to recreate a murder scene to find those bodies.

I wish they would teach this history in schools

There is no Interstate 94 in that vicinity. Only Interstate 90.

Never trust any government ever ! They are no different now than they were then they are Parasites ! I hope all Native Americans heed my words

i think it doesn't matter exactly where the soldiers bodies were. we honor our deceased soldiers as best we can. in many wars, in many battles, we don't know exactly where every soldier lay when he passed away. memorial day.

I ain’t watched this yet but “we’re fighting over cows?” Is really silly as cows are a very important thing to us

Anyone here because of Yellowstone?

Dna testing can be done on the bones and find his relatives down the line and be traced back surely someone has tested dna from his family.

I never cease to be amazed how much interest there is in the Custer fight, while the Battle of the Wabash (aka "St Clair's Defeat") of 4th November 1791 which was the greatest defeat ever inflicted on the US Army by Native Americans, is largely forgotten.

I have stood at the top of Reno hill many times and looked down the steep ground that the troopers had to struggle up to reach the relative safety of the top of the ridge. It was not an easy climb and when they reached the top they must have been exhausted and not a little bit paniced. I doubt that the Indians followed them. They must have stood at the bottom if the cliffs and shot the troopers as they scratched and struggled in the loose dirt. Eighty or a hundred yards? I don't know, but it's a ways. At the top today there are half a dozen tombstones. One can read the names of the soldiers who didn't make it.

Custer’s ego got his men killed rather than the lack of Gatling guns. Two large losses of innocent lives make me hate two men in history: Custer and Capt James Mason of the SS Sultana. Ego and greed.

We're you looking for Captain Jacks Cave or going to business meeting?

Would love to see you do a video on the Seminole Wars. Although it may not technically be western, I feel like it'd fit right into your niche of Native wars.

Custer was an idiot

Nice presentation on an age old question. What if ❓. oops nevermind too late. 👍

Wow, what a trial for you guys and just imagining a 220 pound man in old-fashioned clothing and probably poor boots with feet getting wet, not good tech modern ones. Unimaginable. It sure is beautiful country but in winter and blizzard conditions, unforgiving and frightening.

amazing story❤

i think that the settlers and natives were equally as evil people, it's so gross that they scalped people and it's gross in general that the human race scalps each other

Well, we can go on commenting on something that’s very difficult (and controversial) to really know if it would’ve made a difference, the British used Gatling guns on some of their battles with the Zulus in South Africa and the weapons made a huge difference. So who knows what would’ve happened?

The 7th had no wagons during their last days... The pack mules hideously slowed down the column and badly stretched it out. Congress refused to pay for quality horses to draw the Gatlings... The Army was forced to purchase animals that had already been rejected as Cavalry remounts. *Maybe* Reno/Benteen on the hill where they were under siege *might* have gotten some decent service out of a Gatling... *if* it ever could have made it there. . As to Custer's five troops...no more than one died specifically at Last Stand Hill... the rest had been deployed over too much terrain in anticipation of being an attacking force. *If* a Gatling could have made it to Last Stand Hill...most likely the four man crew would have been killed before they could have ever deployed it. This wasn't an MG-42 that could have been fired from the prone position. The troopers there under fire from all sides. Many of the Sioux and Cheyenne rode up to within 50 meters and then dismounted... (relatively small number of dead Indian ponies on the site confirms that large number of warriors dismounted and firing from cuts in the terrain.) . In 1893 Rhodesian police and militia deployed Maxim guns against the Matabele...(a Zulu offshoot) to great effect... But the Europeans were laagered up in prepared positions...and the Matabele impis advanced in thousands...shoulder to shoulder... They attempted to overrun the Rhodesians and thousands were killed. But the Sioux and the Cheyenne had no such notion... a large percentage fought from behind cover...rifles and bows...and only closed for the kill in the last moments... Other than a couple of battles where the Matabele attacked in packed masses against prepared defenses... the Maxim guns were not of much use... -YP-

20/20 hindsight is always easy. try living it

04:10 Also the difference is that Europeans still needed to be able to identify the killed person unlike the Native Americans. In other words. When Europeans beheaded someone it was proof of WHO they killed. Like when a bounty hunter or Soldier that killed a bandit or pirate leader needed to show to the authorities that it was the right person he killed. Native Americans though, scalping was not a proof of WHO they killed. But simpyl that they HAVE killed an enemy. It was more of a war trophy than a "identification of the killed one".

Vanity

The Gatling guns would of slowed Custer up, so then Terry would of been closer plus the Indians would of moved closer to Terry.

The government policy was to convince the Indians to return to the reservations. Custer wasn't trying to kill as many Indians as he could. Custer's objective was to surprise the Indian village and then destroy or capture as many horses as possible. No horses, no raiding, the reason the Indians left the reservations. The Army preferred the 3" ordinance rifled cannon because it gave more bang for the buck. It wasn't needed here. The LBH was truly a scandal that can be laid at the feet of Grant.

Custer and his own men went out by their own hand before the indiands could iven get to them

I'm interested in finding Where Herny Siefferman died on the battlefield. His mom berried in our hometown

Historian here. Scalping also happened during World War II, especially against the Japanese, but also against the German troops.

No argument with goldielocks, to slow and cumberson.

Thank You. I did not know that that model of Gatling could not be rotated upon its own carriage. but that the whole carriage had to be manhandled by the trail. From what I have read over the years, especially the archeological reports and mapping of battlefield artifacts after wildfires had burned off decades of grass and brush overgrowth, was that the Indians were far better equipped with repeating rifles than had been previously known. The terrain allowed the Indians to engage the cavalry at ranges where the rate of fire of their weapons overwhelmed the rate of fire of the weapons of the Cavalry. Given the terrain, the Gatling guns offered would not have been able to keep pace with the battlefield. Some experience in Vietnam with Quad Fifty Guntrucks. Battery E, 41st Arty.

Indians and Soldiers have done reenactments as early as 1 year after the battle. Those bullets, buttons and relics would have mixed in with the real relics. Take a look at how many reenactments have taken place at the Little Big Horn. 28 skeletons are a lot of bones. I wonder if somewhere along the way all the bones had been picked up and just put in a smaller mass grave. Here in Florida the site of the Dade Massacre they dug a trench and just put all bones in the trench. By the time they found the bodies here, all that existed were bones. You have to realize this is just a short time after the Civil war where this was very common practice and not much was thought of it.

The British Army tried to use Gatling guns around the same time during the Zulu war and Nile campaign in Sudan, both in terrain better suited against largely infantry type enemies, albeit many, many times more numerous and fanatical than the Sioux. They largely failed, too mechanically unreliable and difficult to deploy. Gatling guns were purely a step towards machine guns and it took another 40 years before the usage of machine guns were properly employed.

The decision not to take guns was actually a wise decision. They would not have helped much anyway. I'm glad they didn't have them because more tribesmen may have been injured. Colonel Custer took many with him in his string of bad decisions. He should not have been there. But it will always serve as a good Operation to study.

Even if Custer had the Gatling guns, there is still the issue of getting them deployed to a defensible site. By the time they would have known that the battle had shifted from offense to defense (and that happened quickly), there simply wasn't enough time to set up a rally point to deploy the guns. You just don't know ahead of time which direction your retreating troops are going to be heading. And there is no way Custer was going to set up a defensive retreat point ahead of the battle. He simply didn't think he would ever need one.