Elizabeth "Libbie" Custer spent 57 years glorifying and defending her husband’s reputation and keeping his legend alive. Custer’s Last Stand: Portraits in Time amzn.to/2qwUlCP
I've always been struck by how beautiful she was. Not that it has any bearing on the Little Bighorn engagement, but I'm surprised that is so rarely mentioned when discussing her life, both before and after the battle.
It is true Custer was bad with money. The sad thing is that a lot of information was suppressed to spare Libbie. It was a different time, and you can see it in things like the marker for James Sturgis. There was probably not that much omitted, but keeping mum to avoid hurting her feelings until after she passed didn't work so well, as she outlived all the officers. Making Custer into some sort of paragon of virtue was her way of honoring him. I don't think she intentionally took an earthy, living man and turned him into a statue.
The Indians were in fact far better armed than the federal government or anyone had anticipated. Custer was not only way outnumbered, but also outgunned .
That's incorrect that he was "outgunned". The warriors may have had more repeating rifles than intelligence reports estimated (they had bought many winchesters and other rifles from gun runners over the winter); that said, the Springfield carbines that the troopers had was superior in range, accuracy and durability. Only in rate of fire were the winchesters superior (Springfields were single shot). Look at the facts, not the myths pushed for over 100 years: Custer was caught out in an open plain, with no boulders or trees for cover, so only at that point did the repeating rifles become decisive. After he and his 200 men were wiped out the remaining 1200 or more warriors attacked the remaining 400 plus troopers on Reno hill. Those 400 held off around 1200 warriors for another day and a half. If they were "outgunned" how could they have held them off? Warrior casualties during the battle were relatively light, problably less than 100 killed. Many myths are still being pushed about this battle, among others: Custer disobeyed orders, Custer should not have split his force, Custer intended to murder women and children". One should research this battle and get the facts.
Yes single shot 4570 trapdoors were prone to failure to extract and a poor choice of arms for a battle rifle. Repeating Winchester rifle was a far superior and effective rifle. Cluster also foolishly left the munitions wagon out of range for resupply and his troopers only carried about 3 pistol reloads of ammo on them. Yes they were outnumbered and outgunned
@@TWS-pd5dc I'll compromise to that. I own a Springfield trapdoor and make my own loads for it. It was/is in fact a better weapon than those repeaters then for range, accuracy, and stopping power. But like you said when the Indians closed in on Custer's soldier's positions in the open fields, the rate of fire took over. More than 800 warriors were armed with a big variety of firearms. Also some of the Springfields and ammo were stripped from some of the dead soldiers and turned around on what was left of Custer's command on the hill.
The repeating rifle would be better in close combat, but the army should have armed each squad within the companies with both. Too bad the M1 Garand wasn't available then.
@@TWS-pd5dc I don't think Custer was planning on murdering women and children at the Little Big Horn, Although it is something he had done in past raids. His plan was to use the women and children as a shield attacking from the rear south along the river towards Reno's skirmish line. His planning was poor, and his execution was even worst. The 7th at the LBH was adequately armed. However they were on poor or spent mounts. They had ridden some distance before the battle started. The troops were green, poorly trained troopers who couldn't ride or shoot according the historical record. Very small number of Indian's killed or wounded. If you look at the monument placements on Last Stand Hill they are scattered all over the place, no defensive line was ever established. The Indians claim Custer was actually killed in a ravine below the hill and was carried up by the solders. Crazy Horse when asked how long the battle lasted with Custer said, 'About as long as a hungry man takes to eat dinner. Reno was the real hero. He held out for a day and half on Reno hill. But here again not that many Indian causalities.
Before Libby Custer wrote her books her husband had written one of his own. It was entitled "My Life on the Plains". It was frequently referred to as "My Lie on the Plains" by Custers detractors. He richly embellished his activities and actions to bolster his own contributions and victories in battle and dealings with the Indians and others.
No doubt She was a Beautiful Woman, a Loyal & devoted Wife, who idolized Her Husband too the End of Her own Life. The financial gain from Her, popular Books & Her memories of Him. Were what sustained Her, after His Death. Also Her Family was really well aquatinted with Senior Officer's in Washington, such as Major General Sheridan, President Grant, & Army C&C Major General Sherman as well. IN other words, She had Friends in some very prominent places. Uhh 🤔😬😬 that didn't Hurt Her cause at All. TKS. 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
If not for the Little Big Horn, Custer might have been an American Caesar. Custer was ambitious, reckless, and possibly a psychopath. I doubt the Custer life was blissful. They were on the bloody frontier. Elizabeth's accounts contradict the writings of officers who served with Custer. That being said, it's nice to see a wife stand by her man and defend him, particularly when he was down and dead.
He reportedly had syphilis, caught during the civil war, became sterile and that's supposedly why he had no children with Libbie---- Graduated last in his class at West Point, he was a rogue officer who didn't like following orders... He got court-martialed twice for going AWOL and demoted... No hero in my book......
I highly suspect Custer as is so many Vet's of all wars become during war time if not they had that beforehand. Some people just born that way. Is what today is called Adrenaline/ Epinephrine Junkie. Love to live there life on the very edge.
Proof she was making things up that really weren't true, she didn't know much about firearms. And here's where fault statements prove , and disprove things in history. she said "the Indians were better armed than we were " but then she says that the weapons being supplied to the Indians wore Springfield's, does she not know that it was Springfield's that the US government was armed with in this conflict ? a lot of surplus muzzleloading springfields were sold cheaply has surplus from the government to anyone who could pay for them and a lot of these were traded to the Indians but these were not superior to the breech loading trap door Springfield and they certainly were not superior to the repeating Spencer rifles the federal government had.
The Indians had winchester repeaters. They also didn't have enough men to back them up. It's is also possible she misspoke but she wasn't lying, the US govt didn't trust the average solder with repeater arms and most often equipped them with Trapdoors 45 70s because they'd be very far from the nearest trading post or fort.
@@humansvd3269 The reason the US went with the Springfield 46/70 is the range factor, the Henry and model 66 Winchester's did not have the range. The tactics of the US cavalry on the field of combat does not work well vs the Indians and at the Little Big Horn Custer's command is poorly lead and on ground that did away with the range advantage and played into the close in fighting the Indians like and had a huge advantage with their fighting tactics. Reno's is the only one to take advantage of the terrain and it is Reno that picked were to defend at Reno Hill. Custer's command did not draw pistols to shoot their way out like Reno's command, let Reno's command lived to fight another day.
@@Tellgryn Exactly correct on every point. (except that it is .45-70 and not 46/70 --- 45 caliber and 70 grains of blackpowder). Still a popular cartridge today and Marlin markets a carbine as suitable for T-Rex since the character in one of those Jurassic Park movies carried a .45-70 lever action when facing off with dinosaurs.
Why? they spent their spare time raiding farmers and settlers headed to Oregon along with several other Indian Tribes. They were the Taliban of their day and had to be established on the Reservation.
Fact is , they had a lot of spare time before "whites" even set a foot on American soil . Horse thieves , robbers and murderers , with or without whites . Just a few tribes established themselves as farmers, peace loving or not . All the others, and there were many , just a gangsters , slaughtering each other for fun ( and profit of course )
@@daviddougan6961 Exactly correct. In addition, this was not their native land. They had just defeated the Crow and taken over the black hills -- they'd been in possession for a dozen years at most. Not some ancestral territory at all. In fact, Lewis & Clark bumped into the Sioux in southern Michigan on their journey. They were not "plains indians" because the whole idea of mounted natives was dependant in enough Spanish horses getting loose and breeding freely on the plains. The Sioux migrated west, badly mauled the Arikara (who were forever after their enemy and avidly sought jobs as scouts for the American cavalry), took over their land and then continued to expand westwards. The sioux got the Badlands barely ahead of US expansion and far later than white trappers.
