Ah, but Rap, don't forget, there is a long and glorious tradition for electing total incompetents to the office of president of the USA...specially if they have good military credentials and have won a battle or two. That's electoral and box office dynamite. Very similar to Rome in the good old days. ;-)

I don't know if Benteen hurried or not, but I really don't think it would have made any difference that time. He would not have gotten there. Crazy Horse and the lads had the situation well in hand.

Custer may have sent Benteen way off to the side because he did not want him sharing in the glory when they took the Indian camp. Wouldn't that be very, very ironic?

All of Custer's other fights had amounted basically to a glorious cavalry charge which swept all before it, Errol Flynn-style. I suppose he expected to pull it off like that one more time, although his Indian scouts had clearly warned him that this time there were just too many Lakota to deal with. He ridiculed them and called them "women". In response, they turned away and prepared themselves ritually for death...and many of them found it that day. He seems to have had a habit of not listening to cautionary advice.