Custer also faced a truly devastating problem: his command disintegrated. Suddenly faced with the shock of many, many more Indians than they anticipated -- Indians who were literally fighting for their families -- Custer's men hesitated and began a disjointed retreat that turned into a rout. They bunched up, as men in deadly combat will, command and control was destroyed, and in effect the companies simply dissolved into small groups and individuals fighting overwhelming numbers.

This has happened before -- at Agincourt, for example, when the English archers searched through piles of French bodies "as high as a man" trying to find live foes to hold for ransom. It happened to the French army in WW1 when 54 out of 100 divisions refused to serve at the front. And it has happened before and it will happen again.

Couple this with the lack of training Custer's men had -- at that time soldiers were trained by the regiment, piecemeal, no formal course of instruction; little or no marksmanship training; and a dare-devil, devil-may-care leader who seems to have made a habit of winning by attacking, and you have a disaster.

True, the Indians did not fight as a cohesive body, but when the enemy is broken the enemy is beaten and you don't need a Napoleon or a Robert E. Lee to destroy them.

By the way, the forgoing analysis is derived from archealogical studies of the battlefield -- and modern knowledge of combat psychology.