BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Apr 06 - 06:49 PM

Crazy Horse deserves as big a memorial as he can get, in my opinion, but I think carving up mountains is a kind of strange idea. I'd be more inclined to build a statue.

Here are some other famous attacks that occurred at dawn in or the pre-dawn hours:

the final Mexican assault on the Alamo

the German assault on France and the Low Countries

the German assault on Russia

attack on Pearl Harbour (just before 8 AM, Hawaiian time)

D-Day seaborne landings (began at 6:30 AM)

Hell, make that EVERY significant German assault in WWII, and most of the significant Allied assaults as well. Dawn IS the natural time to attack if you want to attack with maximum effectiveness and make maximum use of the available hours of daylight.

Custer was vain. He was a braggart. He was an arrogant martinet. He lied to the Indians and assisted in the breaking of signed treaties. He was ruthless and merciless to their encampments. He was over-ambitious and reckless to a fault. He was a glory-seeker. But he sure as hell was no coward.

His one other good point, seemingly, was that he loved his very loyal wife Libby dearly, but...he was rumored to have had a significant affair with a Lakota Indian woman in any case.

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: catspaw49
Date: 07 Apr 06 - 07:23 PM

Hey Sham......You noted that Peter O'Toole played the role in the movie. Did you ever notice that Peter O'Toole has a double phallic name? Very appropriate!!!

BTW......Custer was born just a few miles from my hometown of Dennison in even tinier New Rumley, not far from Cadiz where Clark Gable was born. I dunno' what the hell particular relevance that has to do with anything.........I guess that at least three handsome devils came from the area.

Also Sham.....Here is the Crazy Horse Carving website with photos CHECK IT OUT ......If I were related to Crazy Horse I might object to the nose......geez, what a blower!!! I was there in '96 myself. It really hasn't changed much. They also have on their site A LIVE WEBCAM!!!!! .......WOW!!!!! Considering this thing has been in progress (I use the word loosely) for almost 60 years now, the irony of a live webcam is, well, uh.....ironic....................Anyway if you're really bored it is THE PLACE TO BE ON THE WEB!!!

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Apr 06 - 07:36 PM

Wow. If you watch for 15 minutes or so, you can see that the shadows on the small statue have moved a fraction of an inch. I bet this gets really exciting around sunset, eh? ;-D

Oh, look...there's a bird.

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: catspaw49
Date: 07 Apr 06 - 07:42 PM

Custer has a memorial statue in his hometown but its kind of a pissant little thing...as it should be!

Little Phil Sheridan has a lot nicer monument as he should in his hometown of Somerset ......just about 8 miles from where I live now......As it should be because Sheridan was about 50 times the General that Custer was. BTW, 8 miles in the other direction is the hometown of W.T.Sherman.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Apr 06 - 07:53 PM

I can't stand Sheridan, but that's because I'm a southern sympathizer and an Indian-lover. ;-)

I have to admit he was a very effective general. Too damned effective, in fact.

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: John O'L
Date: 07 Apr 06 - 08:39 PM

I have read that the Indians learned scalping from the Spanish, and I'm wondering how many other of the abovementioned 'military' tactics were learned from Europeans, and how many they actually practiced before first contact.

(Don't get me wrong. I'm not blindly trying to defend their savage nobility. I really am wondering.)

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Apr 06 - 08:54 PM

There are many conflicting opinions about that, John. Some sources say the whites introduced the practice first in various places, but I don't think anyone has definitive proof of that. While the whites made scalping into a lucrative business (paying a cash bounty for scalps of men $$$, women $$, and even children $) the Indians did it for prestige purposes. Doing it for money certainly strikes me as more despicable on the whole. There were cases aplenty of white scalpers killing other whites, specially Mexicans, as long as they could get some black hair that just looked like it came from an Indian and get paid for it!

Anyway, if the whites originated the practice it caught on mighty fast, and it must have spread rapidly, because many Indians out west were known to do it even before they encountered any whites. (they were killing other Indians in tribal warfare and scalping them)

What the Indians were very well known for was hideously torturing and abusing their captives...or on some other occasions adopting them into the family and treating them well. On still other occasions...turning them into slaves.

Seems like there was all manner of behaviour, good and bad. Which aspect people focus most on is usually indicative of what cross they most prefer to bear or which drum they best like to beat, if you know what I mean... ;-)

I am very pro-Indian by nature, but I'm not about to turn a blind eye to the Indian atrocities committed in war either, and those were pretty common. Atrocities seem to have been the rule of the day on either side, sad to say.

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: John O'L
Date: 07 Apr 06 - 09:13 PM

It would seem that humanity is humanity all over, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Apr 06 - 09:29 PM

Yup.

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: John O'L
Date: 07 Apr 06 - 09:30 PM

Oh, and as for the pre-dawn slaughter of civilians - regarding it as a legitimate military tactic does not make it any less shameful.

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Ebbie
Date: 07 Apr 06 - 09:39 PM

lol, Bill. Those poor guys! Remind me mightily of oosiks.

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Apr 06 - 09:47 PM

No, of course it's shameful. However, Custer would have gotten a medal and maybe a chance at the presidency someday if he had managed such a massacre of the encamped Indians at Little Big Horn...and the nasty details would have been overlooked by a delighted and grateful nation. ;-)

In the eyes of most of the Indian fighters back then, no Indian was a "civilian". Read the accounts of the time, and that is plain.

To put it in General Sherman's immortal words to an Indian at one of the negotiations he did with the embattled tribes of the West: "The only good Indians I ever saw were dead." This later got changed a little in the common vernacular to the much-repeated saying: "The only good Indian is a dead Indian."

That's very politically incorrect now. In 1876 it was American gospel. The USA was built upon the deliberate genocide of most of its original inhabitants. When I was a kid in the 50's and early 60's, those inhabitants were routinely shown at the movies as simply murderous, screeching savages, gun fodder for another generation of American heroes to blast into eternity..."Another Injun bites the dust! Yee-Haw!"

That facade began to crack in the mid-60's...along with the whole general facade of Eisenhower's suburban Ozzie and Harriett American dream where the good guys all wear white hats, shoot straight, and salute Old Glory at 7 AM every day when they recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Ebbie
Date: 07 Apr 06 - 10:22 PM

Little Hawk, it seems to me that those shoot 'em up movies you saw in the 50s and early 60s must have been made a good deal earlier. Long before that, there was a cult developing about the "noble savage". As long as he wasn't a "half breed". You just couldn't trust one of them if he was half white. (Wonder who ever came up with some of those ridiculous notions that many people unquestioningly accepted.)

When I was a kid in the 40s and I and my brothers played 'Cowboys and Indians', the Indians usually won. And some very popular books were out there that fed into our fantasies.

There were also many songs about Indians in that genre at that time and earlier. Remember 'Red Wing'? 'Snow Deer'? 'Running Bear'?

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Apr 06 - 10:55 PM

It's a complicated story and isn't liable to get any easier as years pass. Indians are now writing their own stories, but many recognize that the filter--the language they are using to tell their stories--makes a big difference in who reads them. In their own languages stories are passed down to native speakers. To write in English is the way to reach a larger audience, but in using the "enemies language" provides some hurdles that various writers have approached in interesting ways.

Many people have read the heart-pounding Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown and Black Elk Speaks (transcribed and interpreted by John Niehardt). If you look at this territory of the story of white/Indian battles and in particular Little Big Horn like a large circle and slice it into perspectives and read lots of stories, with each a slightly different take on the battle at the middle of the pie, then you begin to understand those perspectives. Read Mari Sandoz' Crazy Horse and Standing Bear's My People the Sioux then read Erdoe's Lame Deer Seeker of Visions and move forward to the late Vine Deloria's Custer Died for Your Sins. Shift locations a bit to the Black Hills and look at how others have viewed the Ghost Dance and Wounded Knee (first and second) and see how authors like Gerald Vizenor and Gordon Henry and Louise Erdrich and many others view their past and their present.

What an oddly serious discussion to evolve out of speculation about Errol Flynn's dick. But the tricksters among the Indians writers could turn this into a witty and biting essay, I'm sure of it. I know a few who've written similar things about the movies and how they reflect [not] Indian life and history.

SRS (English Major, MA 1999, emphasis Am. Indian Lit--can you tell?)

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Apr 06 - 11:32 PM

Well, Ebbie, the cult of the "noble savage" goes a long way back. There were always some white people who saw the Indians in that context, and in some cases they romanticized them out of all reason.

An interesting read is Ernest Thompson Seaton's "The Gospel of the Red Man". Seaton was convinced he had been an Indian in a previous life, and he greatly admired their culture and spoke in defence of it. I have always felt much the same as he did...Indians were my heroes from the earliest age. I suspect he was an Indian in another life, but I'm not gonna argue with anyone about it. ;-)

Most of the movies and TV shows I saw as a kid had the Indians there just to provide "bad guys" for the good guys to shoot at, but there were some exceptions. A few. The Errol Flynn movie in the 40's was one of the first to make some attempt to depict how corrupt politicians and businessmen had stolen Indian land and provoked Indian wars...but it totally whitewashed Custer's personal role in what happened.

Custer was an anachronism. He seemed to only really be in his full element when in battle or on the trail to martial glory (a bit like George Patton in a later era?), and I get the feeling from biographical material that he was about as regretful of the free and open days of the Plains Indians coming to an end as any white man was...because it meant an end to the adventurous life he craved. For him to die in that battle was just about perfect. The life he enjoyed living the most was almost over anyway. His wife Libby, however, missed him terribly, and she seems to have spent the rest of her days doing everything possible to lend lustre to his legend. She'd be very upset with the contemporary revisionist views of her darling now, I'm afraid. ;-)

I've read several of those books you mention, Stilly, back when I was in my 20's. I never did read the Mari Sandoz one, though, or the Vine Deloria one, though I was aware of them being around.

Another book about the Indians I enjoyed greatly was "Seven Arrows" by Hyemeyosts Storm, and there was another about Crazy Horse called "Great Upon the Mountain".

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Rapparee
Date: 07 Apr 06 - 11:34 PM

I really don't think Custer could have become President no matter what he did. Remember that he had to beg and plead to be allowed to go back to the 7th Cav before the LBH fight -- he was close to being court martialed again. Also, his permanent rank was Lieutenant Colonel -- he was brevetted to Brigadier General during the Civil War and reverted when the war was over to his permanent rank; to call him "General" was to apply a courtesy title.

He was a daring and brave person, but I think he lacked a lot of good sense. Most of his troopers disliked him, and Reno and Benteen REALLY didn't care for him or he for them. (Benteen, by the way, was sent off to scout around the LBH battle area carrying all the spare ammunition with him. Custer himself sent a note recalling him; Benteen may or may not have hurried in response.)

Custer was also a martinet (but many military leaders were at the time) and was big on nepotism -- Tom Custer rode with his brother at the LBH.

Recent archeology work at the Greasy Grass battlefield, especially involving the recovery and siting of spent bullets, give a fascinating picture of what happened.

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Apr 06 - 12:34 AM

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.

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: The Shambles
Date: 08 Apr 06 - 02:52 AM

"My fellow chiefs and I would like the white man to know that the red man has great heroes, too."
-- Henry Standing Bear, 1939

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: The Shambles
Date: 08 Apr 06 - 04:08 AM

The history of the Crazy Horse Monument must be seen in the context of the nearby and currently better known (if much smaller) Mount Rushmore monument.

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Apr 06 - 09:57 AM

So still no insights into whether the moguls of Hollywod thought, that man's cock, it has star quality. Give it it's own dressing room. And he talks like high class limey while he's flashing, hey....that's a class act!

Must have been intentional on the studios part.....!

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Apr 06 - 11:10 AM

Its own dressing room? Could it be detached and everything?

LH, the political crowd would have killed Custer. He was vain and had an opinion of himself far greater than he was (read his books and those of his wife). He was basically a nasty, vain, little martinet -- in his court-martial that came out. He overstepped the bounds and offended Sheridan, his superior. No, he couldn't have been made President; if he had he would have been the first actor-president instead of Reagan.

Brave? Yes, to the point of fool-hardiness, and amply demonstrated in his Civil War career.

To send your reloads off to scout a different area, to ignore the advice of your scouts -- IF he had survived his men he would have been court-martialed and drummed out of the service in disgrace. His vanity would have been, and was, his downfall and he got his "gray horse troops" killed as well.

Like Douglas MacArthur, Custer was too vain and proud and his bubris brought him down.

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Apr 06 - 11:23 AM

"bubris"

Bubba + Hubris

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Apr 06 - 01:09 PM

I agree with you 100%, Rapaire. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Apr 06 - 05:23 PM

Benteen, Come on, Big village, Be quick, bring packs.
W.W. Cooke      P.S. bring packs.
............

"The body of General Custer although perfectly nude was not mutilated. He had been shot in two place, one bullet had entered his body on the right side and passed nearly but not quite through, the second bullet, and undoubtedly the fatal one, passed thorugh his head entering close to the right ear and coming out near the left ear. Under his body was found four or five brass cartridges which, with a lock of his hair, was afterwards sent to his widow.

It was a very difficult matter to identify the body of Captain Tom Custer. He lay some ten or fifteen feet from the General and had been most shockingly mutilated. He had been split down through the center of his body and through the muscles of his arms and thighs, his throat was cut and his head smashed flat.... A careful search was made and although the arm was cut and somewhat blackened, the letters [T.W.C.] were found, and the body identified....."
..............

The second is from a letter written by First Sergeant John Ryan, who had charge of the burial detail, to William O. Taylor and quoted in Taylor's With Custer On the Little Big Horn (New York: Viking, 1996). Taylor fought with Reno.

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Teribus
Date: 08 Apr 06 - 05:24 PM

Point for comparison:

General George Armstrong Custer with around about 220 men faced with 650 odd Indians got slaughtered at the Little Big Horn.

Lieutenant Richard Merriot Chard, an officer of Engineers, with 135 men of the 2nd Battalion 24th Regiment of Foot faced with 4000 Zulus not only survived but defeated them.

Something to do with training and discipline under fire. Both incidents happened within three years of each other. In both cases the troops were similarly armed.

By the bye Little Hawk best estimate of the number of Indians present (Total) was between 950 to 1200, Custer's force was estimated to have been outnumbered 3 to 1 - in any event there were hardly thousands. If you do chose to relate something historical it is just as easy to be accurate.

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Apr 06 - 07:34 PM

Fine, "T". There were times when I knew the very facts you mention in every detail, God knows I read enough books about it, but I did not look them ALL up on Google this time to remind myself of EVERY LAST DETAIL. In other words, mate, go f*ck yourself gently with a wire brush. ;-)

Your Mr Chard had some advantages at Rorke's Drift that Custer did not at LBH. He had a fortification in which to make a stand, and some time to prepare his defence there. The Zulus he was facing had a small number of rifles among them (mostly only had assegais), but their riflemen had not the slightest idea how to use the sights (they generally aimed way too high). Crazy Horse's men knew how to use their guns very accurately. The Indians also had some rifles which were superior to Custer's...wait! I'll look it up on Google so I get it EXACTLY right for you...

(hold that thought)

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Apr 06 - 07:43 PM

Jesus, the time I have to spend documenting shit for you, Teribus...

Okay, here it is:

"But this Indian village was far larger than Custer imagined. It contained an estimated 8,000 Indians and more than 3,000 warriors and was led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. The village was three miles long and a half mile wide. (Custer had initially estimated the village's population did not exceed 1,500). Custer divided his command of 645 soldiers into three columns. Major Marcus Reno's detachment approached the Indian camp from the southeast and lost a third of its men. Reno's men retreated to a nearby ridge, where they were under siege for nearly two days.

Meanwhile, the buckskin-clad Custer and his men tried to open an attack on the Indians' flank. But the Indians had watched Custer lead his men along the bluffs overlooking the Little Big Horn, and 1500-2500 warriors attacked Custer's forces. His men, many of whom were raw recruits, were ill-prepared for combat. Lacking cover and relying on single-shot rifles, Custer's troops fired few bullets. In contrast, many of the Indians were carrying repeating rifles and carbines. Within an hour, every soldier in Custer's command had died. Indian losses in the battles totaled less than a hundred."


It's on this website:

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm?HHID=560

If you don't like it, go and argue with them about it instead of me.

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: John O'L
Date: 08 Apr 06 - 08:10 PM

Forget it weelittledrummer, your hopes are dashed.

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Alice
Date: 08 Apr 06 - 08:27 PM

When Bill Sables came to visit in Montana, he told me he thought it was very considerate of the Indians to kill Custer so close to the interstate highway.
You can come and visit the battle field if you like. Watch out for rattlesnakes on the trail to the monuments.

Alice

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: catspaw49
Date: 08 Apr 06 - 08:39 PM

Good ol' Bill....Astute as ever!!! I miss his presence around here. I spent a couple of the best nights I have enjoyed in the past ten years with him.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 09 Apr 06 - 01:13 AM

http://tafkac.org/faq2k/penis_418.html

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Melani
Date: 09 Apr 06 - 04:27 AM

This is definitely a very weird thread. Gnu, you can probably buy a copy of "They Died With Their Boots On" pretty cheap through Amazon--mine was $10 about a year ago. It does include a sung version of "Garry Owen," though not all the verses, but the words are easily available. I will look them up and post them, if you like.

Little Hawk, Rapaire, Stilly, etc.--The Indian woman who was Custer's mistress was Cheyenne, not Lakota, captured at the Washita. Her name was Meotzi or Monaseta, and it has been said that she considered herself married to him. Cheyenne oral tradition has it that she later had Custer's baby, but probably not--after a nasty case of gonhorrea at West Point, he probably couldn't reproduce. If Monaseta had a light-haired kid, it was probably Tom Custer's--she got passed on to him when Libby joined the regiment, and Tom already had an illegitimate son back in Ohio.

Speaking of nepotism, the Little Bighorn claimed three Custer brothers, one nephew, and a brother-in-law.

Re: brevet rank--it was the usual military courtesy to address officers by their brevet ranks rather than the actual ones. Most of the troop captains were Civil War vets and had brevets of Lt. Colonel from the war, and so were addressed as "Colonel" rather than "Captain," just as Custer was addressed as "General" rather than "Colonel." When the army was downsized after the war, most officers were reduced in rank, if not mustered out all together.

It was Major Joel Elliot who said, "Here goes for a brevet or a coffin!" as he left his assigned position at the Battle of the Washita. He and 18 men got the latter, and Custer created a permanent breach in the regiment when he didn't go looking for them for two weeks. Of course, if he had, the Little Bighorn would have happened on the Washita eight years earlier, since Elliot had ridden into about a gazillion more Indians downriver.

The currently popular estimate for the size of the Little Bighorn village is about 5,000, with about 2,000 of those being warriors. The guys who survived tended to estimate high, at least partly out of trauma and partly as an excuse for losing.

Custer was right about the Gatling guns--they were a humongous hassle, and they probably wouldn't have helped. The village would have dispersed long before Custer could have gotten there towing the things--which is exactly what happened to Terry and Gibbon, who were a day later than the planned rendezvous. The Indians saw them coming and left before they arrived.

Custer's experience was that the Indians would run if they could. He didn't know Crazy Horse had just totally whupped Crook on the Rosebud and was spoiling for more. He sent Benteen off to the south because he was afraid the Indians would try to get away in that direction--which doesn't make dividing the regiment any less stupid, because it was. The whole thing was stupid. He was supposed to wait for Gibbon and Terry, and the Indians would have been gone by then--after all, would you hang around with your wives and families if they were going to be attacked by a bunch of armed soldiers, or would you try to get them out of harm's way? While the warriors held off the soldiers, the women and children retreated to the bluffs to the west. Attacking in the middle of the day was also stupid.

The pack train with the spare ammo was made up of mules that had been trained for harness, not packs, and was lagging behind Benteen. Benteen arrived just in time to save Reno's behind--he had just lost about a third of his men in a pell-mell, helter-skelter retreat which the Indians described as "a buffalo shoot."

"They Died With Their Boots On" has absolutely nothing to do with reality expect that a guy named Custer was the field commander of the Seventh, though it does flirt with reality. Custer was honest in that he did not approve of graft, whatever else you may say about him, and he nearly didn't get to go on the expedition because he had testified against President Grant's brother (speaking of nepotism). Custer was also a self-centered, oblivious jerk who had no regard for the welfare of his men--they did three days of forced marches on the way to the Little Bighorn, and were exhausted when they arrived. Interestingly, I have recently realized that he was an absolute poster child for ADHD, and his brother Tom not far behind. It does run in families.

And one last tidbit, in response to Les's joke about the arrow--it ain't a joke. It's often said that Custer's body was not mutilated, but several sources dscribe just one thing that was done, but usually not mentioned out of respect for Libby--exactly what Les said. Monaseta was said to be there that day...So you see, it does all come back around to his willie!

I could go on...and on, and on, and on...but I'll stop now. If any of you guys want to get into this subject on a depth that is really unimaginable, check out http://www.lbha.org/ (bringing the two halves of my internet life together). If I haven't been around Mudcat a lot lately, it's because I've been there. And I have my summer vacation all planned--I will be attending the 130th anniversary reenactment of the battle. So now you know about my secret life!

Melani

P.S. Though the intention might be good, Crazy Horse would be totally grossed out by that monument!

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Teribus
Date: 09 Apr 06 - 04:46 AM

Battle of the Little Bighorn
Part of the Black Hills War, Indian Wars

Date: June 25 – June 26, 1876
Location: Near the Little Bighorn River, Big Horn County, Montana
Result: Native American victory

Combatants:
Lakota, Northern Cheyenne,Arapaho v United States

Commanders:
Sitting Bull,Crazy Horse v Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer

Strength:
Native Americans - (949 lodges), probably 950-1,200 warriors.
7th Cavalry - 31 officers, 566 troopers, 3 civilians, ~35-40 scouts

Casualties:
Native Americans ~200 killed (according to Yellow Horse, Red Horse and Little Buck Elk)
7th Cavalry ~268 killed (16 officers, 242 troopers, ~10 civilians/scouts), ~55 wounded

"Within roughly three hours, Custer's force was completely annihilated. Only two men from the 7th Cavalry later claimed to have seen Custer engage the Indians: a young Crow whose name translated as Curley, and a trooper named Peter Thompson, who had fallen behind Custer's column, and most accounts of the last moments of Custer's forces are conjecture. Lakota accounts assert that Crazy Horse personally led one of the large groups of Lakota who overwhelmed the cavalrymen. While exact numbers are difficult to determine, it is commonly estimated that the Northern Cheyenne and Lakota outnumbered the 7th Cavalry by approximately 3:1, a ratio which was extended to 5:1 during the fragmented parts of the battle. In addition, some of the Indians were armed with repeating Spencer and Winchester rifles, while the 7th Cavalry carried single-shot Springfield carbines, which had a slow rate of fire, tended to jam when overheated, and were difficult to operate from horseback.

The terrain of the battlefield gave Lakota and Cheyenne bows an advantage, since Custer's troops were pinned in a depression on higher ground from which they could not use direct fire at the Indians in defilade. On the other hand, the Lakota and Cheyenne were able to fire their arrows into the depression by lunching them on a high arching indirect fire, with the volume of arrows ensuring severe casualties. U.S. small arms might have been more accurate over open distances, but the fighting on this occasion was close combat where rate of fire and reliability of a weapon were more important attributes."

Source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Little_Bighorn

By the bye Little Hawk as you do not bother to check things, and for the sake of accuracy the Officer Commanding at Rourke's Drift was Lt. John Rouse Merriot Chard, Royal Engineers.

Custer's men fired few bullets because of the early type of fixed case ammunition supplied for the 1873 model Springfield Carbine had a copper cartridge. A serious flaw, if the gun had to be fired rapidly over an extended period the copper cartidge case would expand due to the heat of the breech causing the gun to jam, this problem disappeared when brass was used for the cartridge case. To give the impression that the Indians were better armed is erroneous, although some were armed with better rifles the majority were armed with lances and bows and arrows, the latter seemed to have done the damage. Custers men ill-disciplined, badly trained and very poorly led. Even armed as they were, in the position occupied, they only needed to form up in close order to repel a vastly superior force, deployed as Custer's men were, in extended skirmish lines they did not stand a chance as at no time could fire be concentrated, i.e. it was virtually everyman for himself from the outset.

In terms of studies there are two actions fought by British troops (Infantry) that should never have turned out the way they did. The Guards action in defence of Hougemont during the Battle of Waterloo and the defence of Rourke's Drift. The troops at Hougemont and at Rourke's Drift were the opposite of those Custer commanded, they were professional soldiers, highly disciplined, very well trained and in the actions mentioned well led.

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Apr 06 - 04:57 AM

ADHD?

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: The Walrus
Date: 09 Apr 06 - 05:12 AM

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder?

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: John O'L
Date: 09 Apr 06 - 05:22 AM

What did Les say about the arrow?

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: The Shambles
Date: 09 Apr 06 - 06:11 AM

P.S. Though the intention might be good, Crazy Horse would be totally grossed out by that monument!

Very possibly he would but if it was assumed that this was the way for those left behind to honour great leaders - it would be logical to wish the example set by the carving of (a little bit of Mt Rushmore) to be followed.

And equally logical to wish to see that scale exceeded for those who you wished to honour.

As size does seem to matter...........

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Apr 06 - 07:02 AM

oh

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Rapparee
Date: 09 Apr 06 - 11:07 AM

Teribus, as I'm sure you're aware a "lodge" was not a single family unit, but an extended family who lived together for mutual support and protection. There could have been from one to several fighting folks living in each lodge. In any case Custer deliberately ran into a buzz saw. (I earlier quoted a letter from 1SGT Ryan on Custer's wounds -- Custer had also had a digit removed from one of his fingers, a gash in one thigh, his eardrums pierced by a sewing awl, and an arrow shot into his genitals.)

Whose was the right and wrong?
Sing it, oh funeral song,
With a voice that is full of tears.
And say that our broken faith
Wrought all this ruin and scathe
In the year of a Hundred Years.
                     --H. W. Longfellow

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Apr 06 - 12:49 PM

Wikipedia is not an authoritative source for anything. It's a starting place, but you must read anything put there with a large grain of salt. Too many cooks in that kitchen, and no standardization as far as how they post and what slant they choose to place on their posts.

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 09 Apr 06 - 01:37 PM

Okay, back to the original discussion --

The 1941 Errol Flynn film "They Died With Their Boots On" is available for US$13.37 on DVD at www.DeepDiscountDVD.com.

Errol Flynn's films, of course, while eminently enjoyable, are not strong on actual history. But this one DOES have "Garyowen" played multiple times through the film and sung on at least one occasion.

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Apr 06 - 02:08 PM

I bother to check every last detail when I have sufficient time to, Teribus. Otherwise, I am basically just enjoying myself here, discussing (in a general way) a subject that interests me. If I were taking a university examination and getting marked for it, and my future depended on that mark, then I guess I would take the time to fully research and document every single word I utter on this forum, and provide footnotes.

Is it really that important?

Do you think anyone will care a year from now? I know I won't. Why do you bother? Scoring petty verbal victory points on me over this little fact or that little variation on the theme will not enhance your development as a human being or benefit your life in any way.

I only do the same in retaliation to you sometimes because I am probably as weak and foolish an emotionally reactive jerk as you are, and as insecure too...but at least I have the honesty to admit to it now and then. I've never heard you admit to any weakness.

Look, man, I have slowly grown to detest you, primarily because of your political bent...and I react to you the way a dog reacts to someone that has been taunting it and throwing stones at it every day for a few years. It's predictable. I gather you don't like me either. That's equally predictable. But for Christ's sake, we could go on niggling at each other about details of the Custer fight and Rorke's Drift (or Rourke's Drift, or whatever the hell) forever, and all it would prove is that both of us are really, really insecure people. So give it up, I say.

As for the info you posted: Very good. Sounds pretty accurate to me. Plenty of useful details. I could have looked it up too, and posted it. So could anyone else have, if they took the time. There are obviously a number of different opionions as to how many Indians assaulted Custer's unit at the "last stand", and I suspect that no one will every know for sure, including the people who were actually there at the time. I mean, how CAN anyone ever know for sure at this point?

Melani - Yes, you're right. Custer's Indian mistress was reputedly a Cheyenne woman, not a Lakota. Very good. Lots of other good info in what you posted too. Crazy Horse's 3-day battle against General Crook was an extraordinary display of fighting expertise by the Lakotas. It certainly came as a surprise to Crook, and it was the only battle he ever fought against Indians where he took a serious reverse. Crook seems to have been a very effective commander.

There seem to be some slightly differing accounts about the mutilations to Custer's body. Most accounts indicate that he received far less mutilation than many others there, but the details differ. I've heard that he had knitting needles driven in his ears by the Indian women to make holes "so he would hear better in his next life". I had not heard before that they lopped off his "willy" (which is what I assume you were referring to), but that would probably be because people weren't inclined to speak openly about it for fear that his wife would hear...as you say...or that children would hear. Much of this kind of thing gets sanitized after the fact for the history books.

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Apr 06 - 03:12 PM

Obviously I agree Little Hawk, if we can't find out whether Louis B Mayer (or whoever) said, "Let's make that boy's schlong a star!" in 1942.

What chance of working out how many Indians were in Montana on a certain day in 1876?

And I speak as the man who cleared up the Jack the Ripper case to my own satisfaction, here on mudcat.

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: The Shambles
Date: 09 Apr 06 - 03:22 PM

And I speak as the man who cleared up the Jack the Ripper case to my own satisfaction, here on mudcat.

Was Custer to blame for the Whitechaple Murders too?

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Melani
Date: 09 Apr 06 - 04:51 PM

They didn't lop it off, LH, they shoved an arrow up it--a certain "stiffening" effect, I'm sure. Many people have wondered if Monaseta had anything to do with that. She was there, and had plenty of reason to be pissed off. There is an account of her and her aunt preventing Custer from being totally carved up, saying "He is our relative," then driving a sewing awl into his ears so he would hear better in the spirit world.

Teribus, I agree with Stilly about the reliability of Wikipedia. Any idiot can edit it--me, for example. Somebody on the lbha forum quoted the article about Myles Keogh to me, and I had to tell him I was the last one who edited it, and I'm not exactly the world's expert (though I admit to working toward that status! ;-D) It's just that it contained some info that I knew to be incorrect, so I fixed it. I still don't understand how to sign it properly, so I didn't, but I did cite my sources.

ADHD--Custer had every symptom in the book--he never slowed down, never stopped talking at high speed, and was totally self-centered and oblivious to the needs of others. Sanitized history has it that he was lovingly called Old Curly for his flowing locks; in fact, his loving men called him Hard Ass or Iron Butt, because he could ride all day and all night--and it never occurred to him that they couldn't. I began to think about this when I became acquainted with a young person who has this condition, and has exactly the same personality traits. Not a bad person--has spontaneously done kind and friendly things, but is completely unaware of the reactions of other people, walking on their faces and pissing them off. Custer was also bright, but a terrible student, barely squeaking through West Point, but excelling at subjects that interested him, another classic symptom.

The soldiers were always complaining that the Indians were armed with the latest models, courtesy of the Department of the Interior, as a result of the provisions of various treaties. Keogh wrote a letter to a friend about it which was published in the NY Times. From his point of view, it must have seemed as absurd as the Union arming the Confederacy. Most of these guys had just finished up a nice, civilized war against opponents of their own cultural background, with similar values. Indian fighting came as a very rude shock. Custer took to it like a duck to water, being a lunatic who loved a good dust-up, no matter who with.

The real fascination of the Little Bighorn is that nobody can say for sure exactly what happened, not even the people who were there. It is agreed that it was the largest Indian village ever assembled on the Plains, but estimates range from 2,000 to 20,000 (Benteen said 20,000, but it probably just looked that way to him when they were charging!). Accounts by survivors, Indian and white, are wildly contradictory in many cases.

If you guys really want to get into it on a level of total picky detail, I really recommend checking out the link I posted above. It is a forum of both amateur and professional historians who read and discuss endlessly, and the value is in the many points of view presented, so that you can decide for yourself what your own opinions are, based on a mass of info.

Shambles, I am basing my opinion of Crazy Horse's opinion on my own reaction to Mt. Rushmore. I grew up always wanting to see it, and when I finally did, at the age of 19, I couldn't believe how grossed out I was--I really didn't expect to have that reaction. But it was a terrible thing to do to a nice mountain. If ya want a statue, cast it in bronze or something, don't deface the wilderness.

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Apr 06 - 04:59 PM

I agree 100$ with your opinion of the Crazy Horse monument, Melani...it strikes me as a ridiculous thing to do to a mountain. Crazy Horse's real monument is his memory which lives on in the hearts of his people (and many others).

Custer sounds to me like a very likely candidate for having had ADHD. He certainly was restless and hyperactive. Such people can be a real pain to put up with for most of us.

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: The Shambles
Date: 09 Apr 06 - 05:25 PM

But it was a terrible thing to do to a nice mountain. If ya want a statue, cast it in bronze or something, don't deface the wilderness.

I tend to agree with your opinion but I am not too sure that any of us can really say what Crazy Horse and his people might think of this monument.

But perhaps the most important thing is that such a huge   undertaking, over so many years will mean that these events, those involved in them and the reason why - will never be forgotten - by many who perhaps would prefer they were?

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Apr 06 - 05:29 PM

They'll never be forgotten regardless, Shambles. I appreciate the good intentions behind sculpting that monument, but it's not what I would choose to do, that's all.

As regards the arrow up the willy, Melani...OUCH! Good thing he was already dead at the time.

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: The Shambles
Date: 09 Apr 06 - 06:00 PM

I was surprised that whereas the majority of our visiting bus party were very interested in all aspects the native culture and learning of its influence and contribution to the development of the USA - a number of our party were in fact quite openly hostile to this concept.

Our was a mixed party but the ones not happy with this concept were all American residents and aged 55+. Our guide was doing a very good job of informing us the details and history of this but these members of our party were making it quite clear that they would rather the true story of these events were not discussed at all.

Thankfully - a bloody great mountain carved in the image of Crazy Horse does make the non-discussing of these events rather difficult.

Subject: RE: BS: Errol Flynn's willy and General Custer
From: The Shambles
Date: 09 Apr 06 - 06:19 PM

I had now made about 45 pictures, but what had I become? I knew all too well: a phallic symbol. All over the world I was, as a name and personality, equated with sex.

Errol Flynn

Any thoughts on a suitable monument to Errol Flynn?