Why We've Gotten 'Custer's Last Stand' Wrong for Nearly 150 Years
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- čas přidán 20. 06. 2024
- Sometimes to get remembered in history, you need a great publicist. This weekend marks the 147th anniversary of the Battle of Little Bighorn-also known as ‘Custer’s Last Stand’-a chapter in U.S. history that some historians are arguing needs a rewrite.
Read more about Custer's Last Stand: time.com/6288437/custer-last-...
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I am 60 years old, and I was never taught that the Custer was the victim of a sneak attack by the Lakota. I was always taught that Custer was a flawed officer (even during the Civil War), and that his attack on the Native American camp was a glory-seeking action that was flawed, short-sighted, ill-conceived, badly executed, and led to his demise and that of his men.
Same here.
Exactly! Also, he was told that he was outnumbered, and he assumed he and his men could handle it. They WERE lying in wait for him, though, and outnumbered his men at least five to one, iirc. Custer, in his arrogance, refused to wait for the backup soldiers that were on the way. And he and his men were demolished. All this was in the kid's biography of George Armstrong Custer that I read as a kid. (I'm 61 years old, now in 2023.) But he was still shown as an American hero. Shrug.
This video seems to be fighting a battle about the history and legacy of Custer which has not been taught or in vogue since the 1960’s. That is over half a century ago. If this video was made in say 1965 it might be revelatory, today it comes across as being stuck in a time warp.
He was presented as a hero -- a flawed hero, because he defeated J.E.B. Stuart's attack at the Battle of Gettysburg. That was a critical part of winning that battle, a turning point in the Civil War.
Anyone who read about him also learned he was last in his class at West Point, and that he could be ruthless and harsh sometimes to the point of villainy. Whether Indian or cavalry, was hard to be at war out in the blazing sun in the wilderness.
Was the land all occupied by native Americans? Did each of them own a couple of square miles each? How nice for them. Did they conquer each other's tribes and take land. Yes. How nice. to have a double standard.
It definitely was a tactical error.
Yeah. I’ve never heard of a sneak attack. I’ve always heard he attacked the village foolishly and got surrounded and defeated.
Maybe the woman in the video was referring how this was taught in schools before you were born, say in the 1950s and 1960s. The film “They died with their boots on” reflects this idea of sneaky Indians. You were probably taught what really happened.
@@28pbtkh23 I hope you are not saying Hollywood got history-telling wrong in the 1950s, but now, in the 2020's Hollywood gets it right? Or even better? The Hollywood movie we will never see was going to be called "Rust" and its failure represents the accuracy of all Hollywood Western movies in portraying actual reality. The accidental death was real. Everything else was fake; town setting, characters, use of firearms, story. That's reality.
I'm in my mid 60s and the way I learned of the battle of the Little Big Horn was that Custer was a very flawed commander who led his troops into disaster. In later life I finally got to check off a bucket list item and visit this battlefield. I was very pleased to see how the park rangers gave a very clear, very unbiased account that shared the points of view from both sides of this battle. The narrators in this video are surely representing their own biases. Custer had found in the past that by capturing and holding hostage Native American women and children, he gained a bargaining (extortion!) advantage. In this case, he reckoned dead wrong, and the righteously outraged Native American warriors wiped the US troops out. I would have done the same were I in their shoes. What is seldom acknowledged these days is how brutal the native tribes were to one another, as well as to encroaching settlers. History isn't pretty, and it's not meant to be, but I prefer it to be told with as few biases as possible, including judging past deeds by today's standards.
Thank you. Realism over activism.
Well put
This is a very well written response. I appreciate the thoughtfulness and objectivity.
I only disagree with the last statement. A wrong act in any time period is a wrong act in all others. The fact that the act is not seen as wrong in all time periods does not make it any different. We might try to justify something through the lens of what was happening at a certain time, but that is all we are doing. Being able to understand why events occurred or why a person or group of people did what they did is not the same as saying it was the right thing to do. I am not saying that circumstances might dictate we do something that is later judged as wrong, such as stealing when we are starving or women who prostitute themselves during war to feed their starving children.
Would you say the same thing about judging the holocaust?
Lindsay Stallones Marshall states that the battle took place in the Black Hills. That is not true. The battle took place in Montana on Crow land. In fact, Crow scouts led Custer to the Lakota camp because the Crow hated the Lakota and wanted them out of their land. Marshall also fails to bring up the fact that the Lakota were occupying the Black Hills because they stole the Black Hils from the Cheyenne and the Crow one hundred years before.
Exactly. And, the Ojibwa drove the Sioux off the Souix's original lands. And so on, and so on, and son. Some people act like Americans invented that driving people from their lands thing.
@@marshalofod1413 The fact that there were conflicts and displacements doesn't absolve the "American" settlers from responsibility, does it? Two wrongs don't make a right. The settlers had technological and financial superiority from almost the beginning and soon had a much larger population as well. Thus, they were not really under threat from the natives, except when encroaching on the remaining unsettled territories. No one says the natives were perfect, but the "white" population saw itself as civilised and Christian and yet, did not live up to their own standards and it is by their own standards that they can be judged.
("Some people act like Americans* invented that driving people from their lands thing."
*Since the natives are, by definition, Americans, your comment isn't as clear as it might be, by the way.)
Correct!
@@charleshayes2528 Especially the standard of coming here to escape oppression. By this time everyone immigrating knew there were existing people living here, and should’ve thought through “displacing” more thoroughly.
@@marshalofod1413 The different aboriginal nations DID come into conflict on occasion, but they ALSO regociated with each other and built agreements. The US government signed a treaty with the natives and promptly broke the agreements. Custer was an instrument ( by no means the only one ) of the treaty betrayal.
Custer attacked without accepting the accurate reconnaissance of his scouts who warned him about the SIZE of the village. "You and I will go home today by a route we do not know" (Bloody knife-killed before Reno's eyes in the valley). Mitch Bouyer told him "It will take days to kill them"."Their horses are like worms in the grass" was the warning of another scout. Custer was then told that several Indians had been spotted looting a supply box that had fallen off of a pack mule in the rear of the line of march. Custer's immediate reaction was that the 7th had been discovered and that the element of surprise was lost. Though rational, it was the wrong conclusion --at the exclusion of all others--- because the Indians spotted were actually on their way AWAY from the Indian encampment. Two aspects of Custer's personality showed themselves clearly. One, ignoring accurate reconaissance and jumping to conclusions---impetuosity at its finest.
By definition,
the command of cavalry
requires the ability to sum up situations instantly,
and come to a decision,
because cavalry have both strengths and weaknesses,
and the aim of the exercise
is to attack at the time of your greatest strength,
and your enemy's greatest weakness.
So impetuosity
can be determined by either success or failure.
War being an art not a science,
failure is therefore always a possibility.
/
Piston engined Fighter pilots
are the embodiment of the Spirit of Cavalry,
and a degree of recklessness is a necrssity
if you are to close with your enemy
and kill him.
During the Battle of Britain,
the most successful pilots were Polish.
They had seen the Luftwaffe up close before,
been defeated,
and seen their country crushed.
They had escaped through eastern Europe to France,
only to be defeated again.
In spite of this,
they were not demoralised,
but determined to kill Germans.
/
A flawed human being
is what we all are -
it is just that some are more publically found out
than others!
/
There is a saying
"Time spent in reconnaisance is never wasted".
My late uncle
was a Second Lieutenant in 1944 in Holland,
in the reconnaisance troop of the 15/19th Hussars,
riding in a 2 man armoured car,
though 'armoured' against almost nothing.
By necessity,
you MUST be impetuous
to drive along an open road by yourself,
out in front of your forces,
seeking out the enemy.
But war develops one's survival instincts,
and sometimes you just 'know'
that something is not right,
and that prior warning might just save your life.
/
Luck plays a great part too.
Their armoured car
drove down a long straight road
to a slight curve to the right.
The road was on an embankment,
with trees both sides.
As they turned the corner,
there in front of them was a German convoy,
heading in the same direction.
Right at the rear,
with it's gun facing forward,
was a Tiger tank.
As you might imagine,
the command was given to reverse.
It was a narrow road,
so turning was not an option.
The Tiger reversed back around the corner,
and tried to traverse it's gun,
but the trees were too close together,
so it kept trying to find a space wide enough
to achieve pointing the barrel down the road.
Time seemed to stand still
as the armoured car
moved towards a hamlet with a staggered crossroads
with a shop
in direct line with the straight road.
Just as the armoured car turned out of the straight road,
a shell from the Tiger
went straight through the shop!
/
Many cavalry officers then rode to hounds,
which develops the ability to make instant decisions.
I remember my uncle saying,
with a faraway looki in his eyes
"War is like a jolly good hunt!"
There was a pause.
Then he continued
"But you must remember we were on the winning side!"
/
Winning included
a warehouse of champage in Hamburg,
and liberating Goering's private yatcht,
so they were able to let their hair down in style!
.
Excellent!
54 yrs old and never heard of a "sneak attack"
it was the story in the News Papers. It was soon discredited by Major Reno
Where? What paper?
That’s the thing about sneak attacks. You don’t really realize it until it’s too late.
I'd recommend that someone watches one of the detailed histories of Custers Last Stand before watching this. This video is more concerned about public perceptions rather than the events.
I've never thought of Custer as anything more than a narcissist that led his troops into an ambush.
@@gaoxiaen1 narcissist bit might be right but more to it than that. In a previous encounter with the Indians, Custer had managed to capture the Indian's women and children and so compelled the larger number of warriors to surrender. Custer was probably trying to pull off the same trick at Little Bighorn but been unable to.
@@gaoxiaen1 A very simplistic view indeed. Have you ever tried to find out if you are wrong?
Im 74 years old.When I was a little kid I heard about Custer as a hero. By the time I was in high school in the 60's that was gone. Custer was depicted as an incompetent leader who led his men into disaster. By the early seventies the move"Little Big Man" was released which portrayed the event from the Native American point of view. I have't heard anyone reference Custer in a positive light ever since then. The revisionism presented in this video is that nothing changed in the United States from 1960 to now. There seems to be group of people who think we are still in the 1940s and 1950s and nothing has changed.
I'm 57 and my impression of Custer has always also been the one from Little Big Man; although maybe lampooned a little bit in the movie. I haven't watched it recently, though. (Too bad he couldn't make himself invisible - hopefully someone will get that reference.) I never learned he was a hero in school, either, so if that is still being taught, it's in a different part of the country. I will state that I was not always good at actually reading my history books, so my impressions could also have been from my teachers rather than my textbook.
@@kateruch7196 😆 I’ve understood more about history since I hit my 40s than I learned in school-reading and all. I think life experience helps you see it more cohesively, and life felt more hectic in my 20s and 30s!
The worst I've read if him is he raided villages after the men were away.
One reason the Crow Indians served as Custer's scouts is that the Lakota had been ruthless against them.
Lol
I’m 45 and Big Horn was always taught as the Native Americans were intelligent and victorious and highlighted Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull as fantastic leaders. Clusters was always shown in a negative light, to the point of being arrogantly clumsy
Well said. I mean the arrogance and just sheer stupidness of splitting your force in 2. Plus not scouting the camp and knowing many different Indian tribes had joined forces and were ready for a battle
actually he split his force into thirds and he left his gatling guns behind deeming them too cumbersome. If you look more closely Custer performed well in the civil war and at gettysburg no less. No one is perfect.
@@marcusaurelias399
Okay, should the US Army take the example of Native Americans treatment of Custers soldiers and deal similarly with all enemy soldiers that they capture?
I've been reading about "Custer's Last Stand" since I was a kid - and that was a long, long, time ago - and I've never encountered the idea that Custer was "attacked" in some sneaky way. Only a minute into this - hope it's not just going to be a re-hash of all the very well known facts and their logical conclusions ....... Edit: Okay, I'm at 2:20 now, and I'm baling .....
I've also never read any opinion that Custer was "attacked." Quite the contrary, and with a military background, my input on Custer was that he was a vain idiot who stupidly got his command wiped out.
You baled too early. The woman who was talking about a “sneak attack” was describing how the story of Custer’s last stand was traditionally taught in this way. She then goes on to say what really happened, based upon the research of the past 20 years.
@@28pbtkh23 What really happened has been well known for far, far more than 20 years. I'm 62 and I was never taught the misconceptions about the battle that she describes.
Agree, once I heard that I knew it’s another revisionist history piece trying to fit an agenda.
@@28pbtkh23 I was never "traditionally taught" that Custer was a victim of a sneak attack. I was always taught that Custer led an attack on the 'Indians' encampment.
Back in the 1970's, our middle school American History class had the book "Black Elk Speaks" as part of the required reading list. This book told the Lakota side of the story, often mentioning inter tribal warfare.
Yes, the various Indian nations had been fighting and slaughtering each other for just as long as the European nations, long before Columbus ever smelled the ocean breeze
Yes, and I have this book Black Rlk Speaks, along with others like Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.
Massacre is another term loosely thrown around these days , the way native Americans fought in all their history was to attack an adversary’s camp and take women and children - so what are you saying all Native American battles against each other were genocidal massacre’s ?????
@@amybooth6583 Now there were massacres on the Eastern Front of World War II, every hear of Baba Yar, where they forced civilians at gunpoint to dig their own graves and then shot them down with machine guns and then had bulldozers bury their bodies afterwards, I don't think that was what Custer did. People use terms like Massacre to describe a battle when they want to insert their own value judgements on what happened. Wars are messy.
Yes. Most of the time their battles left no survivors.@@amybooth6583
I'm almost ready to retire and I've never heard it told as a sneak attack on Custer. Custer was arrogant, Custer bit off more than he could chew, Custer got his butt kicked.
There were a lot of popular reports after the battle so it's possible that they told the story that way. I've never read any of those but it sounds like the penny dreadful approach to reporting at the time.
@@neilreynolds3858 Yes, the original reports immediately after the battle were rabble rousing news. They very well might have referred to it as a sneak attack. She did seem to imply that these were more recent tales.
I think it's been known a long time that it wasn't one of the brighter moments in American history, and not just because soldiers died. I really can't think of any stories I've heard though which didn't show Custer willingly making a series of strategic and tactical errors based on overconfidence and complacency.
@neilreynolds3858 Actually, it took a few minutes, but you jogged my memory, and you're right. Given the prejudice of the time, the story that American soldiers had been beaten by "savages" really wasn't acceptable. Admitting that the soldiers had blundered would have been anathema to the public of the time. Explaining it as a cowardly ambush would have been much more palatable, even if it was a lie.
@@DancingShiva788 The 'good guys' are always the ones wearing 'my country's' uniform.
@@normanacree1635 And God is always on their side as well!
"History textbooks are not history books"
Sadly, so true especially in the current culture war era.
So true. American leftists are desperate to indoctrinate children to hate the United States as much as they do. You can see it clearly in this video. Schools probably spend less than a day on teaching about the founding fathers, and these "historians" want the focus of that day to be on the fact that some of them owned slaves. If they want to erase Custer from the textbooks because he wasn't relevant, how could they possibly justify a total focus on a completely irrelevant fact like that?
The "history" is written by the winners and only their side is told. I have read many accounts from the Indian side and most are in disagreement with what is normally told. Many accounts state the leader was shot off his horse at the deep ravien crossing. They didn't know it was Custer until later. Custer had gotten a short hair cut before starting on the expedition. Custer was trying to win with the hope it would propel him into the White House. He lost more ways than one.
Custer is not a hero he was a fool attacking the Lakota Indians putting his men at risk which resulted in a massacre of his men.
I don't know of anyone who was taught that Custer an innocent victim of Native American Aggression. For me the biggest injustice with Custer's Last Stand is we focus too much on what Custer did or did not do and not enough on the brave Native American Warriors who defended their homes both against Custer and against Crook a few days earlier.
Man for man, the Native Americans were infinitely better fighters than the troopers of the 7th, many of whom were both inexperienced and ill-trained (because Congress was cheap). In fact, one of Custer's fellow officers referred to the Native Americans as "the best light cavalry in the world."
You could expand that comment to include what ALL Native Americans did in defending their homes throughout the 'whitening of the West'.
@@normanacree1635
The Lakota we’re trying to steal Crow land , Bloody Knife a crow scout was killed in the battle.
A Month earlier the Crow and Shoshone were fighting side by side with U.S. Troopers General George Crook
to remove Lakota From Crow Land on the Rosebud Creek Montana
It was deemed a Lakota Cheyenne Victory but they withdrew, then Custer met them at the Big Horn
@@roberthudson1959 Many US Army soldiers that fought against the Native Americans were southern Confederate POWs that volunteered to fight in Federal Army in the west rather than stay in a filthy, disease-ridden northern prison. I don't think that unit cohesion and a feeling of comradeship was very prevalent.
And had to defend there woman and children,which the soldiers never had to do
I grew up very close to that area back in the '60's, the general attitude was "Custer got his". Now many years later two books by Paul L. Hedren; "Great Siouz War, Orders of Battle" and " Powder River, Disasters Opening of the Great Sioux War" sheds a very harsh light on the US and the US Army in particular. The Army seems fond of making the same mistakes over the years, just different people making them.
I'm at 1:04 and have just heard for the first time that it was a sneak attack by the Indians on Custer hahaha. There's no point watching people debunk a story that no one outside of the narrators has ever heard of.
That's where I bailed, too.
Anybody who has read about the battle doesn't think that Custer was on the right side of this. Why are they trying to rehash this? Custer's tactics were well-known by both sides.
@@dannytimms9011 I disagree; the US Government, local political leaders, and private property owners routinely broke multiple treaties and agreements and may have precipitated incidents to draw the Army in. The agency created to support the individual Native American groups was rife with corruption. Custer could've waited for the rest of the Army to get there, but he forced the issue, and the rest is known history.
@@dannytimms9011tell that to the victors. Notice how this Battle will never Live Down the infamy and embarrassment. 😂
@@Honu-up3ou A treaty is an oath...the treaty breakers back then are the oath breakers of today.
@@dannytimms9011 that’s our reality and we’re doing everything we can to get this misunderstanding sorted out. It’s not my logic either, it’s European colonizer logic, duh!
@@dannytimms9011 so there are unresolved crimes. Why not address these issues first and speedy?
In June 1976 I was 24 and hitchhiked in Montana to the 99th anniversary of the battle (I was a history major in college). Several years later a major wildfire swept thru the battleground, burning off the high shrubs, revealing newly discovered artifacts from the battle (spent cartridges, bullets, belt buckles, canteens) that had remained hidden for a century, which revealed additional spots of the battle.
Live in an alternate universe much? There are a thousand books and history courses on the Custer fight, and none of them say anything other than Custer attacked the Indians.
Ya these punks want to change reality because they suck. They sucked then! They suck now. If I was an Indian I'd jump off a cliff. Why? They suck! Except for Sitting Bull and a few others the suckage is amazing.
This is almost exactly how It was taught in School. The original narrative you proposed was the narrative over 100 years ago
Ditto. I was taught most of this (not all the details) in elementary school in the early 1970's.
The Narrative is that everything white people do, did, and believe today is wrong. That is the only narrative that matters. The exposing of the truth about Custer will never be over.
Exactly. Who benefits by acting like we’ve made no progress in how we teach this? Come on. (Eye roll)
I read a book when I was young (maybe 10?) about Crazy Horse. I don’t remember the author or the actual title (though I’m sure it’s somewhere at my parents house) but it detailed his life growing up, leading to Little Big Horn. It fascinated me and inspired me to look at “history” with a critical eye.
No, but good thinking. This was a children’s book and more focused on his life growing up.
How about Nebraskan author's Mari Sandoz "Crazy Horse." It is an old classic written around the 1940s or 1950s.
I read the same book and did a report on the book.
For age 10, that’s pretty good. Most of us don’t really start to see what we’ve been taught is one-sided and usually wrong until we’re in some undergrad class and pick up Zinn. Too many politicians want to bury anything that fails to show us in a positive light but by seeing things as they really were we learn our heroes are just men (or women) subject to the social norms of the time that had some quality to make them stand out. History is written by the victors.
@@JimAllen-Persona When I was 10, the Community was still going to Civil Rights Movement and many of the college students were sporting the Fros and leather jackets of the Panthers. So, we were always taught to look pass the Facade even at that Age.
"Still trying to outsmart me, aren't you, muleskinner? You want me to think that you don't want me to go down there, but the subtle truth is you really don't want me to go down there!"
For the closest historically accurate film depiction of the battle,I would recommend “ Son of the Morning Star” starring Gary Cole as Armstrong Custer.
Custer did not want to believe his native American scouts about the numbers
I have NEVER ONCE heard that Custer was "attacked," let alone in a "sneak attack" by native peoples. What I was taught as a child was that Custer, out of hubris and an inability to appreciate his predicament, attacked a much larger force and paid the price for it. But that he and a group of his men made a final stand atop a small rise. I do believe that was a fairly accurate account, given the battlefield archaeology and historical research that I've seen presented. So where is this "Custer was attacked, by a sneak attack" coming from??
The Leftist Time just making a horrible event sound even horrible.
Indians did not “sneak” attack. Custer was the one attacking.
The Native Americans were at war with each other for thousands of years over resources and territory. Many of these tribes hated each other going back centuries such as the Blackfoot the Lakota The Crow and so on that being said the colonial powers
The Lakota and Cheyenne were on the Crow Reservation, as they were a month earlier at the Battle of the Rosebud, where the U.S and Crow and Shoshone fought side by side to remove Lakota off of Crow Land
The white people had betrayed the 1868 treaty that set aside the great sioux reservation, that included the Black Hills, Paha Sapa. White people, by the way under Custer, opened up the Black Hills to colonists and miners. Is it the right thing to do, to abide to the treaty and reinstate the great Sioux reservation with a gentle removal of the present inhabitants, except for those that held title to the land according to the 1868 treaty? By the way, the treaty also gave the sioux hunting rights in what was then unceded territory in much of Wyoming and parts of Nebraska. It is clear what the American government has to do, if they believe in treaties.
@@alwaysfourfun1671
Sorry you are correct about the Black Hills, But Incorrect about the Little Big Horn, The Crow Nation summoned Washington to enforce The 1851 Laramie Treaty in which the Lakota we’re Stealing Crow and Shoshone land, Grant Used Custer his most gallant Calvary Officer to do the job.
A Month earlier General George Crook fought side by side with the Crow and Shoshone nation to move the Lakota off of Crow land at the Rosebud. All that being said The Black Hills of South Dakota belong to the Sioux Nation, but til this day they have not accepted Payment.
@@scottmoyer8923 I don't think "Washington" can be summoned by native people to do, what they not already intended to do. Even Crook, in march 1876 on the powder river, was waiting for Crows and Shoshone, before he engaged the Lakotah-Cheyenne-Arapaho allies. The three columns of Terry-Custer, Gibbon and Crook, about 4000 men strong, no women, no children, all people of fighting age, were converging on native people labeled by them as "hostiles", but with women, children and elderly. Did the Americans offer them a fair deal after they had stolen their treaty lands and depleted the bison? Is the 1851 Crow reservation still the same as the 1868 Crow reservation or the present-day Crow reservation? It was the white people, who invaded the Crow territory of 1851. Washington did nothing to uphold the treaty against white people. Custer himself trespassed into the Black Hills and Washington broke the treaty, by not defending the Sioux treaty rights against white invaders. Of course the present day Sioux will not sell the Black Hills. Money is printed more rapidly in the USA then toilet paper. Means nothing. Land is something you can relate to. How can you sell your land? Let's honor the 1868 treaty first. Big consequences, clearly, but sounds fair to me. Of course that example will cause an avalanche of disputes over the hundreds of treaties broken by the Americans. The native people were right when they spoke of "steal treaties".
@@alwaysfourfun1671 The "White Government". Most Europeans were enslaved by the robber barons, until unions started to demand fair working conditions and pay. Then Reagan decided to accept bribery and Wall Street decided to screw the USA's workers so that they could export American jobs to America's enemies. .
The Crow (Apsolooka) had indeed asked for US government assistance to expell the Lakota from their land. The Lakota were encroaching on the reservation of the Crow, which at the time extended from the Black Hills to Yellowstone National Park. The land around the Park was actually shared among the Crow, Shoshone, Nez Perce, Kootenai, Cheyenne and other tribes.
It would appear that we still won't get the Little Big Horn story right. Why don't we talk about how this was a war between two opposed cultures that could not and would not understand and tolerate one another. Let's also talk about how Custer was a proven and able combat commander in his own right that made a fatal error in judgment that day. Or how that there were also a number of very capable leaders and tactitions among the native American tribes as well. We should also recognize that the tribes had been warring against, eliminating, and dispossesing rival tribes all across the continent for generations before being removed by the whites. Continuing to dwell on wrongs committed by ancestors on both sides several generations ago seems to me to hinder our ability to move past those cultural differences and truly appreciate one another for what we are and not be judged for wrongs we didn't have any part in committing.
Custer was a proven and able combat cavalry officer who performed very well *under the close supervision of competent superior officers.* Left on his own, he was an egotistical, arrogant, idiotic, reckless, over-confident glory-hound who was a military disaster (a walking talking clusterf*** in modern military slang) just waiting to happen - until it finally did. He was absolutely unsuited to independent command (such as he had at Little Big Horn) and his errors in judgment were a constant feature of his career, not just on that final day of it. What happened to Custer at Little Big Horn was the inevitable result of letting Custer loose without someone keeping a tight grip on his leash. He got his, and it’s just too bad he took 250 decent men down with him. It’s really amazing that Custer lived as long as he did before one of his many errors in judgment finally got him killed.
@@mglenn7092lol
lol
Agreed. And also that many atrocities committed on both sides, by the settlers/ soldiers and by the natives, were often misunderstandings, misinformation and confusion. In essence, victims of the circumstances of their time. Just as an example, if and when a hostile Indian group killed, tortured or mutilated a family of settlers or soldiers, it didn't matter if the next group of Indians to come along were peaceful and innocent, they might still be targeted as the perpetrators and then wrongly might have had vengeance applied to them--and vice versa.
@@mglenn7092 I agree with your synopsis, and conclusion--- Custer was a serviceable officer while under competent officers, but on his own, he was very reckless, jeopardizing his men, and an arrogant glory hound----
I'm almost 40 and have been hearing since childhood about how American history is much darker and more morally complex than the sanitized version that all of us were supposedly brainwashed with, which glosses over slavery and the mistreatment of Native Americans. But what confuses me is that I was never taught this sanitized version of history, nor it seems was anyone else I know my age. So, it's very strange to hear people talk about the unjust treatment of the Native Americans or how some of the Founding Fathers owned slaves as though these points are major revelations. What does seem subversive is any take on American history that highlights the positive aspects of it.
This is a curious piece. I’m 79 and I have never been taught that the Battle of the Little Big Horn started as a sneak attack by the gathered Native American tribes. The battle did not take place in the Black Hills. It has never been a secret that some of the framers of the Constitution were slaveholders and that the inconsistency between the “All men are created equal” language and slaveholding was allowed to fester as the result of a compromise that was necessary to the creation of the United States until the Civil War.
I'm 76 years old. I was never taught that Custer was a hero. I was taught that he was an idiot.
Movie-"Little Big Man" czcams.com/video/4hJ9igq1zZ8/video.html
So was Kit Carson.
The inspiration for Green Day's "American Idiot"
@@twistedlimb4053 One of the worst bands ever.
Then you were taught wrong.
Custer was foolhardy. That he was brave is not up to dispute. General tactical doctrine is to not divide your forces in the face of a numerically superior foe. Though R.E. Lee may have used this to some effect during the American Civil war, this doctrine probably still holds true today. Perhaps Custers arrogance likely led to his slaughter. Custers forces were tired and divided in the face of a numerical superior enemy. In light of the empirical exhaustive study of this battle,
it is not a stretch to say that the battle should be renamed to the victors. Not Custers Last Stand. To the victors go the spoils (a poor statement as the victors eventually got nothing more but continual persecution and degradation). The First Nations people of the tribes involved should justly be proud and remember this for the victory that they achieved.
''That he was brave is not up to dispute.'' lol
In furtherance of his diabolical evils, he was going to kidnap and kill the defender's ambushed women & children, who's land he was stealing.
@@ccrider3435 Personal courage is not the same as moral goodness. A person can be kind and honest and still be cowardly, a cruel man can be courageous. Hermann Goering was an air ace in the First World War, for example. Plenty of soldiers have shown personal bravery when faced with danger and also have shown immense cruelty when dealing with defeated enemies. So, I have no liking for Custer, at all. However, he seems to have been personally fearless whilst being reckless with the lives of his men.
His luck finally ran out.
@@stewartmillen7708 Karma is a bitch that way.
George Washington at one point also divided his army against a more powerful force, and somehow made it work Shrug.
The Cheyenne drove the Kiowas from the Black Hills. The Kiowas were living that far north around the Black Hills sand Montana before they migrated to the southern plains.
Yes but the Cheyenne had DIBS!!!! Lmao!!!!!
I was in middle and high school in the 1980s. My textbooks called it the Battle Horn and Massacre at Wonded Knee. I was a history buff even as a teen. I found out the truth in my own books. My history teacher didn't like it much when I contradicted him.
Good for you !!! Have the courage to not believe something just because you were told to.
I am 55. I thought I was going to see that Custer was a hero with this video. Instead I learned nothing new. Maybe this video was made by someone who just found out who Custer was and thought they found something new. Go West Young Man!
Living in Monroe County MI all of my 60+ years I rode the school bus with 2 Custer girls. One is even still a FB friend. I used to hold my long hippi hair so they could not scalp me (in good fun). The Custer statue in Monroe is controversial but it is for his Civil War battles. I always wished some tribe would buy land across the street and build bronze statues with warriors firing arrows toward the Custer statue. One time I remember someone putting a gag arrow a top Custer so it went in one side and out the other.
Since at least the 1960s, a fairly accurate narrative of the battle and Custer has been the one taught. I'm 60, and it is the one I was taught as a boy.
This video argues vigorously against a complete straw man. No American born after 1950 heard a good word about Custer in school, or missed hearing condemnation of the US government's failure to uphold Indian treaties. Contemptuous misinformation like this is why nobody should take Time seriously anymore.
Benteen & Reno were Rorke's drift to Custer's Isandllwana.
Not sure about the theme here. I've known for 50 years that Custer died because he made a gross tactical mistake of splitting his regiment in the face of an opponent of unknown power, who turned out be be a much larger force. Not to mention the Native American saying of the time, "Custer had it coming." And based on his past history, that was true.
Also he had so grossly failed to inculcate any sense of a resilient line of command amongst his officers.
@@alphalunamare
With Custer, it was all about Custer. He was the star of his own movie and everyone else was just a walk-on.
The troops were poorly armed and trained. Custer had turned down a offer of Gatling guns. The battle would have had a far diffrent outcome if he had those guns. The indians were useing repeater rifles. not just bows and arrows.
I thought everyone knew the actual history.
I didn't.
This video is predicated on a historical fiction which went out of fashion at least 50 years ago. Wow, what a news flash.
Who on earth has taught it was a sneak attack?
I'm in my seventies, grew up in Chicago area. I was (am) a big history buff. What I was taught in the public elementary school was that Custer and the horse soldiers were heroes. A couple of my teachers even referred me to various books which contained a much more accurate depiction of how badly we treated the Native Americans. By the time I was In junior high and high schools, I had researched the "wild West" myself and discovered how flawed and/or evasive my earlier lessons had been. Our cinema also has to shoulder a portion of the blame for our misconceptions. It is a shame that this country has not done more to redress the crimes we committed. I came to realize that what happened here in North America happened all over the world when Europeans began their invasions- Oh, excuse me, expansions into the rest of the world, although we were not the first or only race of mankind to do this evil. Thank you for posting this.
I, too, am in my 70’s. During my formative years - in grade school and middle school (aka junior high as it was known then), Custer was referred to as a hero. It was not until college, in the early 70’s that I was exposed to a more accurate account.
sorry to burst your bubble but everything you said has been common knowledge decades, In fact I seem to know about it than you do.
I don't think any of us has been taught Custer was killed in a sneak attack.
Custer made the fatal mistake of not trusting his intelligence information and ASSUMING that he and his tactics would prevail. His Indian Scouts had already informed him of the massive Indian force in front of him, yet Custer arrogantly thought he knew better than the Scouts who had actually observed the force strength they reported to Custer. The standing plan by General's Terry and Crook were for all U.S. Army forces to converge on the Little Bighorn area around June 26 to tactically envelope the large Indian Forces. Custer was ordered forward on a reconnaissance probe, with standing orders to pursue if possible, but with the option to tactically withdraw in the face of superior numbers.
It would have not only been been a sound military doctrine move for Custer to halt the scouting mission, it would have been the responsible command decision to halt and then deploy small scouting parties to observe and report back the deployment of the Indian Forces, while dispatching regular couriers to Gen Terry to keep an up to date view for Terry of the developing situation as the larger forces approached the Little Bighorn.
We can never know what was in Custer's mind on June 25th as he deployed his forces. But we do know from his past history that he was a bit of a publicity hound. And those say he was seeking glory in advance of a future political career may not be too far off base.
The book "Centennial Campaign: The Sioux War of 1876" by John S. Gray gives a very good account of the battle, what led up to it and the aftermath. Custer made the fatal mistakes of not understanding the Indians' intentions and capabilities. Bands of Indians had been leaving the reservations to join bands that had not gone to the reservations and the Army was sent out to force them all back onto the reservations. Custer assumed that the Indians were dispersing to avoid the Army. He didn't understand that they were actually gathering, even when his Crow scouts told him so. He apparently thought he came upon a relatively small village and in a hurry to attack before they could escape, so he failed to do a proper reconnaissance before charging in. Pretty much a textbook case of what not to do.
I read "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" when I was thirteen. That's part of the US history that I remember. Custer and the violations of treaties, reservations, etc... were never mentioned in history class. Neither was the internment of Japanese-Americans in WWII. I didn't find out about that until I was in college, and it wasn't part of the history class I was taking. I happened upon it in the library, and wrote a term paper about it.
interesting
I read that...and also watched Little Big Man, which may have been more entertaining than historical, but I think it portrayed the gist of "Custer's Last Stand" fairly.
Maybe in your research you read of Colorado governor Ralph Carr, a Republican, whose political career was destroyed doing something honorable: opposing FDR and speaking up for Japanese-Americans who were interned because they were unpopular, having Japanese surnames. Some were agrarian, growing cantaloupes near Rocky Ford, CO. There is a monument in downtown Denver honoring his efforts to assist these displaced Americans 1941-45. It is called Sakura Square, near 18th & Larimer.
Just remember that Custer didn't decide the US government's policy towards the Natives. Those responsible were the wealthy and powerful men back East, who urged an end to the "Indian problem" and used their influence in the government to achieve it. They wanted the West settled so they could make money off it without ever setting foot there. The policies which led to broken treaties, rampant land theft, indiscriminate killing of Natives whether friend or foe, etc., were all in the name of greed, while those who died were Natives, soldiers, and poor immigrants looking for a better life. Many soldiers were also recent immigrants, unable to find other work in the recession following the Panic of '73 (another financial disaster for the whole country caused by bankers and financiers in a climate of unregulated greed...sound familiar?).
@@retriever19golden55 Indeed, and well put. The greed factor did not stop with native Americans and ordinary citizens. There was hard wealth being mined from South Dakota, Colorado and elsewhere out West. The eastern bankers/financiers would not tolerate a wealth transfer from east to west, and seeing their political and power base from NYC, etc., relocated to someplace like Denver. The march to un-Constitutional funny money was underway by 1893, with a panic and the Silver Act, effectively reducing the value of this mint-able metal by 60% ( US Mint still functions in Denver). With this most silver mines in Colorado shut down or reduced production gradually. The narrow-gauge railroads serving the mines shut down when there was no ore rock to haul. And later, in 1913, the Federal Reserve Act, Congress tossing its Constitutional authority to regulate the value of money, 16th Amendment income tax in 1916, and Nixon replacing the dollar from a gold standard with empty promises in 1971.
Once again, as you said, greed governed.
Time, like other commenters before me I'm in my late sixties and never, ever heard anything like what this lady says 'we are learned'. She's creating her own narrative and then 'debunking' it. The fact that you know she's doing this and provide a platform for it to happen speaks volumes about you.
@raymondblanton9749 and u probably think Custer was a Saint and hero.
THANK YOU!
I am glad so many people aren't falling for this!
Wrong for 150 years.
You're very wrong. My great grandparents were told in school that the battle of little big horn was under complicated circumstances.
And yes, I will say complicated.
Because Custer was not wrong to defend his fellow Americans the settlers from native attack. Now was he legally wrong, yes, but morally, he was obligated to defend the American settlers.
We must teach both sides equally.
As a young man who is active in serving and protecting the people and a descendant of George Clymer Pennsylvanian, Founding Father, and Abolitionist.
History is not black and white. History is shades of Grey on all sides.
There is no good and bad only right and wrong based on the choices you must make for you, your family, your country, your God.
I knew some of this. The details of this battle, specifically the aftermath, are gruesome.
No, we didn't get it wrong. Custer has always been seen as a fool
I don't remember covering "Custer Last Stand" in school history. Neither grade school nor high school.
Remember when Custer graduated last at West Point that most of the southern cadets had already left to enlist in their states army. Had they not left, Custer may not have graduated last. This may be a skewed figure. One of the South's best general, Lee's right hand man, James Longstreet, graduated near the bottom of his class.
@robertcastro8435 That's a valid point, but it assumes that some of the Southern cadets were less bright than Custer. Of course, they may have been. But does anyone have access to their prior academic record to indicate whether they were or were not better students than Custer? I am not a Custer expert, but his whole demeanour at West Point and his later behaviour don't convince me that he was academically inclined or even particularly intelligent.
Longstreet was a fool, but Lee was a forgiving man.
West Point was even more demanding then than it is now; very difficult to gain admission, even more difficult to complete.
Out of more than 130 applicants Custer's year, only 68 passed the entrance exam. For a working class boy from the Midwest to pass it while upper class boys with extensive education sometimes failed was quite a feat for Custer (especially since the Congressman who appointed him was a Whig and Custer's family was Democrat; the appointments generally are politically compatible). Of those, only 34 managed to graduate, though to be fair, some were Southern boys who left. Damn few of the people who point out the "last in his class" crap would last at a week even at the modern West Point.
Stonewall Jackson flunked the exam the first time he took it. George Pickett was also last. Lewis Armistead struggled academically, and finally was tossed out after breaking a plate over Jubal Early's head. Ulysses Grant was in the bottom quarter of his class (although I believe he still holds the record for the highest jump on a horse there). Class standing was not an accurate predictor of military success; many who graduated low or last were very successful afterwards due to their demonstrated willingness to think independently.
As a person living in the UK, I have been aware of the historical facts about Custer for decades - despite being brought up on Errol Flynn movies as a child. I was also exposed to, at least, some critical thinking when looking at British history, so that I was made aware of some of the darker aspects of Britain's imperial and colonial past. I am not saying this to bash the USA nor to promote the UK, but in order to ask a question. Britain's past is contested, with some wanting to see only the bad side while others want to only focus on the good, even to the extent of denying some of the darker moments. Nevertheless, there is a contest, the past is discussed and various views are put forward. So, why is it so difficult for the USA to do the same, to have an open discussion about the past and what really happened, rather than promoting a mythical view of events?
In my early adulthood, I was aware of the beginnings of a revision of the heroic view of Custer, so that films were beginning to show another side to the man and to events. (This is not to say that those films, necessarily, were any more nuanced or realistic than the earlier, mythic, versions.)
However, in the decades since, there seems to be a regression, such that even relatively recent historical events, e.g.; surrounding the Second World War, are being represented in mythic terms, which no longer represent history as it happened. While I used to laugh at Errol Flynn (again) apparently winning the war for the USA without a single British or British Empire soldier in sight, I found it more disturbing to see a retelling of Pearl Harbour which try to turn that tragic event into almost a heroic victory. At the time of the making of "Pearl Harbor" (2001) I read a review that implied that American audiences would not accept a film that was more accurate, as they could not think of America as anything other than winning and successful.
I do not deny that British films (and others) sometimes overly fictionalise the lives of famous individuals, for example "The Imitation Game" (2014) and its portrayal of Alan Turing. However, this is driven by a different agenda than simply creating a heroic past for the nation.
Having watched "Pearl Harbor", I didn't get the feeling the Americans won anything on December 7 except great respect later for the bravery shown by many of the defenders. It was a horrific defeat and scene after scene in the movie depicted that about as well as they could have. Watch the American pilots in those P-40s (I think) did not supplant the tremendous losses clearly shown in other parts of the movie.
The narrative about the Spanish Armada 1588 from English perspective is an example of how propaganda, 'official' / 'pop-culture' storylines can completely cloud and distort, and contradict historical facts.
The 1776 British Colonists rebellion against UK 'official' and pop-culture narrative is very flawed and omits numerous facts. But is a fine myth story toward utopia for both UK and US.
There are abundant stories to sell ideas and myths in all countries. Plenty propaganda and venues to monger with too in our time.
Of late becoming worse with efforts to eradicate facts instead of being realistic and balanced so to avoid being condemned to repeat past.
I've never seen a movie portraying the Peal Harbor attack as a victory. Maybe you could suggest one.
@@normanacree1635 Yes, it was horrific, but my comments weren't merely my own. Some of the criticisms of the movie came from American critics and from veterans. Also, I intended those comments to be taken with the increasing tendency of American films to focus only on America and the apparent unwillingness of audiences to have historically accurate storytelling. The fictional account of America finding the Enigma machine is a case in point. I want to make it clear, I have nothing but respect for those who were at Pearl Harbor and my comments are about the film and modern attitudes to it and not the event itself.
There have been many books written about Custer and Little Big Horn, but I’ve read only a couple so I’m no expert. I will say though that if 268 members of the US Army were killed in one battle today, it would still have major impact. Another thing was that the battle on June 25 and 26, 1876 was only reported out on July 6th, communications being what they were from that remote territory. This was only days after the nation’s first centennial celebration. The news hit hard.
I would also encourage anyone visiting the Black Hills to go see the Crazy Horse Memorial which is still being carved and dwarfs the faces of Mt Rushmore.
Natives spread the news of the battle by smoke signals, and Natives on the East Coast knew of it before the US government did.
I've never thought or heard that Custer was attacked by the Sioux. He tried to launch an attack on a village that contained far too many warriors for him to overcome. This video might have been right 100 years ago, but it does not correctly describe how the Battle of the Little Bighorn has been portrayed for the last 50+ years.
Sitting Bull "You came to us that day, we did not come to you"
The TV miniseries Son of the Morning Star still has the most accurate portrayal of the Battle of the Little Bighorn put on film.
Growing up in the 80s, I never heard of Custer as a hero. I was surprised to learn in AP US History that he was the youngest general in the history of the US, but my teacher also told us that he was demoted due to his recklessness and egomania. When we got to Little Big Horn, he picked up on his search for glory after the Civil War and that recklessness persisted and led to his getting his entire company wiped out. So, I don't think that he's been controversially taught as a hero or anything. I get that Little Big Horn provided the impetus for an entire War on Native Peoples, but I think US History has largely been teaching Custer correctly. The rest of the myths surrounding the West are far more pervasive, and far more pernicious, as well as persistent.
He was demoted because the Civil War was over, The next step down was to Colonel. He wasn't the only officer to step back in rank. Major Reno was a brevet brigadier general during the Civil War. Captain Benteen was a Lt. Colonel during the Civil War.Your history teacher wasn't very good. It was a common military tactic to split your army into three smaller armies in the face of a much larger force. The idea behind such, was the army in the middle was to take the brunt of the force and hold, until a flanking motion could be used(in this case Custer capturing escaping women and children). This was repeatedly done by Robert E. Lee with success(splitting his army into 3). Where Custer failed was 1. The army in the middle did not hold. and 2. Custer failed to get his hostages(see 1). Furthermore, the Sioux stole that land from the Crow, thus they really weren't "defending their land". The myths taught in today's schools in the name of "inclusion" are horrifying with devastating results(just look at the "wokeism" of today and the destruction of our nation).
@@gregzeigler3850 @alvarhanso6310 lookup "Brevet"
@@gregzeigler3850 I was with til your last sentence. Blaming inclusion and wokeism, both modern trigger terms is so silly.
Custer was a hero of mine when I was 5 years old! When I grew up I thought you bastard !!
I grew up in the 80's and Custer's Last Stand was always taught as a case study of hubris and arrogance. We even got to calling it "the battle of the greasy grass" because that is how the natives referred to it, and they were the ones that won. The "Custer was ambushed and overwhelmed and died a hero's death" narrative died out in the Gilded Age, many of Custer's contemporaries condemned him as a narcissistic butcher. The only people that think the way she is accusing us of are the idiots who are products of American universities that arrived at college probably never hearing the name "battle of the little big horn" and are introduced to him by big brain professor guy telling them "everything you heard is a lie" followed by the false equivalency tactic of claiming everyone is as dumb as them and thinks we are fools that think the Custer myth was ever true.
Clearly the story you say people "know" about this event must be known by a handful of people because that's not what I was taught in elementary school in the 1960s. Even movies from the 50s They Died With Their Boots On clearly shows that there was gold in the Black Hills and people violated the treaty's with the natives. Custer was vain and we knew that too.. your peddling a fake story about what people really think that happened. I guess American education has sunk so far since the 60s that people are fed lies and not true history.
What makes you think this stuff is taught in schools? Have you been talking to Desantis? come on, man.
Wow! In the 70s when I was taught this in more depth a History of the West HS class, it was taught that Custer was not the hero and in fact lead his unit into a defeat. Custer mostly knew what he was up against, but his ego still made him carry through honestly thinking he could pull it off. Funny how we slowly revise history, or were we in the minority and taught what did happen instead?
You were definitely in the majority. This video was made by idiots.
It was a common military tactic to split your army into three smaller armies in the face of a much larger force. The idea behind such, was the army in the middle was to take the brunt of the force and hold, until a flanking motion could be used(in this case Custer capturing escaping women and children). This was repeatedly done by Robert E. Lee with success(splitting his army into 3). Where Custer failed was 1. The army in the middle did not hold. and 2. Custer failed to get his hostages(see 1).
Custer DID NOT KNOW that there were 10,000 natives in their camp on the Little Big Horn.
The battle didn't take place in the Black Hills, nor anywhere on the Sioux reservation in South Dakota, it took place on the Crow Reservation in Montana, at the Little Bighorn River. And the Sioux didn't leave the reservation because of mining, they left because the mining was contaminating their water. However, that really doesn't explain why the Sioux left the reservation, since the reservation at the time was all of western South Dakota, with clean water sources elsewhere on the reservation.
I disagree with the representation of how it was taught in school. He was portrayed as an arrogant gloryhound who was outsmarted and outmanouvered. That was taught 40 years ago. Custer was responsible for the gold rush, anyway.
I grew up in the 70's not far from the battlefield, and no one that I knew thought Custer was a hero. Plus, when you go visit there, you learn about Reno and Benteen. Nobody ever talks about them. And if you want to read about another flawed officer, look up the Fetterman Fight. Supposedly, he bragged he could take on the whole Sioux nation with 80 men. Oops!
And now we have another Fetterman in the American government, and he's just as stupid as this cavalry man Fetterman was.
Thank you for providing a more accurate perspective on the actual circumstances & following mythology of this battle. I served in 3rd Squadron, 7th Cavalry 40 years ago in Germany- the unit that was born from Custer’s defeated C Troop. We were fully indoctrinated on the “heroics” of Col. Custer & we celebrated “Garryowen Day” each June 25th by eating beans, bacon & biscuits before marching to a full squadron formation where we heard a rousing motivational speech about the sacrifices & heroics of Custer & his men.
A few years after leaving the Army I had the opportunity to visit the Little Big Horn battlefield & after walking it for several hours I concluded that there was no “last stand” as portrayed in our history books & paintings. Custer’s men quickly scattered instead of forming an organized skirmish line, which is apparent by the locations of the markers spread out all over the hill. Custer was an egotistical narcissist & should have been posthumously charged for his failure to follow sound tactical doctrine & lack of concern for the welfare of the men he commanded.
The American Hero created by this battle should have been Sitting Bull as he rapidly executed & lead a completely successful defense of the men, women & children under his protection.
Custer was simply a maniacal fool who got what he deserved & should have been branded as such for leading more than 250 men to their premature, worthless deaths.
It breaks my heart to do so, but I gotta agree with you.
If 7th Cav wants to remember “heroes”, maybe they should be celebrating Marcus Reno and Frederick Benteen, who led the surviving portions of the 7th Cavalry (more than half the total force) rather than Custer and the 5 companies he led to their deaths. At least those two did something right in the vicinity of the Little Big Horn.
I never served in the Cav, but I did serve in the Army and was stationed at Fort Riley for several years. For another wrongful history shocker, at Fort Riley there is a monument to the “brave” soldiers of the 7th Cavalry who “died heroically in combat” at the “battle” of Wounded Knee (most of whom were actually killed by friendly fire while perpetrating the massacre). Not something I think the Army should be celebrating.
Actually, the 7th had established a defensive position at Calhoun Hill in the Keogh sector while Custer moved further north to try and capture hostages. The defensive position held for quite some time until Calhoun was flanked and Crazy Horse broke the position with a charge. The survivors of the Keogh sector fled towards Last Stand Hill where they met up with Custer who was apparently moving to reunite with Keogh and await the arrival of Benteen's battalion. The fight on Last Stand Hill would have been quick although Custer's troops did make some effort to organize a defense by using their horses as breastworks. You give entirely too much credit to Sitting Bull, however. He was little more than a cheerleader encouraging the young men to go fight. There was no great strategy on the Native American side. The Indians didn't fight that way. They fought as individuals or small groups, not in an organized structure like the cavalry.
Fascinating. When I was four years old in 1962, we moved into a nice but old apartment building. I remember being told at the time: “it was built four years after Custer’s last stand.” I never really gave it much thought.
After watching this, I have to say I'm glad I had the history teachers that I had. They went far beyond the text books and challenged the popular myths, giving our young minds the opportunity to question what was in the text.
I believe you are right
I grew up in a school and we were told what a foolish thing Custer did
In a report I read in 1962 it said Custer attacked the village shooting men women children
Then rode into the massive warriors waiting for him
As a boy I was told how foolish he picked on a tribe much larger than he figured
Wow, I would never want to be taught by Lindsay Marshall! Almost turned the video off right there. I am 57 years old and no one was ever taught in schools that Custer was attacked in a "sneak attack." How does she get such basic historical facts wrong? We learned that Custer behaved recklessly, failed to listen to his scouts and divided his already outnumbered force in enemy territory without knowing the disposition of the Indian forces. We learned that he brought on his own defeat! I don't know where she ever got idea!
yep the history books never lie,, btw slavery was really just vocational training..
She's woke.
If you visit Custer's Last Stand they tell you he ignored his Crow Scouts warnings that there was a large group of Lakota along the Big Horn Valley. And Custer's response was leaving his gatling guns and supply lines behind, split his forces up and ran straight into a hornet's nest. My father had no respect for him and told us many times including there "he deserved what he got". Custer was dead last in his West Point Class of 1861 and the only thing that saved him from not being expelled was the Civil War. And my father also graduated from West Point, in 1951, and told us how Custer led was taught of what not to do in combat.
I don't know who has gotten it wrong for 150 years. I've known the basic facts of Custer's failure since I was in school during the 1960's & 70's.
Little Big Man is a brilliant movie and a must see! One of Dustin Hoffman's greatest acting jobs and a great cast!
The movie has little relation to either historical fact or to the book by Berger it claims to be based on. It's just a movie, not history.
@@retriever19golden55 so?
So many Americans don't realize that Hiltler got the idea of "relocating indigenous people" from their homelands, from what the US government did to Native "Americans".. he just had to give the new location a different name.. instead of "reservations", called them concentration camps
The British used the first 'concentration' camps to hold Boar farmers in Natal during the Boar War. The US called them what they were reservations even if they were such camps no fences were erected to my knowledge and a lot of the natives at the BH actually came from them carrying repeat rifles bought at the stores on said camps. If you are going to quot history at least try to get it right.
@@oldhippiejon well, the US Government was having Native Peoples "move" to "different locations" soon after the their revolution against the "crown".. which I thought was decades before your Boar War... but you already knew that... didn't you !!
@@oldhippiejon The Germans invented Concentration camps in what is now Namibia. They were set up after a policy of extermination of the local population. The survivors were put into these camps and systematically worked to death and purposely given food of only 200 calories per day ( a tenth of what a human needs to live)These pre-date the British ones for the Boers . The Boer camps were not designed to exterminate the local population although many people died within them.
That idea is as old as the Ancient Assyrian attacks. In -422 BCE, the Assyrian s conquered a lot of Mesopatamia, and moved nations from one country to another. This forced them to learn how to live in the new country, and they couldn't spend much time defending it. The Babylonians assumed that method with some tweaks. The Greeks came and adopted the gods of each country and taught them the Greek gods, making everyone one morass of a culture. It sort of worked. The Romans came and also brought their culture to the lands they conquered, plus a system of offering citizenship to those who earned it. Each civilization had a trick they attempted to us to gather in their captives.
This was exactly what I was taught in the 70's. Custer was considered a fool.
The background soundtrack is intensely irritating. The arguments of the interlocutors are compelling enough without it. I fail to see what such distracting sound is intended to add.
Custer finished last in his West Point class of 35.
And was promoted to General at the age of 25
Dumbest of the smartest? Is that better than being smartest of the learning disabled kids?
Excellent! History should be told as it is. A good article on the Alamo would be welcome.
Custer died? I thought he was a movie star. Huh. Thanks internet.
I love chanting the Atlanta Braves’ tomahawk chop chant when watching Custard’s Last Stand!
Hmmm. A Vietnamese using a racist hand and arm movement against American First Nation peoples while watching a film about ice cream. Will wonders never cease?
In this video I hear one view point speaking as though they are 100% accurate about another view point who likewise believed they were 100% accurate. The reality is, the truth falls somewhere in between the two.
But she completely misrepresents the "other viewpoint." I never heard there was a sneak attack on Custer-did you? Where is she pulling this "information" from? She's an activist misrepresenting history and history books for political reasons.
BS just as I would expect from time
Why we've gotten Custer's Last Stand wrong for nearly 150 years. Oh. For a moment there, I thought they were going to say Custer was actually a good guy.
Nobody suggests Custer's army was tricked or ambushed. I've never even heard this narrative. For the 50 years I've been alive and able to hear this story it has always been described as an act of hubris of an overconfident leader. A battle lost.
Actually the concentration camps come directly from the American war in the Philippines. As to Custer dividing his force, yes Lee did that against a superior sized Union army. The reason it worked is the Union commander thought Lee’s force was much larger than it was. Had the Union commander, Hooker I believe been more aggressive the gamble may have failed. This force was aggressive.
Custer was absolutely a great hero. No amount of spin you put on his character will change my view of this man. Remember at the beginning she briefly mentions his civil war endeavors. Are we to forget those accomplishments? She aldo mentions how Custer would capture women and children. Other officers in his same position would not have been so kind. We know this. Custer was an ally to the natives and they respected him because he was on their side. I think it much more likely that Custer was set up. What better way to get the people behind breaking the treaty with the Lakota. After all they slaughtered an american hero. They should answer for that. No Custer was under orders to go and had no choice. He was promised reinforcement that never came. After the battle the women and children of the Lakota mutilated all the bodies save one. George Custer. Why? Because they respected him and they knew he had been used against them to bring about their downfall.
No. Custer was an absolute hero who was betrayed by his own government for the gold in those hills. You're gonna tell me that a man who risked his life to fight for the freedom of others was also some murderous native hater. He wanted nothing but peace with the Lakota so he was standing in the way.
Yep! And don't forget ol' Deathwind. Good old Louis Whetzel.
I encourage you to read an accurate biography of Custer. You might change your opinion of him a little bit. Also, there is no proof of whether Custer's body was mutilated or not. Some Native squaws claimed later they had pierced his ears so he could hear better in the afterlife, indicating the Natives did not believe he was listening to their concerns.
I don't think it would change my mind at all. I grew up devouring stories and books on Custer, the civil war and similar topics. Doing this gave me a wider scope and multiple perspectives on these subjects. This also led me to start analyzing these stories to see the reason and truth behind the story being told. For example, why did Lee send his men up that hill in Gettysburg three times? No history book will tell you this. Because those battle hardened rebels under his command could not be allowed to return home. Pure and simple logic. They couldn't go home because they were far too dangerous.
@@jamesgalloway7453 A good book to read is "They Buried My Heart At Wounded Knee" from 1970 I think. I got it at my local library. If I recall there are parts of it that speak of Custer working with the Indians, but other parts where he clearly was wanting to war with them.
What we often miss, is that treaty after treaty was broken, there were many revenge killings on both sides (even if the avenged were not involved), and this caused many battles between those who were trying to keep the peace.
It's clear in the end though, the Indians were pushed out, taken over, and mistreated as it concerned treaties and such, even though both sides had their issues.
I'm pretty sure the Hollywood image of Custer's Last Stand hasn't been taught in schools for decades.
What the younger generations don't realize is when I was in elementary school, a teacher told us the facts about last stand! And a whole lot of true history has been deleted in the last 30 years.
The book, Son of the Morning Star, stated all this and was published in 1984. Just over 100 years after Little Big Horn. Fairly sure this was reasonably commonly known before that. Weird headline on this piece and not really news.
Wrong. Just because I'm fairly sure more folks have read school textbooks rather than "Son of the Morning Star", I'm fairly sure this was not commonly known before that because those textbooks didn't have this vital information about Custer or the battle of Little Big Horn.
Agreed. Also, Son of the Morning Star was made into a film, so once again, people had access to the information.
...and later the Archeological discoveries in 1985-86 changed quite a bit of the narrative. The "Story Out West" series on CZcams does an excellent job with this fight and the Fetterman Fight.
Among those interested in Custer and the battle at all and have looked into it, yeah, this is pretty commonly known stuff.
Poor video. Sitting Bull never coordinated a sneak attack on Custer. There was nothing sneaky about it. Nothing said about how Custer vastly underestimated the Indian fighting force. Or how Custer had conflicting info on the size of the force. Or how Custer was thinking about defeating this Indian force before they scattered and made it much harder. Fascinating how supposed historians don’t appreciate that Custer is there on someone else’s orders. You would think it’s just him making all the decisions. The Battle of LBH is really the beginning of the end for the Plains Indians. They knew they were done and started running. Genocide is too strong. Those were not Custers orders. However Indians practiced genocide so let’s lose the Pocahontas fantasy lens. The woman professor needs to do something else besides tell morality tales. It’s hen clucking. The military is only there because they couldn’t keep people out of the Black Hills or Indians on the reservation. Or Indians from killing people or threatening war. The military was given a lot of dirty jobs.
@tom80 You seem to have entirely missed the point. If you watch again, you will see that the film says that people have been told that Custer died as a result of a sneak attack. That is, the traditional history sees Custer as both a hero and a martyr/victim. The film never says there was a sneak attack. The film is not a blow by blow discussion of his military competence, but is simply trying to redress the balance that has presented the natives as the villains of the piece. Custer was involved in other actions against peaceful Native Americans where he killed women and children, such as the Battle of the Washita. Earlier, John Chivington had done something similar at Sand Creek. You say Genocide is too strong, but also that "LBH is really the beginning of the end" - this means that either their way of life would have to end or they would have to be stopped. So, how should the Native Americans perceive this, if not as "genocide" or, at least, cultural extinction.
WT Sherman argued for the "very extermination" of the Sioux in 1866 and also argued for the extermination of the Buffalo/Bison, so as to deprive the Indians of their primary food source. The dwindling of the buffalo herds is one of the reasons, if not the only one, why Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho encroached on Crow lands. I am not condoning violence on either side, but the Americans saw themselves, explicitly, as civilised and "Christian", yet saw nothing wrong in breaking treaty after treaty, thus acting against what they themselves claimed as their highest ideals.
@@charleshayes2528 It appears to be a false narrative to say that the "Custer died as a result of a sneak attack" story was ever anything. For decades, I have read many books and accounts, been to the LBH battlefield and listened to speakers talk about Custer's supposed last stand and have never heard this narrative. On its face it's an impractical argument and only encourages people to consider it as an option. Custer was far from home invading an Indian village so it's hard to argue that he was the victim of anything. One could say, it was his last stand in the sense that he was losing the battle and he had to take a defensive position and hope to survive. And it was definitely his last stand in that it was the last action he took in his life. But the "sneak attack" narrative needs to be documented to its source because I have never heard of it. Please no movies as evidence or old tabloid journalism. That is entertainment. And the Indians are not villains. They were protecting their village and just wanted to live their lives following the Bison herds. Multiple truths can exist at the same time but we shouldn't obscure those truths with distractions. But somebody always wants attention so they will pull out the most controversial thing they can find or make it up. Every civilization thinks they are more civilized then prior generations or other civilization. It's part of human nature. Indian nations had their own pecking order. It's not a homogenous grouping. Cultural extinction to a degree or in whole was definitely a goal because their way of life was being changed. Custer's orders were not to kill everyone which is genocide. Don't underestimate how badly the railroads wanted the Bison gone. They had a huge impact on the Bison herds and served as the supply chain to take hides and bones back east to be consumed. It was lucrative to kill Bison. Bison hunters were a lot of Civil War soldiers who had nothing else to do but got paid well to kill Bison. It was a living for a while versus starving. The Christian part is all that people knew at those times to justify themselves. But in reality a lot of characters were not going to any church or could spell Christian but it's a huge bucket that people like to say was what drove people. I think it's just plain greed. But, Christianity may have been the most the most popular whitewash of the time. A way to do bad things and get away with it.
@@tom80 I agree with most of what you are saying. I never said that the attack was a sneak attack, but actually said it wasn't. I don't think that Christianity was necessarily a whitewash, but my only reason for mentioning it was that some commentators said we should not judge Custer and co by our standards! I was trying to point out that we can judge people by their own standards - that is, they often claimed a) to be civilised and b) to be bringing Christianity to the natives. So, by those standards, we can say that they failed to live up to what they claimed. That is a judgement that can be made quite apart from any opinion about Christianity, itself, whether then or now. That is, perhaps, a subject for another time.
The only thing I would say is that there was a massive "revival" in the USA just prior to the Civil War and even if politicians and leaders did not believe, it was not good politics to say so, rather like today, I suspect.
@@charleshayes2528 Got it. I really don't know what "our standards" are or ever were. Or what civilized means either. This is a pretty opinionated country and always has been. Greed seems to be a common denominator that stands the test of time. It also cuts across to the Indian population because they certainly fought over territory with other tribes and stole each other's horses. Christianity in its original form is evangelical. It's part of the great mandate.
@@tom80 Thanks, I get where you are coming from, except which "great mandate" are you talking about? Are you referring to the evangelical need to convert others - which doesn't have to involve violence, but sadly, too often does. Or are you talking about something like "manifest destiny"?
The simple explanation is: 1) people got their information from limited and not easily fact checked sources. 2) Custer did a thing of notoriety in the Civil War, but was struggling to keep himself in the limelight. 3) the US govt gave the Black Hills to the native Americans. Then they discovered gold and the impact created a reasonable cause of action to the movers and shakers that had influence. Remember kids, the extremely weathly had A LOT of influence if they could make the case for “it’s for the good of the country…” (think railroads, the Banana Wars, etc). 4) Custer was chomping at the bit to get involved in something to prop him up post war, so there he is. A shit commander looking for glory, and maybe a piece of that gold for his trouble. 5) after the disaster, his wife was huge in keeping his name out there and making sure the narrative is the “right” one. It’s kind of the same with all “heroes”. We don’t like knowing they were cheaters, liars, unfaithful, or otherwise flawed. Look at the cult of personality around Bruce Lee. Same idea.
I’m in the UK and I’ve never heard this version. I’ve always thought that Custer was in the wrong since reading Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee about 40 years ago and watching the film Soldier Blue. This video is making a narrative that died decades ago.
I’m in my 60s and these people saying they were taught Custer was a flawed commander , I agree with. However the over all narrative in our up bringing was that Colonel Custer was a American hero brave and true. If they say otherwise they are full of crap. Your message is spot on
"History text books are not history books." This is the mentality of those who are re-writing American history today. When the authors of our Public Schools' textbooks adopt the philosophy that "Textbooks are a specific kind of document designed for a specific purpose. And its not simply to tell students what happened in the past, but to give them a particular view..." then we must begin to question the motives of those who are re-writing American history to fit their "particular view" of America. The latest fad in our tax payer funded, mandatory, re-education camps that pass for Public Schools these days is to destroy the reputations of all "white male, heterosexual, homophobic, jingoistic" figures of the past and recast them through the eyes of the "oppressed" (no bias there?).
Notice how she says that the framers of the Constitution and Founding Fathers were slave-holders is a fact, but that statement is totally false. The Britannica online article states, "There does not appear to be a consensus on the number of men who signed the U.S. Constitution-or, more broadly, were delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787-and who were also enslavers." SOME of them were, but many were not. Her comment also makes no reference to the debates or the changing attitudes of many of our founding fathers about slavery.
You don't correct bad history with more bad history biased in the opposite direction. Emphasizing the basic goodness and noble efforts of the vast majority of those who built the American nation is NOT a bad thing. Teaching students to hate America and rewrite history to make it sound as though America is nothing but a racist, bigoted, ugly and dishonorable nation deserving destruction is NOT a good thing. Recasting historical figures does nothing to change the past and will never help us to overcome the wrongs of the past and move forward to achieve the goal of truly being "one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all."
You can tear down all the statues you don't like, but it will not improve the public education system that is no longer educating youth to live constructive and productive lives, but is only designed to indoctrinate and propagandize them to keep voting for one party to stay in power and keep them in their dilapidated inner cities forever.
Your full of shit
You state:
"Teaching students to hate America and rewrite history to make it sound as though America is nothing but a racist, bigoted, ugly and dishonorable nation deserving destruction is NOT a good thing."
No one is teaching kids that America is a "racist, bigoted, ugly and dishonorable nation deserving destruction".
That is pure propaganda hogwash.
You've been listening to R. Desantis too much. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging and owning up to wrongs committed by your ancestors. All people like you want from history is the sanitized version of events so as to make people like Custer and the policies they promoted seem right and justified. Try to find a public school that teaches kids to 'hate America' or deserves 'esstruction'. Good luck with that. If you keep saying it, though, it starts to sound pretty good. Kind of like when your orange hero says "The election was stolen. Everybody knows it. Blah, Blah, Blah......". Come on, man.
Post Civil War, Custer's rank was Lt. Colonel. He was not in charge of the Dakota column on the expedition to Little Big Horn, General Alfred Terry was. Custer signed no treaties, broke no treaties, and certainly didn't set policy for the treatment of Native peoples. On all occasions, he was under orders from President Grant through General Sherman, head of the war department. In fact, he nearly derailed his career when he testified to the Clymer Committee concerning the corruption of Indian agents and suppliers, who were pocketing money earmarked for food and other supplies to be provided to Natives on reservations. These people were being starved to death with inadequate amounts of rotting meat and weevily corn...they were forced to leave and fight back. Regular Army officers such as Crook, Mackenzie, Gibbon, and Custer all knew starving the Natives would lead to conflict and bloodshed, and the deaths of settlers, soldiers, and Natives alike. On some occasions all those men fed vanquished tribes people out of their own troops' stores.
Wow is that a Time magazine headliner? I didn't know they let people who are abysmally ignorant of a subject write articles..Oh wait...