Just a couple points without becoming too adversarial about the whole thing.
In 1875 an order had gone out for all Northern Plains Indians to report into the reservations in Nebraska and (what is now) South Dakota, on pain of being regarded as at war with the United States. The edict is somewhat reminiscent of the orders that went out to the Highland Clans from King Billy in 1689 that resulted in the Glencoe Massacre. The next spring three columns set out to enforce the reservation order. An infantry and cavalry force set out from Fort D.A. Russell (Cheyenne, Wyoming) led by George Crook. An other infantry and cavalry force left Fort Shaw, north of Helena, Montana, commanded by Colonel John Gibbon (who had an enviable reputation from the Civil War as a brigade and division commander) and a third force, the 7th Cavalry Regiment under its Lieutenant Colonel, Brevet Major General Custer, and accompanied by Brigadier General Alfred Terry, the overall commander, marched from Fort Abraham Lincoln at Bismarck North Dakota. The objective was to break up an expected concentration of non-reservation Sioux in the Powder River country south of the Yellowstone River in southeast Montana. The Gibbon and Terry-Custer forces met in early June, 1876, at the mouth of Rosebud Creek on the Yellowstone while the Crook force was still coming up from the south.
A ten day scout by the 7th Cavalry’s second in command, Major Marcus Reno, and about half the regiment showed that there were no Indian encampments along the Powder River, the middle stretch of the Tongue River or in the lower end of Rosebud Creek. Reno did fine a fresh trail going up the Rosebud but he did not follow. That is just as well since on June 17, while Reno was in the lower Rosebud, Crook"s column was attacked by Crazy Horse’s band of Sioux with some Cheyenne on the upper Rosebud. The attack did not overwhelm Crook but it did inflict enough damage that Crook’s advance along the Rosebud was stymied and he was forced to fall back on Fort Russell. One of the logistical problems in the Northern Plains was that it was nearly impossible to care for wounded. The presence of any number of wounded men meant that either the wounded had to be abandon or the whole operation had to stop until the wounded could be returned to civilization.
Reno"s scout did show that the Hostiles were either at the headwaters of Rosebud Creek or were across the divide in the next water shed to the west, the Little Big Horn. It was expected that the non-reservation Indians would be found in the middle reaches of the Little Big Horn. Base on this expectancy, Terry ordered Custer with his regiment to march well up the Rosebud, cross over the divide and come down the Little Big Horn. In the meantime, Gibbon, accompanied by Terry, was to proceed up the Yellowstone by boat to the mouth of the Big Horn, go up the Big Horn to the Little Big Horn and then march up the Little Big Horn to pinch the Hostiles between the two forces. All this was a correct estimate of what the Hostiles were doing and were about to do. There was one serious miscalculation, however.
It was known that the non-reservation Indians, all with an informal allegiance to Sitting Bull, had a fighting force of about 800 man and boys. There were many times that number of warriors with the bands that had reported into the reservations. As long as the permanent roamers with Sitting Bull were not substantially reenforced by warriors from the reservations, either Custer’s regiment of Gibbon’s force should have been able to overmatch any congregation of Indians found in the Little Big Horn valley. Large numbers of reservation warriors had left the reservations in the spring of 1876, just as soon as the grass had greened enough to support their horses. This fact was not reported by the reservation agents to the army. It may be that the departures were concealed (since a 19th Century Indian reservation was not an apartment block where every one could be accounter for), and it may be that the departures were not reported so that rations would continue to be issued for Indians who had left, allowing the agents to sell the surplus. What ever the reason, by mid-June at least 1500 warriors were with the bands that had gathered in the Little Big Horn Valley, maybe more.
As Custer marched up the Rosebud there were signs that the village he was tracking was bigger than the 800 or so warriors he expected to find. While there was a main trail of the Indian village there were other trials branching off to the Southeast. Custer attributed these side trails to bands leaving the main body. In fact they were the trails of small bands from the reservations joining the main body. A count of the places where lodges had been pitched showed a village consistent with the information that Sitting Bill had a fighting strength of about 800. The lodge counts, however, disregarded many temporary shelters that had been built by the bachelor warriors coming in from the reservations. There is some indication that these brush huts were inexplicably regarded as dog houses.
One of the army’s big concerns was that Sitting Bull’s camp would break up into many small bands before the army could come to grips with the main Indian body. This was one reason that the trails of joining bands were attributed to bands leaving the camp. What the army feared the most was a break up of the camp so it attributed signs to that possibility. Custer then found himself on a hot trail of a village that he thought was getting ready to disburse. Once disbursed the objective of driving the Hostiles onto the reservations became impossible. In the face of this Custer’s answer was, not unreasonably, to increase the pace of his march and to follow the trail over into the Little Big Horn Valley without waiting for Terry and Gibbon’s force to get into position. He could think that his regiment could deal with anything it might encounter and that delay in coming to grips with the Indian village might doom the whole operation.
On the early morning of June 25, after a miserable night march, the regiment turned out of the Rosebud Valley, over the intervening divide and into the Little Big Horn Valley. At dawn, from high ground on the divide, Custer’s scouts spotted Sitting Bull’s camp along the Little Big Horn and realized that the camp was bigger than anyone had expected. At about the same time there were indications that scouts from the Indian camp had seen the approaching soldiers. At this point Custer had no option except to attack the village as quickly as possible. Just as soon as Custer crossed out of the Rosebud Valley he was committed to an attack, Gibbon in support or not, no matter how many Hostiles were in the Little Big Horn encampment.
The speculative question is whether or not Custer’s attack could have succeeded. Given the situation and what Custer knew or should have known, it seems to me that is he had kept his regiment together, or its parts withing close supporting distance of each other, he could have. It seems to me that it was not the decision to attack that doomed General Custer and five companies of his regiment, but the decision to break the regiment into three separate and independent battalions that sealed his fate.
Anyone who wants to follow up on this might take a look at John S. Gray, Centennial Campaign: The Sioux War of 1876, Univ. Of Oklahoma Press (1988). For a collection of primary source material you can’t beat W.A. Graham, The Custer Myth, Stackpole (1953), reissue by Bonanza Books.
