There are also some claims he was ambidextrous, is that true?
Where are the claims from? All the references I’ve seen state that he was right handed.
Wiki gives the wound at his left temple. 
Yeah, I noticed that. That doesn’t make sense. All accounts say that the wound to the temple and the wound to his body were on the left side. I think that the article just made a misstatement as to the reason for the speculation.
But you do have to wave it in the air for a few minutes before you let anyone look at it.:smack:
Just looking around online some people said he was ambidextrous, dont know if it’s true or not.
If his right forearm was wounded, using the left hand t shoot oneself would not be difficult - even a right-handed person.
I saw a “true history” of Little Bighorn - the Sioux man interviewed brought along a weapon of the period - an oval-shaped stone (distinctively pointed on both ends) on a handle about 2’ long (a bit long).
He explained that it was used by mounted warriors, and the practice was to used both points - first, the downswing - to the enemy’s weapon arm, then a upstroke to catch his face should he do the obvious and grab his injured arm and look down at it.
These people were warriors from way back.
If Custer’s right arm had been attacked, it might give strong indication that he was holding his weapon in the right hand.
And yes, the Sioux did torture and mutilate - they believed that one would enter the next life in the condition their bodies were left.
One pelvis showed knife marks consistent with castration - no fun for him for eternity.
All they could find of the half-indian, half-white guide was a fragment of the skull - no doubt he got it good as a traitor.
The interesting thing was that the Sioux had better rifles than the troops - the Army rifles were single shot; the Henry rifle (trading posts) could hold 13 rounds.The Army rifle was better at range - the Henry was good for 100-200 yards vs 700 for the Army’s; the Indians never tried to fight at distance, and used the terrain to hide while reloading.
Custer got captured (by the South) in the Civil War because of his arrogance at attempting to do more than his troops could pull off. He didn’t learn - splitting forces at the beginning f a fight before even knowing the extent of opposing forces (Sitting Bull had put out word to all the Sioux and Cheyenne to come for one big fight. They came. Custer never knew what was waiting for him until he had split his troops.
Can you point us to one of those claims so we can evaluate whether it’s credible or not? If you want people to address your questions seriously you have to be a little more thorough than “online some people said…”
At this point in time, it’s probably impossible to say definitively whether Custer committed suicide or not. Some Lakota accounts say he did, while others give credit to a particular warrior for killing him. The fact that his body was mostly unmutilated, unlike most of the rest of his men, has also been used to suggest he might have killed himself. Supposedly the Lakota would have found this highly dishonorable and wouldn’t have bothered to further mutilate the body. (At the same time, the wish to denigrate an enemy would have given them a possible motivation to make the allegation.) However, a number of other reasons have been advanced why Custer’s body was left alone.
Accounts by the soldiers who recovered the body indicate there was no evidence of suicide, using as evidence Custer’s right-handedness, the position of his major wounds on the left side of his body, and the lack of powder burns on his temple.
Certainly it would have been possible for Custer to have committed suicide by using his left hand. But whether he actually did is probably unknowable. There doesn’t seem to be any strong evidence in favor of it.
In the west point photo, does Custer have a pinky ring on his hanging (left, or right if reversed) hand?
Can we identify the badge on his cap and determine the photo is definitely flipped? That’s his holster on the table under his arm, does it appear to be for the left or right side?
(Yeah, the clothing - buttons, fly - seem to indicate a flipped photo.)
I would say that post #15 makes it clear it was definitely flipped. It’s a rather distinctive-looking firearm. Here’s what the left side looks like – the same view we’re seeing in the reversed photo of Custer. Here’s what the right side looks like – what we would see if the photo were not reversed.
Usedtobe:
the Henry had a 16 round magazine. Wiki:Henry rifle - Wikipedia
Usedtobe:
Custer had employed this tactic before with a positive outcome. (Gettysburg on the 3rd day.). He was an aggressive cavalry officer.
The lovely thing about old Lieutenant Colonel Custer (for that was his pay grade in the summer of 1876) is that of the circumstances of the last armed engagement he was a party to and the circumstances of his death provide an almost endless basis for speculation and imagination.
He was a bang-up cavalry commander in the last years of the Civil War, bold, physically brave and impetuous nearly to the point of recklessness, with a pretty big ego to boot. Sheridan, who was a pretty harsh judge of his subordinates, thought well of him during the war and valued him sufficiently to pull his chestnuts out of the fire after he had been suspended by a court-martial during Hancock’s Campaign in Western Kansas shortly after the war and again when George got himself crosswise with President Grant in 1876.
After the portion of the Seventh Cavalry Regiment over which Custer retained personal command separated from the battalions lead by Major (brevet LTC) Reno and CPT Benteen (also brevet LTC) no one now knows precisely what happened to Custer. Anyone who did know is beyond talking. The accounts of contemporary Americans and Europeans are so colored by personal agendas, admiration and hostility and the wish to protect the regiment’s reputation and Mrs. Custer’s feelings as to require critical if not skeptical reading. The Indian accounts are all filtered through American ears and are hobbled by the fact that the Indian participants were concerned about much different things than the things even an amateur military historian would be concerned with.
I suppose the closest we are going to get to a reliable story is one based on the archeological study conducted of part of the battlefield some ten years ago after a prairie fire burnt over the “Custer Battlefield.” It of course, tells us nothing about where and how Brevet Major General Custer died. In fact some contemporary evidence suggests that the bones excavated from the battlefield and decently buried at the US Military Academy might not even be Custer’s. Any one who really cares would be well advised to look at William Graham’s study, The Custer Myth, a Source Book. Colonel Graham at least had the advantage of knowing and corresponding with some of the old soldiers who survived the 1876 fight.
And you don’t even have to do it when you use Polaroid’s SX-70-style daguerreotypes! I think people do it just because of the funny noise a sheet of tin makes when you wave it.
Well, Wild Bill was definitely ambidextrous and Libby Custer found him devastatingly handsome (heard some rumors of an affair, but no smoking gun, so to speak) so maybe she liked that about George, too.
Including Frank Finkel? 