Lone Star Rifle Company, Inc. |
||
 |
 |
 |
|
||
|
|
General George Custer Since Dave Higginbotham is somewhat of an historian and is particularly interested in George Armstrong Custer's use of a Remington Rolling Block at Little Big Horn, he thought you might be interested in a history of the weapons used by the troops and the Indians.
By Terry Shulman IT MAY BE THAT the Battle of the Little Bighorn is the
most written about subject in American history. For more than 120 years, people have
speculated about how Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer and five companies of the 7th
Cavalry were overwhelmed in southeastern Montana Territory by a combined force of Lakota
and Cheyenne Indians on June 25, 1876. Yet, the controversy does not appear any closer to
resolution today. A number of reasons have been given for the defeat: Custer disobeyed
orders, disregarded the warnings of his scouts, violated the principles of warfare by
dividing his command, was ambushed or was the victim of a conspiracy; internal regimental
jealousies caused the defeat; the regiment was too tired to fight; there were too many raw
recruits or too many Indians; the Indians had better weapons; or the Army had defective
guns. Most of the conjectures are moot, for they can be debated endlessly--with
intellectual and emotional biases interfering with reasoned arguments. Given the nature of
the evidence, however, one should be able to study the role the weapons played in the
battle's outcome with a modicum of objectivity. Although repeating rifles such as the Spencer, Winchester and Henry had
been available, particularly in the post-Civil War years, the Ordnance Department decided
to use a single-shot system. It was selected instead of a repeating system because of
manufacturing economy, ruggedness, reliability, efficient use of ammunition and similarity
to European weapons systems. Ironically, the board of officers involved in the final
selection included Major Marcus A. Reno, who would survive the 7th Cavalry's 1876 debacle
on the Little Bighorn. The guns were all tested for defective cartridges, endurance, accuracy,
rapidity of fire, firing with excessive charges, and effects of dust and rust. The
Springfield was the winner. The Model 1873 carried by the 7th Cavalry was a carbine that
weighed 7 pounds and had an overall length of 41 inches. It used a ..45-caliber
copper-cased cartridge, a 405-grain bullet and a charge of 55 grains of black powder. The
best effective range for this carbine was under 300 yards, but significant hits still
could be scored out to 600 yards. A bullet was driven out of the muzzle at a velocity of
about 1,200 feet per second, with 1,650 foot-pounds of energy. The trapdoor Springfield
could hurl a slug more than 1,000 yards and, with proper training, could be fired with
accuracy 12 to 15 times per minute. The Colt Single Action Army revolver was chosen over
other Colts, Remingtons and Starrs. By 1871, the percussion cap models were being
converted for use with metallic cartridges. Ordnance testing in 1874 narrowed the field to
two final contenders: the Colt Single Action Army and the Smith & Wesson Schofield.
The Schofield won only in speed of ejecting empty cartridges. The Colt won in firing,
sanding and rust trials and had fewer, simpler and stronger parts. The Model "P"
had a barrel of 7.5 inches and fired six .45-caliber metallic cartridges with 28 grains of
black powder. It had a muzzle velocity of 810 feet per second, with 400 foot-pounds of
energy. Its effective range dropped off rapidly over 60 yards, however. The standard U.S.
issue of the period had a blue finish, case-hardened hammer and frame, and walnut grips.
The Colt became ubiquitous on the frontier. To the soldier it was a
"thumb-buster," to the lawman a "peacemaker" or "equalizer,"
and to the civilian a "hog leg" or "plow-handle." The revolver was so
strong and dependable that, with minor modifications, it was still being produced by the
Colt Company into the 1980s. Overall, the soldiers were pleased with their weapons. Lieutenant James
Calhoun of Company L wrote in his diary on July 1, 1874: "The new Springfield arms
and ammunition were issued to the command today. They seem to give great
satisfaction." Although most of the men drew the standard-issue weapons, it was their
prerogative to purchase their own arms. George Custer carried a Remington ..50-caliber
sporting rifle with octagonal barrel and two revolvers that were not standard
issue--possibly Webley British Bulldog, double-action, white-handled revolvers. Captain
Thomas A. French of Company M carried a .50-caliber Springfield that his men called
"Long Tom." Sergeant John Ryan, also of Company M, used a .45-caliber, 15-pound
Sharps telescopic rifle, specially made for him. Private Henry A. Bailey of Company I had
a preference for a Dexter Smith, breechloading, single-barreled shotgun. It is well-known that Custer's men each brought a trapdoor Springfield and
a Colt .45 to the Little Bighorn that June day in 1876. Identification of the Indian
weapons is more uncertain. Participants claimed to have gone into battle with a plethora
of arms--bows and arrows, ancient muzzleloaders, breechloaders and the latest repeating
arms. Bows and arrows played a part in the fight. Some warriors said they lofted
high-trajectory arrows to fall among the troopers while remaining hidden behind hill and
vale. The dead soldiers found pincushioned with arrows, however, were undoubtedly riddled
at close range after they were already dead or badly wounded. The long range at which most
of the fighting occurred did not allow the bow and arrow a prominent role. Not until archaeological investigations were conducted on the battlefield
during the 1980s did the extent to which the Indians used gunpowder weapons come to light.
Modern firearm identification analysis revealed that the Indians had spoken the truth
about the variety and number of weapons they carried. The Cheyenne warrior Wooden Leg went
into battle with what he called a "six-shooter" and later captured a Springfield
carbine and 40 rounds of ammunition. The Miniconjou One Bull, Sitting Bull's nephew, owned
an old muzzleloader. The Hunkpapa Iron Hawk and the Cheyenne Big Beaver had only bows and
arrows. Eagle Elk, an Oglala, started the battle with a Winchester. White Cow Bull, an
Oglala, also claimed to have a repeater. The Winchester, in fact, was almost a duplicate of the repeater developed
by B. Tyler Henry, who was to become superintendent at Oliver Winchester's New Haven Arms
Company. The success of Henry's rifles ensured Winchester's success, and the primary
weapon carried by the Indians at the Little Bighorn was either Henry's model or the
slightly altered Winchester Model 1866. Both fired a ..44-caliber Henry rimfire cartridge.
The Henry used a 216-grain bullet with 25 grains of powder, while the Winchester used a
200-grain bullet with 28 grains of powder. Velocity was 1,125 feet per second, with 570
foot-pounds of energy. Cartridges were inserted directly into the front of the Henry
magazine, while the Winchester 1866 had a spring cover on the right side of the receiver.
The carbine and the rifle had a capacity of 13 and 17 cartridges respectively. In effect, all of these weapons fared equally well at short ranges. The
Army's Springfields had an accuracy advantage over the Indians' repeaters at medium ranges
(200500 yards), plus they were more rugged and durable. The long-range weapons the
Indians had were too few (there is evidence of only one Sharps .45-70 at the battle) to
make much of a difference. Their preponderance of repeaters increased the Indians'
firepower, but the repeaters were only good at short ranges. And the Indian narratives
tell a story of a battle that, until the last desperate moments, was fought generally from
long range (more than 500 yards)--a dubious advantage to the cavalrymen, since the
relatively slow muzzle velocity of their Springfields meant a high trajectory that made
chances of hitting anything slim. Overall, the pluses and minuses probably canceled each other out. It has
been said that the 7th Cavalry might have won had it still used the seven-shot Spencers it
carried at the Washita battle in 1868, but the Spencers were no better in range or
accuracy than the Henrys or Winchesters, and they carried fewer bullets. The contention
that the Springfields suffered from a significant number of extractor failures was not
borne out. Only about 2 percent of the recovered specimens showed evidence of extractor
problems. Custer has been criticized for not taking along a battery of Gatling guns, but
General Nelson A. Miles commented on their usefulness: "I am not surprised that poor
Custer declined" taking them along, he said. "They are worthless for Indian
fighting." Equipping the cavalry with another type of weapon probably would not have
made much of a difference at the Little Bighorn. What, then, was the reason that the soldiers made such a poor showing
during the West's most famous Army-Indian battle? While Custer's immediate command of 210
men was wiped out and more than 250 troopers and scouts were killed in the fighting on
June 25-26, the Indians lost only about 40 or 50 men. The explanation appears to lie in
the fact that weapons are no better than the men who use them. Marksmanship training in
the frontier Army prior to the 1880s was almost nil. An Army officer recalled the 1870s
with nostalgia. "Those were the good old days," he said. "Target practice
was practically unknown." A penurious government allowed only about 20 rounds per
year for training--a situation altered only because of the Custer disaster. And the 20
rounds of ammunition often were expended in firing at passing game rather than in
sharpshooting. The 7th Cavalry was not hampered by new recruits, for only about 12 percent
of the force could be considered raw. What handicapped the entire regiment, however, was
inadequate training in marksmanship and fire discipline. It is the posturing that has increased with the introduction of firearms
to the battlefield. It is almost impossible for a man to shirk battle when at arm's length
from an enemy wielding sword or pike, but it is easier to remain aloof at rifle range. One
has other options besides immediate fight or flight. The Rebel yell or the Union
"hurrah," for example, were simply means to bolster one's courage while trying
to frighten the enemy. The loud crack of the rifle also served the same purpose, filling a
deep-seated need to posture--i.e., to put on a good show and scare the enemy, yet still
leave the shooter far away from a hand-to-hand death struggle. In reality, those good
shows were often harmless, with the rifleman firing over the heads of the enemy. Indeed, it was at times even difficult to get soldiers to fire at all.
After the Battle of Gettysburg, 24,000 loaded muskets were recovered; only 12,000 of them
had been loaded more than once, 6,000 had from three to 10 rounds in the barrel, and one
weapon had been loaded 23 times! One conclusion is that a great number of soldiers are
simply posturing and not trying to kill the enemy. At the Little Bighorn, about 42,000 rounds were either expended or lost.
At that rate, the soldiers hit one Indian for about every 840 shots. Since much of the
ammunition was probably lost--Indians commented on capturing ammunition in cartridge belts
and saddlebags--the hit rate must have been higher. Yet the results do not speak highly of
a supposedly highly trained, "crack" cavalry regiment. High fire very plainly took place at the Little Bighorn, most notably on
Reno's skirmish line in the valley. Troopers went into battle with 100 rounds of
Springfield ammunition and 24 rounds of Colt ammunition. About 100 troopers on Reno's line
may have fired half of their ammunition toward the southern edge of the Indian village.
The 5,000 bullets only hit one or two Indians, but they certainly damaged the lodges. A
Hunkpapa woman, Moving Robe, claimed "the bullets shattered the tepee poles,"
and another Hunkpapa woman, Pretty White Buffalo, stated that "through the tepee
poles their bullets rattled." The relatively low muzzle velocity of the Springfield
meant that the soldier would have had to aim quite a bit over the head of an Indian for
any chance to hit him at long distance. If the officers called for the sights to be set
for 500 yards to hit Indians issuing from the village--and did not call for a subsequent
sight adjustment--by the time the Indians approached to 300 yards, the bullets would be
flying 12 feet over their heads. As a comparison, the modern M-16 round, traveling at
3,250 feet per second, has an almost flat trajectory, and the bullet will hit where it is
aimed with very little sight adjustment. The soldiers' difficulty in hitting their targets was also increased by
the fact that the Indians stayed out of harm's way for almost all of the battle. One
archaeological field study located the Indian positions and discovered that nearly every
location was 300 to 1,200 yards away from the troopers. Given the distances involved, the
fact that soldiers tended to shoot high, the lack of marksmanship training and the
conscious or subconscious posturing involved, it is not surprising that the troopers
scored so few hits. Arguably, posturing has been a factor at every gunpowder battle, as it
most likely was at the Little Bighorn--but how about submission? It was drummed into the
common soldier that he should save the last bullet for himself. He supposedly would place
his Colt to his head, pull the trigger and go to Fiddler's Green, rather than take the
chance of being captured alive. Custer had even requested that his wife, Elizabeth, who
often rode with the cavalry, should be shot by an officer rather than chance being taken
by the Indians. As strange as it may seem, even with this dread of being captured,
surrender attempts were made at the Little Bighorn fight. Indian accounts tell of white
men who, at the last second, threw their hands up in surrender and offered their guns to
the onrushing warriors. The Lakotas and Cheyennes were not swayed. Given all these factors operating against the citizen-soldier, how could
commanders ever go into battle expecting to win? The answer, again, lies not in the
weapons the soldiers used, but in the soldiers themselves--and their officers. Problems arose, however, when tactics broke down from midlevel and
small-scale, to micro-scale. According to then Brevet Major Edward S. Godfrey, fire
discipline--the ability to control and direct deliberate, accurate, aimed fire--will
decide every battle. No attack force, however strong, could reach a defensive line of
steady soldiers putting out disciplined fire. The British army knew such was the case, as
did Napoleon. Two irregular warriors could probably defeat three soldiers. However, 1,000
soldiers could probably beat 2,000 irregulars. The deciding factor was strength in
unity--fire discipline. It was as Major Godfrey said: "Fire is everything, the rest
is nothing." Theoretically, on the Little Bighorn, with a small-scale defense in
suitable terrain with an open field of fire of a few hundred yards, several companies of
cavalrymen in close proximity and under strict fire control could have easily held off two
or three times their number of Indian warriors. In reality, on the Little Bighorn, several
companies of cavalrymen who were not in close proximity and had little fire control, with
a micro-scale defense in unsuitable, broken terrain, could not hold off two or three times
their number of Indian warriors. The breakdown stems from an attitude factor. Custer exhibited an
arrogance, not necessarily of a personal nature, but rather as a part of his racial
makeup. Racial experience may have influenced his reactions to the immediate situation of
war. It was endemic in red vs. white modes of warfare and implies nothing derogatory to
either side. Historically, Indians fled from large bodies of soldiers. It was Custer's
experience that it was much harder to find and catch an Indian than to actually fight him.
Naturally influenced by his successful past experiences with small-unit tactics, Custer
attacked. He was on the offensive. He knew he must remain on the offensive to be
successful. Even after Reno had been repulsed, Custer was maneuvering, looking for another
opportunity to attack. The positions that Custer's dead were found in did not indicate a strong
defensive setup. Even after the Indians had taken away the initiative, Custer's mind-set
was still on "attack." Although a rough, boxlike perimeter was formed, it
appeared more a matter of circumstance than intent. Custer probably never realized that
his men's very survival was on the line, at least not until it was too late to remedy the
situation. The men were not in good defensible terrain. They were not within mutual
supporting distance. They were not under the tight fire control of their officers.
Custer's troopers were in detachments too small for a successful tactical stance. When the
critical point was reached, the soldiers found themselves stretched beyond the physical
and psychological limits of fight or posture--they had to flee or submit. Seemingly out of supporting distance of his comrades, the individual
trooper found himself desperately alone. The "bunkie" was not close enough. The
first sergeant was far away. The lieutenant was nowhere to be seen. The trooper responded
as well as he could have been expected to. He held his ground and fought, he fired into
the air like an automaton, he ran, he gave up. Some stands were made, particularly on and
within a radius of a few hundred yards of the knoll that became known as Custer Hill,
where almost all of the Indian casualties occurred. When it came down to one-on-one,
warrior versus soldier, however, the warrior was the better fighter. George Armstrong Custer may have done almost everything as prescribed. But
it was not enough to overcome the combination of particular circumstances, some of his own
making, arrayed against him that day. Inadequate training in marksmanship and poor fire
discipline resulting from a breakdown in command control were major factors in the battle
results. Neither Custer's weapons nor those the Indians used against him were the cause of
his defeat. Author Greg Michno, of Westland, Mich., wrote the Wrangler Award-winning "Lakota Noon at the Greasy Grass" in the June 1996 issue of Wild West. He has written two books on the June 1876 fight--The Mystery of E Troop: Custer's Gray Horse Company at the Little Bighorn and Lakota Noon (portions of this article were drawn from the latter). For further reading, he suggests: Custer's Battle Guns, by John DuMont; Bugles, Banners and Warbonnets, by E. Lisle Reedstrom; Archaeological Perspectives on the Battle of the Little Bighorn, by Douglas Scott and Richard Fox; Custer, Cases & Cartridges, by Don Weibert; and Crossing the Deadly Ground (for a discussion of 19th-century marksmanship), by Perry Jamieson |
