I find it interesting that the 45-70 was designed for infantry because it is such a large cartridge

entropy said:

His orders were to reconnoiter the camp, and if there were superior numbers, fall back and wait for Terry and Gibbon, who were making haste to get there. He was given (and this was Terry's big mistake) leave to attack if he felt his numbers were sufficient to capture the camp with minimal bloodshed. This is where Custer's hubris is culpable; he (wrongly, as it turned out) believed that by capturing women and children the braves would fold and fall in line back to where they belonged. They were on Crow land, hence the many Crow scouts he had, whom he didn't believe anyway when they told him not to attack until he had more men. Instead when the force besieging Reno and Benteen heard Custer was almost at the camp, a good portion of them peeled off their attack, and wheeled to hit Custer's flank, and then quickly surrounded his men, dooming them, and allowing Reno and Benteen to withdraw to a hill they could defend, which they did while a blocking force whittled away at them until sometime on the 27th. The Indians performed the classic maneuver of divide and defeat in detail, but the terrain prevented them from a final assault, and Terry and Gibbon were able to relieve them, their numbers causing the Indians to fall back. In the meantime McDougall, who had struggled to catch up to Custer and couldn't, had linked up with Terry, so the relief force was also well-supplied.

True, to the extent they defeated Custer only, and bloodied Reno and Benteen's force pretty good. Had Custer not been a 'rash idiot' in this case, the outcome most likely would have either been an all-out battle on the 27th or 28th, with the Army winning, or more likely, the Lakota and associated tribes with them vacating Crow land and going back to their land after a parley sometime around the 28th.

Click to expand...

Rash, maybe, but not an idiot.

When you take into account that all the commanders in the West knew of what happened the Col Joseph Reynolds after Powder River, he was Court Martialed. In the thumb-nail account that circulated among the posts, trimmed of all the exact details, and legal nuances of the trial, was that Reynolds was tasked with capturing an Indian village, and failed, and after taking only ten casualties (four dead, six wounded), retreated.

In short, aggression was the unwritten order of the day.

And, a battle on the 27th or 28th? Why would the Indians stick around for at least 36 to 50 hours after they discovered by the Cavalry? Custer manage some surprise on the village because he did attack immediately, but to expect 700 cavalry soldiers to sit 5 or 6 miles from an Indian village and not be detected within a few hours is silly.

A more likely scenario had Custer not attacked on the 25th would have been:

General Terry: "So, George, where is this 'big encampment of Indians'?"
Colonel Custer: "Well, they were down on the flat ground south of the river, we have about 20 or 30 under guard the valley to our right."
Terry: "I don't see any south of the river."
Custer: "Well, some of the slipped away the night of the 25th, the rest of them left the afternoon of the 26th. Our patrols only managed to catch a few, those are the ones we have now."
Terry: "Why didn't you attack when you had the element of surprise?"
Custer: "Well, there were a lot of them . . ."
Terry: "Did you go and count them, Colonel?"
Custer: "Errr, no, my Indian Scouts said there many have been as many as 7000 . . ."
Terry: "You know Scouts are prone to exaggerate. You're fired. And consider yourself lucky I don't Court Martial you for cowardice!"

entropy said:

His orders were to reconnoiter the camp, and if there were superior numbers, fall back and wait for Terry and Gibbon, who were making haste to get there. He was given (and this was Terry's big mistake) leave to attack if he felt his numbers were sufficient to capture the camp with minimal bloodshed. This is where Custer's hubris is culpable; he (wrongly, as it turned out) believed that by capturing women and children the braves would fold and fall in line back to where they belonged. They were on Crow land, hence the many Crow scouts he had, whom he didn't believe anyway when they told him not to attack until he had more men. Instead when the force besieging Reno and Benteen heard Custer was almost at the camp, a good portion of them peeled off their attack, and wheeled to hit Custer's flank, and then quickly surrounded his men, dooming them, and allowing Reno and Benteen to withdraw to a hill they could defend, which they did while a blocking force whittled away at them until sometime on the 27th. The Indians performed the classic maneuver of divide and defeat in detail, but the terrain prevented them from a final assault, and Terry and Gibbon were able to relieve them, their numbers causing the Indians to fall back. In the meantime McDougall, who had struggled to catch up to Custer and couldn't, had linked up with Terry, so the relief force was also well-supplied.



True, to the extent they defeated Custer only, and bloodied Reno and Benteen's force pretty good. Had Custer not been a 'rash idiot' in this case, the outcome most likely would have either been an all-out battle on the 27th or 28th, with the Army winning, or more likely, the Lakota and associated tribes with them vacating Crow land and going back to their land after a parley sometime around the 28th.

Click to expand...

General Terry & Gibbon, "making haste?" Read Roger Darling's excellent recounting of the battle, A SAD AND TERRIBLE BLUNDER. General Terry made several stupid blunders that delayed his troops. 1.) He botched a river crossing, and subsequently failed to make up lost time. 2.) An element of his column was separated and became lost, again, losing time. 3.) Advised by his scouts to choose what appeared to be a bad route because it later turned into an excellent route (considering supply wagons had to maneuver the route as well as horses) General Terry chose what looked a more promising route, which turned horrible, and further delayed the column. His scouts must have been gobsmacked that he'd ignore their experienced advice.

Consider Terry arrived Tuesday morning, June 27th. The battle began two days earlier, and was really effectively over when the Terry/Gibbon column arrived.

Terry was guilty of several mistakes as well, as I mentioned. The first being giving Custer the OK to attack if he believed he could secure the camp with minimal bloodshed. The second was his route choice; again, Custer wasn't the only officer guilty of not listening to his scouts. The element that was separated was McDougall and the supply train, whom he send forward to find Custer and get the supplies to him. McDougall, unable to locate Custer (because he wasn't where he was supposed to be, having advanced, against his scouts advice) returned eventually to the main column. Terry was moving at a rate consistent with a column that size of that time going through difficult terrain (again, because of his not heeding his scouts) trying to entrap an 'enemy' force that while it seemed wasn't in a hurry to go anywhere, had the capability. Yes, we agree he should have chosen his route better and moved faster.
Ultimately, the failure was mostly Custer's for exercising a poor choice when given said choice, and partially Terry's for giving him the choice in the first place. Had he given Custer (and Reno and Benteen, in the form of subsidiary orders to hold back even if Custer were to disobey orders and attack) orders to specifically not attack, but to park his forces strategically to prevent escape until enough manpower could be brought up, the outcome would have been different, as I mentioned previously.

Kleanbore said:

They had decided to stay and fight.

They had to move from time to time because the grass for the ponies was depleted and human and equine waste was everywhere.

Their approach and progress had been known for days.

The Crow scouts could not believe that anyone would light so many fires to cook bacon and make coffee.

This is interesting, but it is off topic

I recommend The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn by Nathaniel Phibrick.

The short response to the OP: black powder technology and the tactics of the day led all major powers to use large cartridges in infantry rifles.

Click to expand...

The Indians were also not idiots, if Custer had not attacked immediately, they would have surmised, correctly, he was waiting for reinforcements, and taken the opportunity to leave and scatter, as they had done before.

And while we are second guessing Commanders' decisions, what about Benteen and Reno? Why didn't they mount an organized relief effort? At least that bit of second-guessing has the support of many officers and men present at the battle.

Tommygunn said:

The problem with the cartridge at the Little Bighorn was not the round, per se, it was the cases used in the cheap ammo the govt. contracted for. They were made of copper, not brass. Copper doesn't behave the same way in a gun and tends to remain expanded upon powder ignition. Combine with BP and a dirty breech = jammed carbines aplenty.

When made of brass and loaded properly with good firearm hygiene, it's a fine round.

Click to expand...

A little bit of history; 12 years before the Little Bighorn debacle Crazy Horse managed to entice the Fetterman detail (against specific orders) over a ridge near Fort Phil Kearny in northern Wyoming.
It was all planned by Red Cloud. By some accounts he had more than a thousand braves hidden in the trees in the arroyos on either side of the side ridge that the 80 men descended. After they reached the third "hump" Red Clouds men cut loose with a hail of arrows. The soldiers couldn't see or shoot at their opponents and some of their bodies were found with more than 40 arrow wounds.

I have walked the actual battleground and could see the brilliance of the Cheyenne Chief.
The braves recovered many arrows and, importantly, they seized 80 repeating rifles.

Now to 1876 and, despite reading copious accounts, I have only recently discovered a critical consideration. According to Salt Lake City weather records 1876 had the wettest March-April-May period of any on record either before or SINCE TOO!

This means that, although Custer's men had a rifle that could kill at a half mile, the Indians could creep, hidden by 3'-4' high grass, to within 100 yards at which point their repeaters (now well more than 80) could do far more devastating work than the soldiers single shot rifles even if they didn't also have terrible problems with poor cases.

(BTW poor cases were also a problem for the men defending Rorke's Drift in 1879 with single shot Martini Henry .45 rifles as well. There 80% of the men suffered burned left palms from firing overheated rifles at ever oncoming Zulu hordes. But they did better than Custer, who fared no better than the brits that were massacred by 21,000 Zulus at Isandlwana only 12 miles away that morning!)

I would like to see an account of the Custer Massacre that considers the extraordinary range conditions at the time.

Koroner said:

The braves recovered many arrows and, importantly, they seized 80 repeating rifles.

Click to expand...

Not quite- The infantry involved in the action were armed with muzzleloaders. Unsure on the cavalry- probably Spencers or Sharps. The two white scouts had Henrys.

The Fetterman Massacre resulted in rapid fielding of the the new .50-70 Trapdoor conversions, which made their impact felt soon at the nearby Wagon Box Fight.

entropy said:

Terry was guilty of several mistakes as well, as I mentioned. The first being giving Custer the OK to attack if he believed he could secure the camp with minimal bloodshed. The second was his route choice; again, Custer wasn't the only officer guilty of not listening to his scouts. The element that was separated was McDougall and the supply train, whom he send forward to find Custer and get the supplies to him. McDougall, unable to locate Custer (because he wasn't where he was supposed to be, having advanced, against his scouts advice) returned eventually to the main column. Terry was moving at a rate consistent with a column that size of that time going through difficult terrain (again, because of his not heeding his scouts) trying to entrap an 'enemy' force that while it seemed wasn't in a hurry to go anywhere, had the capability. Yes, we agree he should have chosen his route better and moved faster.
Ultimately, the failure was mostly Custer's for exercising a poor choice when given said choice, and partially Terry's for giving him the choice in the first place. Had he given Custer (and Reno and Benteen, in the form of subsidiary orders to hold back even if Custer were to disobey orders and attack) orders to specifically not attack, but to park his forces strategically to prevent escape until enough manpower could be brought up, the outcome would have been different, as I mentioned previously.

Click to expand...

As the highest ranking officer in command of the 7th Cavalry, Gen. Custer was certainly the ultimate responsible officer for what happened to it .
I have read numerous accounts of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. I find it fascinating that there are so many accounts, differing in perspective, detail, emphasis .... and so forth. I sometimes wish I had a time machine so I could go back and video the fight .... and also, I wish I was bullet-proof.

1.) Custer was NOT a general during LBH. He was a brevet Brigadier and then Major General during the Civil War, but like many other brevet Officers, after war, resumed his regular rank. (LTC)
2.) He was left in charge because the actual commanding officer, Col. Samuel D. Sturgis, was at St. Louis, in charge of Cavalry recruiting and the Cavalry Depot.
We are in agreement that whatever rank he was, Custer was ultimately at fault, for the reasons I explained in previous posts.

Tommygunn said:

and also, I wish I was bullet-proof.

Click to expand...

I've heard tell that about a pint of Jack Daniels makes some guys "bullet-proof."

entropy said:

Custer was ultimately at fault

Click to expand...

The commander is always responsible for the outcome -- that's the burden of command itself.

But Custer was following the Dash-1 Doctrine of the day: Hit the Indians immediately when found encamped;
do it simultaneously from multiple directions, and they will scatter.
Then you do what cavalry has always done... pursue, disrupt, scatter and destroy in their panicked retreat.

We love revisionist policy... almost as much as revisionist history.

entropy said:

1.) Custer was NOT a general during LBH. He was a brevet Brigadier and then Major General during the Civil War, but like many other brevet Officers, after war, resumed his regular rank.
2.) He was left in charge because the actual commanding officer, Col. Samuel D. Sturgis, was at St. Louis, in charge of Cavalry recruiting and the Cavalry Depot.
We are in agreement that whatever rank he was, Custer was ultimately at fault, for the reasons I explained in previous posts.

Click to expand...

Yea, but as a civilian, I believe I'd have been obliged to refer to him by his highest attained rank. There was supposedly a rather complex set of rules on how different people of differing ranks and civilians were to refer to officers, depending upon circumstances. I have always just said "General Custer." But you're certainly correct about it being a brevet, and that he was really a Lt. Col. at the LBG.

MEHavey said:

The commander is always responsible for the outcome

Click to expand...

Correct. Before radio use for battle, this would have been the on-scene commander; in this case, LTC Custer.

Kevinq6 said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.45-70

From the wikipedia article I can see it was used for infantry volleys out to 1000 yards and beyond, so I can see that the heavy 405 or 500 grain bullets would be lethal out to further ranges due to their size. However, for an antipersonnel gun it seems like the ammo would be pretty heavy and a bit overkill for use against humans. Why not have a smaller caliber and more ammo? Was the advantage of a longer-range volley worth the price of having fewer rounds?

Click to expand...

Back then rifles were single shots, so the rate of fire was a lot slower. 45-70 was originally a black powder cartridge so it couldn't be a lot smaller and still offer sufficient ballistics. Take a look at a 577/450 Martini-Henry cartridge of the period, as used by the British.

the 577/450 really wasn't quite a 45-90, which (as anyone who own one knows) wasn't that big of a deal over the 45-70 (about 90fps faster)

MEHavey said:

the 577/450 really wasn't quite a 45-90, which (as anyone who own one knows) wasn't that big of a deal over the 45-70 (about 90fps faster)

Click to expand...

Makes sense, with the .577/450 having an 80 grain charge versus 70 grain.

One of the main reasons for the adoption of the .45/70 (and the .30-06) was its effectiveness against cavalry horses at long range.
That was a major concern for infantry generals.
Keeping massed cavalry from closing in an organised group was what it was all about for infantry before WWII... .

So much BS. The best account I have read was by a reporter from Chicago that accompanied several expeditions over 3 years against the Indians mainly the Sioux. Various tribes were enemies of the Sioux and at times fought with the army. Infantry as well as cavalry. Often they had to separate from the supply trains to pursue the Indians. It was reported that the Indians had superior numbers at little Big Horn and were well armed with repeating arms. Many also fought with more primitive weapons as well.
The 45/70 like all black powder cartridges was limited in velocity. The only way to add energy was by mass. It was considered a light cartridge at the time. Records exist of all the buffalo rifles manufactured and none of the 5000 or professional rifles were in 45/70. The Buffalo were mostly wiped out before the 45/70 became widely available. None of the accounts I have read from pioneer days even mention the 45/70 as a hunting round except a Buffalo hunter considered it a deer round. But I haven't read everything written in those days. I don't consider modern writers as accurate since they weren't there.

3Crows said:

why kill a soul if you can wound them enough to take them out of the fight for a good length of time.

Click to expand...

Because a wounded man can kill you, a dead man can't. I learned that lesson the hard way.

Vern Humphrey said:

Because a wounded man can kill you, a dead man can't. I learned that lesson the hard way.

Click to expand...

Kevinq6 said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.45-706 ft by 6 ft target was the accuracy standard.

From the wikipedia article I can see it was used for infantry volleys out to 1000 yards and beyond, so I can see that the heavy 405 or 500 grain bullets would be lethal out to further ranges due to their size. However, for an antipersonnel gun it seems like the ammo would be pretty heavy and a bit overkill for use against humans. Why not have a smaller caliber and more ammo? Was the advantage of a longer-range volley worth the price of having fewer rounds?

Click to expand...

That article is highly optimistic about the usefulness of the 45/70 cartridge. Maximum range of actual buffalo guns was 200 yards or less to make an accurate lethal shot on buffalo and all of those rifles were more powerful than the 45/70. The article states that hitting a 6x6 ft board at 600 yards was acceptable accuracy. As soon as smokeless powders were invented it was an obsolete round, even the .30 caliber was very outclassed in the Spanish American war by the high velocity Mausers. Actually on human or deer size critters a 5.56 NATO is more lethal and vastly more accurate. Also the idea of shooting to wound rather than kill is not nor ever has been a doctrine of the US Army. Some folks like the myth over the cold facts.

d2wing said:

That article is highly optimistic about the usefulness of the 45/70 cartridge. Maximum range of actual buffalo guns was 200 yards or less to make an accurate lethal shot on buffalo and all of those rifles were more powerful than the 45/70. The article states that hitting a 6x6 ft board at 600 yards was acceptable accuracy. As soon as smokeless powders were invented it was an obsolete round, even the .30 caliber was very outclassed in the Spanish American war by the high velocity Mausers. Actually on human or deer size critters a 5.56 NATO is more lethal and vastly more accurate. Also the idea of shooting to wound rather than kill is not nor ever has been a doctrine of the US Army. Some folks like the myth over the cold facts.

Click to expand...

Speaking of cold facts.

You say the buffalo were largely gone by the time the 45-70 came out in 1873. They were not. The Southern herd was not eradicated until the late 1870s and only by the mid 1880s was the Northern herd pretty much wiped out. But since you tell us that there were "much more powerful" rounds used in buffalo rifles and that by 1873, the buffalo were largely gone, do tell us what were those "much more powerful" cartridges designed and chambered in rifles prior 1873? Your knowledge of buffalo hunting astounds. Your assertion of the maximum range for "actual buffalo guns" at 200 yards is most interesting and seems entirely at odds with your alleged knowledge of buffalo hunting. Perhaps you could support these claims with some cold facts...

You are right about one thing. The 45-70 was not the cartridge that was responsible for the bulk of buffalo deaths. Its predecessor, the 50-70 (.50 Musket) was. And it was indeed marginally more powerful than the 45-70.

https://www.encyclopedia.com/histor...cs-transcripts-and-maps/buffalo-extermination

https://www.inforum.com/news/471094...during-the-‘Last-Great-Hunt’-at-Standing-Rock

Of the so-called buffalo cartridges, only the .50 Musket (50-70) and the .44-77 Sharps preceded the 45-70 in 1873 (by which time you assert the buffalo were all gone). With a 365 grs bullet at 1450 fps (advertised), it doesn't really seem to make the cut as "much more powerful" than the 45-70.

https://www.chuckhawks.com/buffalo_cartridges.htm

Your tone invites reciprocation. Perhaps amendment is in order.

Yeah, .30-40 Krag sounds pretty interesting in a trapdoor rifle. Probably pushing the limits, though.

The thing to remember is that infantry battles proceeded at infantry speeds. Two bodies of infantry closed with each other at six to eight miles per hour if they weren't firing at each other. That's why volley fire was such a killer before the era of trench warfare and why volley sights were so popular on rifles of the period.
If you could take out the massed infantry before they could close to bayonet range, if you could break up the cavalry charge before the sabers could come out then the battle was pretty much won.
Reloading a single-shot on called orders and firing on command while maintaining formation was the technique of the day. Rapid fire was not considered to be an advantage for regular infantry.
Skirmishers, maybe, but not infantry.
This all changed with the introduction of stripper clips, en-bloc clips and machine guns, of course.

You are right about one thing. The 45-70 was not the cartridge that was
responsible for the bulk of buffalo deaths. Its predecessor, the 50-70
(.50 Musket) was....

Click to expand...

.
Like our blindly blaming Custer for what was in reality accepted doctrine ("...hit the Indians hard by surprise from multiple directions and they will invariably scatter even when they are much greater in numbers), . . . so too is blaming the Buffalo Hunters for the decimation of the American Bison.

Not so fast....
https://www.tsln.com/news/a-unique-study-of-bison-populations/
>
> ...very curious as to why bison numbers plummeted in the late 19th century when research
> shows professional hunters’ extermination of all buffalo was a myth with no factual basis.
>

Recent simplistic emergence of the Hate-Americans / Their-Icons / and Their-History genre needs to be examined with a jaundiced eye -- toward both contemporary conditions, standards, ...and actual facts.


.

Complete records exist for all the Buffalo rifles made about 5000 by three makers. Also you claim I said things that I did not. As I said, I go by accounts written in those days, not modern writers with revisionist ideas. The articles you linked largely support everything I actually said.