Supplementum: Benteen's march to Reno Hill

[benteeneast]

Jan 8, 2018 19:00:09 GMT -5 herosrest said:

Jan 8, 2018 10:39:05 GMT -5 robb said:

HR,

As soon as you remove the "dust" from your eyes, only then will you be able to see the pack train coming over the hill...


Robb

I'm rubbing hard. Hmmm..... pack train. Behind a hill.

Jan 8, 2018 10:55:19 GMT -5 benteeneast said:

Find him where? You can't use hindsight to know where to send Martin.

Regards

BE

Precisely where he was told to go.

HR

Benteen was not found where he was told to go. He was found in Reno Creek after he discontinued following the order which ordered him a line direction of where to go. Again you used hindsight to determine there was one place "precisely" where Benteen could be found unless some observation was made that Benteen had quit following the direction as ordered and chose to return to the trail of thousands of Indians.

That the pack train was mentioned is consistent with an observation that Benteen was closing toward the head of the pack train. Long Otter Creek would make the order impossible to comply with and Benteen would have to search for the pack train if he had continued the direction he was precisely told to go.

Regards

BE

[herosrest]

It truly amazes me how many otherwise intelligent battle students fail to pick up on this one obvious 'faux pas' in Wallace's itinerary. It makes no sense. It appears to me that Lt. Wallace, for reasons of his own, decided to add roughly one hour to his time estimates from this time forward. Had the Regiment arrived at Halt #2 at 10:07 a.m. shortly before Custer's return from the Crows Nest, there would be no earthy reason why the command could not have commenced their advance to the valley of the Little Big Horn by at least 10:50 a.m.

Of course, there are other red flags in Wallace's itinerary. He claims the command began their advance to cross the divide at 11:45 a.m. and moved all of 1/2 a mile before halting once again to divide the Regiment into battalions. He described Halt #2 as being 1/4 mile east of the divide and the stop where they divided into battalions as 1/4 mile west of the divide. Wallace then claims that it was 12:05 when this stop occurred, indicating that it took 20 minutes for the command to cover 1/2 a mile, which equates into a crawl of an absurd 1.5 mph! And this at a time when the command had been discovered! No, there are too many of these red flags in Wallace's itinerary, red flags that are consistently ignored by too many battle students today. I find the following question put to Lt. Wallace at the RCOI to be of interest:

Question: Is that memorandum you refer to the original itinerary? Wallace: No, sir; that is a copy. I did not compare it, but Lt. Maguire said it was an exact copy.

It is a shame that the Recorder did not demand that Lt. Maguire produce the original itinerary of Lt. Wallace so that the court could decide for itself if it was truly an exact copy, as Lt. Wallace so alleged. Unfortunately, Lt. Maguire was not asked to do so, and to this day, no one has ever seen that original itinerary. One wonders what could have happened to it? Instead, we are left entirely with Lt. Wallace's word for it. The choice is yours. You can 'Believe It - Or Not!' Read more:

That 'original' itinery was that given in Maguire's report of the 10th July 1876, which was sent to Gillespie with Maguire's first map and included to the Report to the Chief of Engineers, for the Secretary of War and 44th Congress. Maguire stated hearsay giving the regiment's arrival near the village as being 2pm. This was actually the time that Benteen arrived near the village and not the time at which Custer and Reno arrived.

That is the source of the enduring discrepancies which exist. The reality of events is that Benteen's command arrived near the village at 2 pm and with that understood, there are no further time discrepencie's.

Wallace deferred to Maguire's itinery of 7th Cavalry's march to Little Bighorn, from Maguire's report of July 10th 1876.

Jun 6, 2013 21:49:44 GMT -5 herosrest said:

Lt. Edward Maguire produced an itinery of the Regiment's advance based upon discussion with officer's of 7th Cavalry and included it to his July 10th Report to the Chief of Engineers. Linked here lbha.org/MaguireReport.pdf

This was Lt. Maguire's itinery of 7th Cavalry's march. It is not stated why he was unable to refer to information available, one assumes, from Lt. Wallace.

[ Supplementumnal addendum ]

There is a vein of battle study which promotes the gospel of time motion analytics to resolve arguments with what happened when and which view or opinion is essentially that which is correct. This is fundamentally emipirical by nature and therefore offered to be scientific. It can be fun. It can truly be a real pain because of the confusion which Wallace introduced to misunderstanding of the battle resulting from his use of Maguire's itinery.

With Benteen's battalion arriving near the village at 2 am, imprecise, woollen and difficultly imprecise - it is possible to calculate the maximum distance which his battalion covered during their march, up to 2pm. It isn't difficult maths and is highly relevant to study of the route taken during the march to the left and halts which took place. Benteen's march covered a mile each 12 minutes. The maths is difficult to argue with.

Example, take the PTL timeline departure for Benteen's valley hunt as 11am without ad infinitum, and his march covered a maximum distance of 15 miles from about 1/4 mile west of the divide, less whatever is given for watering; to arrive near the village at 2pm and join Reno at 2:30pm.

The couple of miles from the environs of Ford A to Reno Hill took around 20-25 minutes. PTL is mean with timing but that advance had to made cautiously since Benteen did not have a clue what lay ahead or what was happening there. This method of reverse calculation is an effective method of double checking the effects of logic and reasoning upon data. The only real data is distance.