Ever since my granddad told me about Captain Yates, LBH has been a major source of intrest to me. I used to believe the perception of "Custer the Heroic Jackass" until I first visited the battlefield. Walking the ground as a volunteer with a metal detactor during the '83 dig really opened my eyes.
Ever since then I have been a member of most of the LBH groups, I've spent waaaaaayyyy too much money on various books about LBH, and dragged my long suffering wife and kids to three boring vacations (at least for them!).
Custer may have been an ass, and certainly he was guilty of underestimating what was camped in the valley and certainly he should have taken time to properly scout the villages and it is also certain that the smart choice would have been to wait for General Terry to close up with the rest of the column. But GAC was a typical cavalry officer, raised in the Civil War and with too many images of Murat lurking in his head. But he did his best, too bad he was let down by Reno and Benteen.
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The reason that the American Army does so well in wartime, is that war is chaos, and the American Army practices chaos on a daily basis.
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