Gun owner poll

[Dill]

(10-04-2019, 02:35 AM)Bengalzona Wrote: Considering the disparity of numbers, you might get a sense that this was a hopeless job. But our soldiers had a few things going for them: good leadership, planning, logistics, experience, discipline and the horse. The soldiers that came out West after the war were mostly veterans of the war. Hardened veterans. Most had been in the cavalry during the war they knew how to ride and shoot and how to operate under fire. The veterans would have been in their 30's in the 1870's and their 40's in the 1880's. Their leaders (Sherman, Crook, etc.) were also experienced. And they, Custer included, understood the importance of logistics. Hence one of the first items was constructing forts to operate out of and to protect supply lines settler trails. This was the same basic plan which the crusaders had used to set up their kingdoms in the Levant seven hundreds years earlier. And they, in turn had learned it from the Romans.

A very Bengalzonesque (i.e. excellent) overview of the plains campaign.

One quick point here, though. Sometimes there was a tendency to overconfidence among commanders.
Fetterman: "Give me 80 men and I'll ride through the entire Sioux nation."  lol

Ability of the plains Indians to move and fight from horseback was somewhat underestimated.

On the side of the U.S.--the fact native Americans had to protect, and often move with, their families, and, until Crazy Horse, had much difficulty mounting combined operations, made resistance rather thin until 1876. Also on the side of the U.S. were the Crow, among the best plains scouts.