When one endures the fraud on both sides in the military, media and family in the Pat Tillman incident it is a facet of absolute idiotry. The military sought to protect Tillman from being exposed for what he was. The media made hero and bastard of Tillman. The family could not leave the incident alone which made their relative a hero in military propaganda, exposed Tillman for the mouth he was and after exposing it, they created an original Army propaganda about what a fictional great guy Tillman was.Dead Soldiers are fodder for liberals in any season from the 1860's to the Age of Obama photo ops. Nothing changes and everything stays the same with the Soldiers suffering and the Truth as dead as they are in their murders.
I did not set out to expose what happened in July of 1867 with the 10 Troopers under Lt. Lyman Kidder of Company M of 2nd Cavalry, but it amazes me how much Gen. Custer and the entire command knew what exactly led to the massacre, with Gen. Custer actually relating the cause in My Life on the Plains, but no one seemed to pay any attention to the Sarah Palin western twangy wisdom of Scout William Comstock, who would later be murdered by the Cheyenne.
Any plainsman could look at the Kidder Massacre and judge immediately the cause, and the cause was West Point arrogance and the genealogy of Lyman Kidder being part of the American aristocracy in the son of Vermont Judge, Jefferson Kidder.
For the background in this for those who do not know the history, Gen. Custer had been on a military maneuver after meeting Pawnee Killer of the western Sioux. (I have had it with this Lakota bullsh*t, just because the western Sioux could not pronounce the name Dakota, is no reason to enable them.)
Pawnee Killer after professing loyalty, peace and other lies which Indians always did in peace council, immediately attacked Custer's forces.
We know this, because Custer had a meeting with the Indians after they attempted to slaughter his command as they slept in their beds, and it was Pawnee Killer who was there.
A supply train sent for provisions by Custer was ambushed by 600 warriors. There were two detachments sent in Lt. Joel Elliot who the Indians left unharmed to get at the supplies, and the latter Lt. Lyman Kidder.
The supply train formed two barriers and never stopped movement as the Sioux first tried to hit the train on the flank and were viciously repulse by the 48 Troopers, and then circles the train for 3 hours in a running fight.
Gen. Custer ascertaining that the Indians would probably hit his supply train, sent reinforcements who arrived on the horizon at hour one in the fight. The Indians realizing that by hour 3 their spent ponies would be quickly overhauled by the Cavalry, fled the scene.
The problem now in this history is we know Kidder's Troopers with the Sioux Red Bead followed on Custer's trail, and as Custer changed direction slightly, Kidder on reaching the Republican River camp, followed the supply train thinking Custer was returning to the Fort.
It is at this point that Scout Comstock assessed the situation correctly. Kidder was a college boy of West Point and none of those scholarly types could be told a damn thing. They knew it all and didn't know squat.
Squat comes in handy in Indian or any terrorist fight, as the place you chose to run, how you run, where you run, and where you make your stand, decides if you live, if you die and how hard you sell out in dying making your enemy pay.
Gen. Custer upon leaving the Republican in trying to locate Kidder's Troopers soon found a white Cavalry horse shot on the road. Up to that point the shod horses were moving in a walk in formation.
Horses were shot when they became ill, so as to not abandon them and in their recovery become an asset to the Indians. No clues were formed yet for the Scouts, but this changed as another horse was found shot on the trail to Beaver Creek.
At this point, Comstock and the Delaware Indian Scouts ascertained that the horses had left the trail and were running. There were now pony tracks, meaning Indians were in the chase.
Gen. Custer noted that Kidder decided to trust to his American horses in a desperate run for their lives. The General was telling the plainsmen exactly what had happened as all knew the horse sense of the times.
An American horse could and would outrun most Indian ponies in a sprint in the 5 to 12 mile run. Providing of course that one did not wind their horses in a desperate wide open gallop.
After this time, the Indian pony would run an American horse into the ground as they had the 12 to 50 mile endurance.
The Indians had chosen broken ground which favored them, as broken ground was the last thing you ever wanted to fight an Indian on due to their abilities of using cover, getting close and murdering you, whether high grass or ravine.
Kidder led his party into the Beaver Creek drainage, which Custer noted when he found the bodies was a ravine with tall grass.
The original 12 Cheyenne warriors circles the ravine, while the Sioux dismounted and stalked up the ravine to where the 12 Soldiers were on their last stand.
No one has detailed except mentioning that the Sioux were with Pawnee Killer. So numbers of Sioux could have been 600, but one mention is made that this Sioux group was a war party. This would not mean the main body, but could be just 12 to perhaps 50 warriors.
So in comprehending this stage now set, we have Lt. Kidder who did not listen to this Scout Red Bead, who never would have counselled a mad dash to a ravine, which would wind the horses and provide cover for a covert Indian attack, took his men into the worst possible of locations, that his Scout would have warned against.
Col. Richard Irving Dodge wrote of such a same event with these same Sioux, when he was out on a hunt with comrades and Pawnee guides.
The Sioux had fired or burnt the plains to disrupt the Soldier's hunt, and one day, the Sioux caught Dodge and one Pawnee Scout. To this Dodge stated, he recalled that a good place to make a stand was around 12 miles distant, so he loped his horse to that location as it was a bare open tableland.
Dodge was making arrangements in getting his horse secured as was the Pawnee when the Sioux arrived with about 60 warriors.
The Colonel held his fire until the Indians were within range, and then he threw up his rifle, to which the Indians slid over the sides of their horses and soon enough went off for a conference.
The Sioux came back with the same results. The plainsman Dodge was knew that Indians did not respect a fired weapon, so he never fired and kept his gun loaded, and the Indians went out of sight.
The Pawnee stated the Sioux would return, and as it was a warm day Dodge took a nap, only to have the Sioux appear almost on top of him when the Pawnee awoke him.
Dodge repeated not firing and held his stand. His biggest problem was restraining his now naked Pawnee from chasing after the Sioux.
At last the Pawnee exclaimed after screaming at them graphic insults in every language he knew, stated, "Damn coward Sioux, they gone now".
Unless one was on open ground in a buffalo wallow like Billy Dixon and his group, one's best asset always in Indian warfare was open ground where the Indians could not get at you, and if necessary using the breastwork of your dead horses or mules for cover.
I state the next plainly in Col. Dodge and one Pawnee warrior stood off 60 Sioux warriors. The historians always state Lt. Kidder was met with overwhelming odds.........
48 Troopers on supply wagon detail on open ground held off 600 Sioux warriors.
If these same 600 Sioux under Pawnee Killer were at Kidder's engagement, in doing simple math of Dodge being basically the only one armed in his stand facing 60 Sioux, that the Kidder party of 11 could have held off 720 Sioux on appropriate chosen terrain.
Lt. Kidder like all college boys and girls, always think like Obama that they know every damn thing, like all liberals, and when they start implementing their idiocy, it always falls apart because it is not based in how the real world operates.
Buffalo Bill as a child with a few men, held off a large party of Indians. There are numbered enough accounts of fantastic stands made against Indians by a few white men, who did not lose their heads, took position and were ready to die holding the ground they were on.
Lt. Kidder was the cause of this massacre in being ignorant of Indian warfare or any warfare of this sort. This is not a condemnation of Lt. Kidder, but noted for the fact of history which every plainsman knew and has been some mystery to historians over what happened.
The enemy literally crawled in on top of them and in cover picked them off one by one in a most terrifying end.
The last thing any Soldier ever should do is run, because when one runs, one loses all courage and the few are stampede the many.
The reason that the American military, utilizing Patton's doctrine of air support, is capable of winning on fixed positions or assaults against numerical superiority is that air support killing or holding the enemy in fixed position.
Whenever that enemy though has implemented VC or Taliban small to the giant, then these Westmoreland and Patraeus generals quagmire as they get in this hearts and minds nonsense as the focal point, instead of allowing Americans to advance the bushcraft they are born to.
The American Rangers of the 170o's thrived in taking it to the American Indians on their own forest ground, and they destroyed them on the battle line and then followed up in their methods of sustaining that warfare on Americans in their food, villages and supply routes.
The Kidder Massacre is no different than the Obama massacre of American Soldiers in Afghanistan. It is failure of operation to match the opponent and then not fighting them on your terms.
I close this with the above sketch of what real torture is in the Kidder Troopers. Red Bead was scalped as were all, but his scalp was thrown down as the Sioux were forbidden from taking scalps from their own.
Each Trooper had 25 to 50 iron point arrows shot into their body. Their leg and arm sinews were cut out. Their eyelids, noses and mouths were all cut off. Fire was kindled on various parts of their bodies, and in their last gasps, they were then murdered.
If time permitted as with the Kidder torture allowed, fire was kindled on the dying person's chest and the Indians would gather around and warm themselves by it while taunting the person.
Remember that fact, a thousand times over, whenever you hear about the poor Indian taken advantage of by white European Americans.
The real history tells a different tale in Soldier responsibility and who the enemy really are in their savagery.
agtG
Fort Tours
(The archive section of this site in accounts of Indian terrorism faced by Americans is detailed in Texas and graphic in news accounts of the day.)
Kidder Massacre
