Fetterman Massacre or Custer's Last Stand - Fort Apache (1948) Discussion

[–] jcr1111 19 years ago

I would say Custer. Thursday had been a general in the Civil War, so was Custer. Thursday was harsh in his discipline, so was Custer. Thursday lost a large portion of his regiment, so did Custer. Thursday became a "hero" to the nation, so did Custer.

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[–] mike-foxton4 19 years ago

I have watched Fort Apache many times and it is definitely a retelling of the Battle of the Little Bighorn in all but name. Henry Fonda is clearly a Custer like figure, while John Wayne represents the rebellious Captain Benteen.

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[–] ricmalic 18 years ago

I just finished seeing Fort Apache on video again, and liked it as much as I have liked it the many times I've seen it before.

Though Fetterman and Custer shared personality traits as well as ultimate fates, my vote is for Custer for the following reasons:

Custer had a much higher profile in 1876 as a result of his Civil War service. His defeat and death made major headlines and generated controversy about whether he did what he was ordered to do; a controversy that still continues.

It was "General" Custer as opposed to Captain Fetterman. In fact Custer's and Thursday's ranks are exactly equivalent--a civil war general whose actual postwar rank was Lieutenant Colonel (that to me is a giveaway).

Custer was a part of a major military expedition with reporters covering it (Custer was great press and far overshadowed his commander Alfred Terry in the flamboyance department). He also lost more men--several hundred as opposed to Fetterman's 80. The Fetterman fight was much more localized and without attendant reporters.

One other thing which I believe but don't insist on for others was the role of Custer's devoted wife Libby. For over 50 years after his death she kept his memory alive, among other things writing a series of romantic and nostalgic memoirs about her life with him. She died, I think, in 1933, having outlived most if not all of her husband's contemporary detractors. Less than 10 years later came Errol Flynn in "They Died WIth Their Boots On" and 15 years later Henry Fonda as Colonel Thursday.

I love both the film and the background. History CAN be fun.

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[–] roledquist 18 years ago

The official imdb plot summary of Fort Apache listed above says it's the Fetterman Massacre.
So why even ask the question?
Last time I checked the Apache reside in Arizona. Custer was taken out by the
Sioux who had gathered in Montana for their surprise party.

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[–] craig-51 18 years ago

The IMDB trivia section says the movie is "loosely based on the life of Custer". As far as location having any impact on the historicity of the movie, the "fort" that was used in the filming of the movie, was built in Simi Valley California. According to Ford, every good western has Monument Valley somewhere in the background.

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[–] nd12strngs 18 years ago

Henry Fonda's character and the end of the movie are based on Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Fetterman and his final adventure were too obscure by the time "Fort Apache" was made.

Custer's Last Stand had become a legend almost from the day the nation first heard the news, and it had become an industry by the middle of the Twentieth Century. Buffalo Bill recreated it many times in his Wild West Show, and I believe that the first of the dozens of movie versions was made in 1912.

Now about this "jerk" business. Name calling does nothing to illuminate any subject. It should not be used in any argument that involves anything more complicated than whose turn it is to go down the slide on the playground.

From what I know of both men I would probably not have chosen to sit down with Fetterman for a drink. Custer seems to have given up booze when he was courting his wife, but I think I would have enjoyed having a couple of iced teas with him and with his wife (who rates a movie of her own, but that is another story).

If you were asking who was the better soldier, that would be Custer. Fetterman wasn't aware that he was in a battle until it was nearly over. The evidence indicates that he thought he was merely chasing a few Indians who had been harassing a work party when he ran into the ambush.

Custer went into battle with a sound strategy and reasonably good intelligence. The Seventh Cavalry was the advance unit of one of three brigades that were to converge on the Indians from three directions. Their orders were to round up the Indians, to prevent them from escaping.

Custer found the Indians three days before the first of the brigades caught up with him. His first option was to sit tight and wait for the rest of the army to show up. He would have had a wonderful view of the Indians scattering and escaping.

If the army had wanted the Seventh Cavalry to do this, they would not have sent Custer. The army sent Custer because he would pursue a second option; do something bold.

Without going into a doctoral dissertation on the subject, his tactics were correct considering his orders and his resources. He was outnumbered and he knew it, but he was not outnumbered by the overwhelming numbers of Indians of the legend, and those Indians would have to split their time between fighting the soldiers and protecting their women, children, and old folks. He had every reason to believe that he would be successful.

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[–] mike-foxton4 17 years ago

I am glad you agree with me that Fort Apache is about Custer.
As to whether Custer or Fetterman was the better soldier, I have read a great deal about both, and there is no doubt in my mind that Custer, for all his faults, was a good soldier. His Civil War record was outstanding.
Fetterman, on the other hand, strikes me as a reckless fool who totally underestimated the indians, and he fragrantly disobeyed orders prior to his demise.

"I'll trouble you for your sabre, Captain".

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[–] bobwjones 17 years ago

I posted this before on another thread but worth a re-post as I believe it answers the OP's question.
Ford's experiences of WWII made him appreciate the intrinsic worth of life in the military coupled with his interest in American history he searched for an army story to turn into film. He was drawn to the cavalry due to a series of stories written by James Warren Bellah and published in the Saturday Evening Post. Purchasing the rights he got Frank Nugent to write a script from one of these stories entitled "Massacre" loosely based on the Custer fight.
Nugent and Ford deliberately blurred the story, this indifference to historical truth became very evident in all of the cavalry films Ford made, they also toned down Bellah's original story as the stories are rendered almost unreadable today by their racist invective to the Native Americans.
So Sitting Bull became Cochise the Sioux became Apaches and Fort Starke became Fort Apache.

This began what we now call Ford's cavalry trilogy however, he did not originally plan three films on the subject. His second She Wore a Yellow Ribbon was primarily made due to the huge box-office returns of Fort Apache and the growing popularity of John Wayne. SWAYR script was once again based on two of Bellah's stories "War Party" and "Big Hunt" and picks up with a little artistic licence where Fort Apache ended, a flying 7th cavalry pennant against a blood-red background with a voice over proclaiming "Custer is dead". Another link to whom the Thursday character was based on.

In 1950 Ford signed a three picture deal with Republic primarily because they were the only studio who would finance his dream Irish blarney "The Quiet Man". However the studio demanded a "Ford Western" first (a guaranteed box-office success). Ford once again returned to a Bellah story entitled "Mission with no record" but this time got James McGuiness to write the script and told him to stay close to the Bellah story. You will notice that the noble and dignified Apache in Fort Apache has now turned into murdering rapists in Rio Grande, the eventual title of the film. Reasons given for this was Fords anger with a supposed Communist threat to the US and the Korean War, consequently the Red Indians simply became "Reds".
The Colonel in the Bellah story was called Massarene but Ford insisted on taking the character of Kirby Yorke (now with an added "e") from Fort Apache and move his story along a number of years and instead of the traumatic memories of Colonel Thursday and the massacre gave him bad memories of the Civil War when under Sheridans orders he plundered the South and in particular his wife's family plantation (incidentally based on Ford's wife Mary whose ancestors family plantation was destroyed in South Carolina by the invading Federal Army)

Although he had no intention of linking the stories he did, albeit rather tenuously as described above, but without a shadow of a doubt the first of the trilogy Fort Apache was based on Custer and the Little Big-Horn.

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[–] magolding 12 years ago

And of course the Bellah story "Mission with no Name" was based on General Ranald Mackenzie's secret mission in 1873 to cross the Rio Grande from Texas into Mexico and attack a hostile village of Lipan Apaches and Kickapoos (for some reason nobody ever made movies with titles like "Fury of the Kickapoos" Or Kickapoo Ambush") near Remolino, capturing a bunch of hostages so the warriors would have to surrender to be reunited with their families.

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[–] magolding 13 years ago

Modern scholarship tends to believe that Fetterman became the fall guy for the massacre because he was dead and everyone else who might be justly or unjustly blamed was trying to blame anyone else they could.

As with the Little Bighorn, it would be closer to the truth to say: "Everyone, everyone had blundered"

Captain Tenodore Ten Eyke was blamed for not leading the relief party to the scene fast enough.

General Carrington was blamed by his commanding officer, General Cooke, and by many of his subordinates.

General Cooke was blamed by Carrington and General Sherman.

Sherman could be blamed for predicting the mission to guard the Bozeman Trail should be uneventful and saying it would be safe to take the officer's families along.

Of course the War Department blamed the Indian Bureau and the Indian Bureau blamed the war department.

And eventually most of them, especially General Carrington and his two wives, all three of whom wrote a lot about the massacre, settled on blaming Fetterman and that became the standard opinion, along with the story that Fetterman boasted he could ride though the entire Sioux Nation with only 80 men, which did not appear until decades after the disaster.

Studies of times and distances have indicated that Fetterman and his infantry could not have reached the massacre site by the time that the people in the fort heard firing begin. Therefore it is speculated that Lieutenant Grummond led the cavalry far ahead of Fetterman and was attacked by the Sioux and Fetterman felt that he had no choice but to come to the aide of Grummond's group.

This theory was not advocated by Carrington's supporters, perhaps because Grummond's widow soon became the second Mrs. Carrington and may have felt a desire to protect her first husband's name as much as her second husband's name.

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[–] magolding 12 years ago

ND12strings wrote:

"Custer went into battle with a sound strategy and reasonably good intelligence. The Seventh Cavalry was the advance unit of one of three brigades that were to converge on the Indians from three directions. Their orders were to round up the Indians, to prevent them from escaping."

There weren't three brigades converging on the hostiles.

There were three separate columns converging from Montana, Dakota, and Wyoming on the hostiles. This was the same strategy which the British used in 1777, and the same which the French used in 1898-1900 against Rabeh Zoubeir.

The Largest force with the Sioux had ever wiped out was captain Fetterman's eighty men but in 1874 a force of 400 soldiers from Montana, similar to the Montana column in 1876, had been narrowly saved from destruction when hundreds of Sioux had been spotted crawling toward their camp hoping to surprise them. Clearly the Sioux could have wiped out the Montana Column under the right circumstances.

In 1865 General Connor and about 300 cavalry men suddenly encountered a huge camp of hostile Arapahoe. And as soon as they realized the situation, Connor's men charged the camp - one of them later wrote that it was obvious to all that if they gave the Arapahoe time to recover from their surprise the Arapahoe would slaughter the mere 300 soldiers. So the soldiers attacked first, and the Arapahoe were driven out of their camp which was destroyed.

As the soldiers rode back to their wagon train, the Arapaho regrouped and struck back at the soldiers. And the cannon drove back attacks which otherwise might have wiped out the mere 300 men in the command.

Most of the casualties in the fight were among General Connor's staff, which means that the General had been in the thick of the fighting. Just one slightly different bullet or arrow trajectory would have been enough to kill or incapacitate Connor and put someone else in command. Because Connor remained in command, his column continued to hunt hostile Indians instead of returning to civilization.

Meanwhile two other columns under Colonels Cole and Walker met and wandered together though Sioux Territory, with a combined strength of at least 1,400 cavalry and mounted infantry. They were discovered by hostile Sioux and fought a battle in September. The Sioux saw a snowstorm coming and took shelter in a wooded area. There must have been a few experienced frontiersmen to tell Cole and Walker that they had to capture the sheltered and wooded area from the Sioux before the storm struck, but despite claims of victory in the battle, Cole and Walker camped on the high, open plains.

The snowstorm struck that night. In the morning hundreds of horses wee dead or had to be shot. Many of the supply wagons no longer had horses to pull them. So many wagons and their supplies were burned. Horses continued to die by the hundreds in the severe late summer weather, and more and more wagons and their supplies were burned. So Cole and Walker were short of food, and their men weakened with hunger. Soon they would reach the point where the men would be so weak that a small group of hostiles could have slaughtered all 1,400 of them. Soon after they would have been so weak they would start to die of hunger in great numbers. It would have been like the Franklin Disaster ten times over.

But they were found by Connor's column, and saved. Which only happened because Connor's column remained in the field after the fight with the Arapahoe. Which only happened because by chance General Connor remained in command after the fight with the Arapahoe.

So General Sheridan had plenty of information available when he planned the campaign to indicate that the Montana and Dakota columns should have been heavily reinforced.

And Terry, Custer, Gibbon, and Brisbin should have known better than to separate the Montana and Dakota columns after they had met up, dividing them again in a plan to surround the hostile Sioux with inadequate forces. They should have combined their forces and marched south with as many men as they could in one large column.

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[–] ewetopia 13 years ago

Custer. He fit the bill as a martinet better than Fetterman and the newspapermen at the end leave little doubt as to the historical figure Thursday was meant to represent.

As for who was the bigger jerk, it's hard to say. Must we choose?

~There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.~

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