Editing Battle of the Little Bighorn (section)

====Role of Indian noncombatants in Custer's strategy====
Custer's field strategy was designed to engage non-combatants at the encampments on the Little Bighorn to capture women, children, and the elderly or disabled<ref name="Fox1993">{{cite book |last=Fox |first=Richard A. |year=1993 |url={{GBurl|id=dpaWb9WmbPUC|pg=297}} |title=Archaeology, History and Custer's Last Battle |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160624003916/https://books.google.com/books?id=dpaWb9WmbPUC |archive-date= June 24, 2016 |location=Norman |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |isbn=0-8061-2998-0 }}</ref>{{rp|297}} to serve as hostages to convince the warriors to surrender and comply with federal orders to relocate. Custer's battalions were poised to "ride into the camp and secure non-combatant hostages",<ref name=Donovan2008>{{cite book |last=Donovan |first=James |title=A Terrible Glory |publisher=Little, Brown and Company |year=2008 |page=253 }}</ref> and "forc[e] the warriors to surrender".<ref name=Robinson1995>{{cite book |last=Robinson |first=Charles M. |title=A Good Year to Die |publisher=Random House |year=1995 |page=257 }}</ref> Author Evan S. Connell observed that if Custer could occupy the village before widespread resistance developed, the Sioux and Cheyenne warriors "would be obliged to surrender, because if they started to fight, they would be endangering their families."<ref name="Fox1993" />{{rp|312}}<ref name=Connell1997>{{cite book |last=Connell |first=Evan S. |title=Son of the Morning Star |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |year=1997 |page=278 }}</ref>

In Custer's book ''My Life on the Plains'', published two years before the Battle of the Little Bighorn, he asserted:

{{Blockquote|Indians contemplating a battle, either offensive or defensive, are always anxious to have their women and children removed from all danger ... For this reason I decided to locate our [military] camp as close as convenient to [Chief Black Kettle's Cheyenne] village, knowing that the close proximity of their women and children, and their necessary exposure in case of conflict, would operate as a powerful argument in favor of peace, when the question of peace or war came to be discussed.<ref name=Custer1874>{{cite book |last= Custer |first= George Armstrong |title=My Life on the Plains: Or, Personal Experiences with Indians |location=New York |publisher= Sheldon and Company |year=1874 |page=220 |url= http://name.umdl.umich.edu/ACP4940.0001.001}}</ref>}}

On Custer's decision to advance up the bluffs and descend on the village from the east, Lt. [[Edward Settle Godfrey|Edward Godfrey]] of Company K surmised:

{{Blockquote|[Custer] expected to find the squaws and children fleeing to the bluffs on the north, for in no other way do I account for his wide detour. He must have counted upon Reno's success, and fully expected the "scatteration" of the non-combatants with the pony herds. The probable attack upon the families and capture of the herds were in that event counted upon to strike consternation in the hearts of the warriors and were elements for success upon which General Custer fully counted.<ref name="godfrey" />{{rp|379}}}}

The Sioux and Cheyenne fighters were acutely aware of the danger posed by the military engagement of non-combatants and that "even a semblance of an attack on the women and children" would draw the warriors back to the village, according to historian John S. Gray.<ref name="Gray, John S 1991 p. 360">{{cite book |last=Gray |first=John S. |title=Custer's Last Campaign |location=Norman |publisher=University of Nebraska Press |year=1991 |page=360 }}</ref> Such was their concern that an apparent reconnaissance by Capt. Yates' E and F Companies at the mouth of Medicine Tail Coulee (Minneconjou [[Ford (crossing)|Ford]]) caused hundreds of warriors to disengage from the Reno valley fight and return to deal with the threat to the village.<ref name="Gray, John S 1991 p. 360" />

Some authors and historians, based on archaeological evidence and reviews of native testimony, speculate that Custer attempted to cross the river at a point further north they refer to as Ford D. According to Richard A. Fox, James Donovan, and others, Custer proceeded with a wing of his battalion (Yates' E and F companies) north and opposite the Cheyenne circle at that crossing,<ref name="Fox1993" />{{rp|176–77}} which provided "access to the [women and children] fugitives."<ref name="Fox1993" />{{rp|306}} Yates's force "posed an immediate threat to fugitive Indian families..." gathering at the north end of the huge encampment;<ref name="Fox1993" />{{rp|299}} he then persisted in his efforts to "seize women and children" even as hundreds of warriors were massing around Keogh's wing on the bluffs.<ref>Donovan, James, ''A Terrible Glory'', Little, Brown and Company (2008). p. 267.</ref> Yates' wing, descending to the Little Bighorn River at Ford D, encountered "light resistance",<ref name="Fox1993" />{{rp|297}} undetected by the Indian forces ascending the bluffs east of the village.<ref name="Fox1993" />{{rp|298}} Custer was almost within "striking distance of the refugees" before abandoning the ford and returning to Custer Ridge.<ref name=Bray2006>{{cite book |last=Bray |first=Kingsley M. |title=Crazy Horse – A Lakota Life |location=Norman |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |year=2006 |page=222 }}</ref>