Somebody suggests to Sgt. Wilkes that it would be a good idea to pick up the repeating rifles from dead Indians after the Indian attack on the US Cavalry unit. Wilkes replies to the effect: Yes, they won't need them anymore.
Wouldn't it have been obvious especially to a buck sergeant that those rifles would be of value to his men, and to have already ordered that to be done?
Well, since the ammunition carried by the soldiers would not fit in the Indian's 73 rifles, they would have been of limited use, at best. Indians were chronically short of ammunition, so each rifle would likely be limited to what ammo was in the magazine, possibly only 3 or 4 rounds. Better than nothing, but not really a game-changer.
"It ain't dying I'm talking about, it's LIVING!"
Captain Augustus McCrae
Maybe the sergeant had other things on his mind: getting medical help for the wounded, burying the dead, tending the horses/mules, feeding his surviving men, figuring out the safest way to the fort, etc.
"May I bone your kipper, Mademoiselle?"
None of those things are as important as surviving another attack.
I know it’s been 6 years since you wrote but I completely agree. That Sergeant lacked any common sense. And a scene or two later he’s talking about previously fighting in the Battle of Bull run. Did the guy learn nothing? Of course the Indians’ modern rifles were important but he has to be instructed on this?
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Yes. I wondered about that also.
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