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I think that splitting his force was his downfall and ultimately led to his death. I say this because of knowledge of other tough fights against superior Indian forces on the plains. Even without extra troopers or Gatling guns I think his unit in full strength would have repelled numerous attacks. As with any look at history I cannot be 100% sure.
Indians were not proffessional soldiers but guerrilla fighters who chose hit and run tactics most of the time. They would generally not stick around and take too many casualties. Once the Indians began taking casualties they usually scattered at high speed. This was the norm on the plains and southwest deserts. Another good example of this is the Adobe Walls fight in Texas. Some buffalo skinners held out with their Sharps rifles against an overwhelming force, using long range shooting and even killing old Roman Nose.
Milos, the Indians did not have bolt action rifles. In fact the bolt action rifle was generally not in service anywhere in the world at that time. Some did have lever action repeating rifles. The Trapdoor Springfield did fire a heavy bullet with a lot of knockdown power, but the action had to be opened after every shot, the case extracted(and many were stuck) a new round chambered, the action closed and the hammer cocked before a new round could be fired. Custer was an arrogant officer and let his alligator mouth overload his aspirin ass.
Failure of marschal Grouchy to do the same at Waterloo greatly contributed to Napoleon's defeat.
It seemed that none of the major commanders involved, Terry, Crook or Gibbon distinguished themselves during the campaign which may explain partly why Custer did so poorly. None of them seemed to be well versed on Indian fighting.
However, it seems clear that Custer violated every rule in the book which resulted in his debacle..... It seemed that his biggest concern was keeping any of the Indians from getting away....
...he badly misjudged the character, will, capabilities and intentions of his enemy.
Custer split his command without knowing exactly where the enemy was and in what strength( although if he had listened to the scouts he might have been more cautious.) He sent Reno and his battalion ahead in to attack the south end of the village and told Reno that he, Custer, would support him if need be. Meanwhile Custer had no idea if the terrain would allow him to make a flank attack on Reno's Indians.
...Reno had to make a fighting withdrawal. Furthernore, Reno's men spotted Custer on the opposite side of the river as they began their withdrawal so Custer must have seen they were in trouble but Custer continued down river, abandoning Reno and his men.
Recent evidence indicates that Custer was in heavy fighting before he got into the area where the last stand took place. Prudence would suggest that, at that point, Custer should have executed a retrograde movement back to where Reno was fighting and perhaps most of his command could have been saved.
From my point of view, it is too bad that some Johnny Reb did not take Custer down during the States War. It would have saved a lot of heartache later.
Custer was blue forces (pun intended) battlefield commander, why shouldn't he be blamed for what happened, heIt is too easy a way out just to blame Custer for everything that went wrong during this battle. The battle itself was not a simple affair and conduct of other senior officers involved was highly questionable. Yes, Custer made some mistakes, but as I wrote before Reno's and Benteen's actions ensured the disastrous final outcome.
...but didn't greatly underestimated number of warriors. He was expecting to face over 1000 warriors, and the actual number of Indian warriors was around 1500...
i. routinely dismissed his scouting reports regarding enemy strength
ii. was not fully intimate with the topology of the battlefield
iii. rejected decisive assets as unnecessary
iv. based on the above, split his forces (as it turned out) disastrously
if you're on Last Stand Hill with what's left of your command and 1500 choctaws are engaging you instead of the expected 1000, I'd call that a major underestimation (66%) of your enemy's field-able strength
Custer sounded like a vainglorious hot-head, he wasn't ready for the big chair
...the performance of Reno and Benteen, adequate or not, would seem to make little difference to the outcome.The bottom line is that some of Reno's men and Benteen's men survived. None of Custer's did!