quote:
This is incorrect. His main goal until the post-Gettysburg period was to destroy the Union army in a single battle of decision and dictate terms to Lincoln in the Oval Office.

Key word is post Gettysburg. Prior to that he planned on staying MOSTLY defensive. He messed up by going into Gettysburg, I've already stated that.

quote:
Probably because he was surrounded and had no way to break out. At Appomattox, Lee had just over 21,000 men at arms. Grant had close to 100,000 men in the township's immediate vicinity.

That doesn't mean it wasn't unpopular decision. His lower commanders and regular soldiers were begging him not to surrender. That is well documented.

quote:
Slavery had everything to do with the events between December 1860 and March 1861. If slavery doesn't exist the Deep South never secedes.

Meh, this will be debated for the next 100 years. Nobody ever wins this argument. I won't change your mind nor will you change mine. As I've said, I'm glad the north won the war.

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Posted by windshieldman

Member since Nov 2012

12818 posts

Posted on 5/22/17 at 11:33 am to windshieldman

I'll just say I never care for defending the Confederate flag. I've had many more ancestors and friends fight under the American flag. I don't get caught up in ancestors that fought for 4 damn years in a country that has been in existence for approximately 240 years. I do hate to see Lee's statue come down, I'll admit. I am proud to be an American, way more proud than anything. Maybe my thing with Lee was how many books I've read on him and how highly regarded he was at the time. He was also instrumental in the Mexican-American War.

I'm not just pissed about it, just hate to see it happen. I understand both sides of the argument though.

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Posted by RollTide1987

Augusta, GA

Member since Nov 2009

65147 posts

Posted on 5/22/17 at 11:47 am to windshieldman

quote:
Prior to that he planned on staying MOSTLY defensive. He messed up by going into Gettysburg

He had been on the offensive since he took command in June 1862. The Seven Days' Campaign was an offensive campaign; the Second Manassas Campaign was an offensive campaign; the Maryland Campaign was an offensive campaign; the Chancellorsville Campaign was an offensive campaign. The only campaign he fought while primarily on the defensive, between June 1862 and May 1864, was the Fredericksburg Campaign.

quote:
His lower commanders and regular soldiers were begging him not to surrender.

A few of them were begging him not to surrender. There were those, such as Longstreet, who were in support of his decision to surrender to Grant.

quote:
Meh, this will be debated for the next 100 years. Nobody ever wins this argument.

People win. The defeated merely think they have won. The states which seceded prior to Fort Sumter, with the possible exception of Texas, seceded primarily to protect the institution of slavery.

This post was edited on 5/22/17 at 11:48 am

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