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Message
re: 155 years ago today....Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant
Posted on 4/9/20 at 2:35 pm to Jbird
Posted on 4/9/20 at 2:35 pm to Jbird
quote:
Jbird
"My kin BG Joshua Chamberlain was present."
Gordon, at the head of the marching column, outdoes us in courtesy. He was riding with downcast eyes and more than pensive look; but at this clatter of arms he raises his eyes and instantly catching the significance, wheels his horse with that superb grace of which he is master, drops the point of his sword to his stirrup, gives a command, at which the great Confederate ensign following him is dipped and his decimated brigades, as they reach our right, respond to the 'carry.' All the while on our part not a sound of trumpet or drum, not a cheer, nor a word nor motion of man, but awful stillness as if it were the passing of the dead.
Chamberlain's The Passing of the Armies is some of the finest prose ever put to paper. It's a must read, especially for the-all Confederate officers should be "hung as traitors"-mob whose sentiments on the matter quite honestly weigh far less heavily than those of a Brigadier General Medal of Honor recipient whose PTSD nearly destroyed his life and marriage. Chamberlain is an exemplar of religious, civic, and martial virtues.
This is his account of the breaking camp, mustering, and final March of his former enemies.
quote:
Our earnest eyes scan the busy groups on the opposite slopes, breaking camp for the last time, taking down their little shelter-tents and folding them carefully as precious things, then slowly forming ranks as for unwelcome duty.
And now they move. The dusky swarms forge forward into gray columns of march. On they come, with the old swinging route step and swaying battle- flags.
In the van, the proud Confederate ensign — the great field of white with canton of star-strewn cross of blue on a field of red, the regimental battle-flags with the same escutcheon following on, crowded so thick, by thinning out of men, that the whole column seemed crowned with red.
And Chamberlain's opinion of the men he had fought, bled with, and finally defeated-and his reason for ordering the controversial soldiers arms that you excerpted?
quote:
My main reason, however, was one for which I sought no authority nor asked forgiveness.
Before us in proud humiliation stood the embodiment of manhood: men whom neither toils and sufferings, nor the fact of death, nor disaster, nor hopelessness could bend from their resolve; standing before us now, thin, worn, and famished, but erect, and with eyes looking level into ours, waking memories that bound us together as no other bond; — was not such manhood to be welcomed back into a Union so tested and assured?
Your kin is an admirable and praiseworthy hero of our Republic. Thank you for sharing that passage from his memoirs.
This post was edited on 4/9/20 at 2:39 pm
1
Posted on 4/9/20 at 2:51 pm to dukke v
quote:
dukke v
Go change your colostomy bag bitch.
Posted on 4/9/20 at 2:54 pm to RollTide1987
God damn did Grant ever wipe the floor with the Confederates. The South is so lucky they surrendered or Sherman would have burned so much more to the ground.
This post was edited on 4/9/20 at 2:55 pm
Posted on 4/9/20 at 3:14 pm to Damone
Grant just might be the greatest military leader in our nation's history.
Posted on 4/9/20 at 3:18 pm to Damone
quote:
God damn did Grant ever wipe the floor with the Confederates. The South is so lucky they surrendered or Sherman would have burned so much more to the ground.
Like what? Sherman was already in Durham, NC when he stopped heading north.
Know what’s between Appomattox and Durham? Nothing.
Posted on 4/9/20 at 3:19 pm to oleheat
quote:
And LSU will choose another mascot, too- because "Fighting Tigers" just brings back too many memories of things none of us actually lived through.
Interesting nugget...a majority of Louisiana's Fighting Tigers weren't even from Louisiana. There were a lot of Irish born soldiers as well as soldiers from the North that fought for the Southern cause. I even read about one battle where two brothers were shooting at each other and both were from Yankee soil originally.
The Louisiana Fighting Tigers were feared by both their own Southern regiments as well as Yankees. Some bad mo fo's!
Posted on 4/9/20 at 3:19 pm to RollTide1987
Nobody actually changes their mind in these threads, so if you're not inclined to get a Confederate flag, you can always go the other way:
Posted on 4/9/20 at 3:24 pm to KiwiHead
quote:
Please dude, the Union fought that war with one hsnd tied behind its back. The Northern railroad system was so much more effective on its worst day than the Confederacy had on its best. The North had more foundries to produce cannon and gun. The North had a navy and shpbuilding infrastructure, the South did not. The North had Samuel Colt and NYC . Southerners delude themselves about the whole woulda coulda shoulda.....so many major disadvantages.
The South was outmanned 10.5 soldiers to 1! Southern soldiers marched state to state - many barefoot!
They still kicked Yankee arse. Tougher individuals, no doubt!
Posted on 4/9/20 at 3:26 pm to Bayou
Lee was probably the greatest General in History
Posted on 4/9/20 at 3:41 pm to The Boat
quote:
The problem was trying to beat the North straight up on the battlefield.
This is not true... The south lost because of resources... if the South had marched into the north after the 1st Bull Run it would have been over with a quickness...
Instead, the South initially elected to take a defensive posture which prolonged the conflict which in turn worked in the North's favor.
Posted on 4/9/20 at 3:47 pm to klrstix
quote:
Instead, the South initially elected to take a defensive posture which prolonged the conflict which in turn worked in the North's favor.
Invasions of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Missouri weren’t defensive maneuvers.
No doubt the undermanned South played a lot of defense, but they did try to take the war north hoping for a stunning win.
Posted on 4/9/20 at 3:49 pm to The Boat
Correct. If Robert E Lee and NB Forrest we’re swapped there would have been a very different outcome. Forrest would have burned and plundered the civilians of the north. The civilians were tired of fighting that’s why the New York draft riots are still the largest civil unrest events in US history. Also France would have entered the war. Who knows what the outcome would have been.
Posted on 4/9/20 at 3:50 pm to Bayou
quote:
Lee was probably the greatest General in History
Negative. Napoleon and Alexander the Great come in ahead of him.
Posted on 4/9/20 at 3:53 pm to Bayou
quote:
They still kicked Yankee arse. Tougher individuals, no doubt!
Except when they ran into Northern troops from rural areas who also had grown up with guns, etc. Those encounters usually didn't end up the same as when the Southern troops encountered fresh conscripts from Northern cities.
Posted on 4/9/20 at 3:59 pm to doubleb
quote:
Invasions of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Missouri weren’t defensive maneuvers.
I am not an up to date historian so my recollection may be wrong here...
I would characterize most of what you reference as incursions not invasions. Again the strategic posture of which in most cases were defensive.
The one exception would be Gettysburg. That was in fact the one campaign that was (as I recall) truly an invasion in the sense that the end game at the time fighting was joined was to "end the war".
Posted on 4/9/20 at 4:06 pm to Mr. Misanthrope
quote:The guy is amazing, I liked how he basically snuck away from the University to join the Maine Brigade.
Your kin is an admirable and praiseworthy hero of our Republic. Thank you for sharing that passage from his memoirs.
Posted on 4/9/20 at 4:09 pm to klrstix
quote:
if the South had marched into the north after the 1st Bull Run it would have been over with a quickness...
I've never understood this assumption.
Posted on 4/9/20 at 4:13 pm to RollTide1987
quote:
155 years ago today....Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant
And America has been worse off ever since that day with the monstrous blob of waste that we call the American federal government in DC today.
The civil war was the death of individual states being sovereign.
Posted on 4/9/20 at 4:17 pm to klrstix
Gettysburg
Antietam Maryland
Invasion of Ky. Perryville in 1862
Invasion of Mo. from Ark took advantage of Mo. State guard and won several early Small battles (compared to elsewhere.) but were throw out by a superior Union Army.
The Kentucky and Missouri battles were designed to bring those states into the confederacy as was Antietam.
Antietam Maryland
Invasion of Ky. Perryville in 1862
Invasion of Mo. from Ark took advantage of Mo. State guard and won several early Small battles (compared to elsewhere.) but were throw out by a superior Union Army.
The Kentucky and Missouri battles were designed to bring those states into the confederacy as was Antietam.
Posted on 4/9/20 at 4:18 pm to KiwiHead
quote:
Southerners delude themselves about the whole woulda coulda shoulda.....so many major disadvantages.
If Lee had embraced Guerrilla warfare, the south would've drug out the war for years, possibly a decade or two more before the North gets impatient and negotiates peace terms and ends the war.
But Lee was too honorable and classy for guerrilla warfare so that's that.
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