re: July 3, 1863 - "In the center they will break..."

Good post. The OP is a Lee hater. Typical Yankee loudmouth.

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Lee was a good general and a great leader of men.

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Succinctly rate Grant on these 2... Categories?

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Lincoln was a tyrant in invaded the south escalating a needless war to the tune of 600,000 American deaths.

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The tyrants were the men who held other men in human bondage. God bless Abraham Lincoln for standing against it.

Part 3 of the Gettysburg trilogy.

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You are forgetting one important detail that separates the Civil War from these other conflicts: the U.S. and C.S. shared a border.

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Nah, I'm not discounting this, at all. Already being *in* country is one of the reasons the US won the Indian wars (a similar insurgency), with massively superior firepower being another major reason.

What the US had in massive advantage over the CS is the ability to mobilize immigrants. Due to upheaval in Europe, the US could take conscripts fresh off the boat and ship them to the front. The CS didn't have such a manpower ability.



Forrest wreaked havoc using these tactics, but he was largely alone in this thought process while the rest of the CS leadership pursued Lee's concepts. Had it been inverse, the cost of battle in Confederate states may have led to a negotiated release. It took Lincoln years to find military leadership who were aligned in his desire for total war. Hell, Sherman was effective because he lacked "decorum," just like Forrest did.

Perhaps victory was utterly impossible for the CS. But a guerilla campaign was *probably* the clearest path to victory - however narrow it would have been.

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God bless Abraham Lincoln for standing against it.

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Lincoln's views of slavery evolved over a period of time. His own writings are rather clear about this. If he did, he would have issued the EP at the onset of the conflict. As it was, it was a Hail Mary, and it was effective in retroactively changing the narrative.

That's not to say there weren't ardent abolitionists who objected to slavery on deep moral grounds. Lincoln, though, wasn't one of them. He was, at best, conflicted about it.

You can make a pretty cohesive argument that the need to secure the Mississippi River, and its overall importance to the interior of a burgeoning nation, is the primary reason Lincoln pursued the war as doggedly as he did.

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Forrest wreaked havoc using these tactics, but he was largely alone in this thought process while the rest of the CS leadership pursued Lee's concepts. Had it been inverse, the cost of battle in Confederate states may have led to a negotiated release. It took Lincoln years to find military leadership who were aligned in his desire for total war. Hell, Sherman was effective because he lacked "decorum," just like Forrest did.

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Forrest was a raiding legend who wrecked Union supplies, but he wasn't alone: raids by Mosby, Morgan, and others plus the Partisan Ranger Act were already part of the Confederate playbook. More emphasis on guerrilla tactics wouldn’t have won (or negotiated) independence. The South’s core problems were massive disadvantages in manpower/industry, the need to hold territory, and Union resolve to escalate total war. Guerrilla fighting cedes the heartland, invites harsher retaliation, and accelerates collapse. It also prolongs suffering without delivering victory. Lee was right to reject it. Tactical wins do not equal strategic solution.

Guerilla warfare would have had no effect on the naval blockade. With the loss of the Mississippi, the CS had no avenue of overland supply. This is critical, and often forgotten.

Another dub for the good guys and another MASSIVE L for the traitorous racists!