re: The South lost Stonewall Jackson on this day 163 years ago...

If you want comedy you should go to the poli board and hear them talk about how the civil war had nothing to do with slavery

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I’d say odds are good had Jackson been present at the Gettysburg Campaign, he would have presented Lee with alternative plans to Lee’s plan of simply hurling the ANV at Union lines hoping the Yankees would break at some point.

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So kinda like Longstreet? He proposed withdrawing from Gettysburg, moving off to the right around the Union army, and finding good high ground between Meade and Washington.

It staggers my imagination sometimes to realize a $25 walkie talkie set from Academy would have guaranteed a Southern victory.

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Rest in piss, traitor

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Why does this historical figure anger you so much?

It was a stupid gamble and the only reason he gets to fight another 20 months was due to the sheer ineptitude of the Union commanders in the East. Consider that Couch collectively had 23-24K men at his disposal in Waynesboro, Mercersburg and Chambersburg that could have been ordered to delay Lee's retreat and there was Merrit's cavalry in Fairfield that was not totally engaged in the fight.

Meade had Lee trapped if he wanted to spring the trap.....or Meade could have shadowed Lee until he was ready to make his turn South for Baltimore / Washington. No way Lee makes it past the WASHINGTON garrison and the forts ......AND Meade's army on his rear and right flanks.

I understand what you’re saying. I’m merely giving you insight into the strategic situation Lee faced in mid-1863 that influenced his actions. He saw full well the Confederacy had zero hope of winning if the war continued much longer. And he saw that if he remained on the defensive around Richmond, all the Union had to do was wait him out and continue to grow stronger while the “Anaconda” strategy slowly choked the life out of the Confederacy. Basically, by mid-1863, the only prayer left to the Confederacy was a big knockout blow battlefield victory over the Army of the Potomac that (hopefully) would be the spark needed to convince Britain and France to recognize the CSA and pressure Lincoln to come to a negotiating peace. There really was no other viable option left to the South at that point which still offered any chance of Southern independence. Was it a long shot? Absolutely. But it was really the only shot they had left.

And I fully get where you are coming from....hence my assertion that the South should have realized at Shiloh that this war was an endeavor that was lost. Yeah Shiloh looks like a near stalemate on paper, but when you consider that Grant still has the field after all is said, and there is a Union army in the center of the Confederacy and another operating in Tennessee, the global view of the war for the south looks bad.

Gettysburg and the invasion of Pennsylvania is a poorly thought out operation.Lee moves up through the Blue Ridge with an army shadowing him and then makes a right turn extending his stretched supply lines. If I'm Meade Iwould have tried to get behind Lee and pin him up between the mountains and the Susquehanna at Harrisburg and finish Lee off. If Lee had decided to go any further than Gettysburg, I suspect he would have been finished. If he was trying for York, I personally think it would have been a disaster and a slaughter. Lee would have had a supply line cut by that point and then had no choice but to try to make either a fight there or turn South towards Washington and face the garrisons there with an army nipping at his heels. He would be a pimple caught between a thumb and index finger.

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The South could have won. European markets at the time gave them a 44% chance and that’s probably about right.

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The only way the south had a chance was to abolish slavery. No European national was going to openly support the south as long as it supported the institution of slavery. Problem is keeping slavery was the reason for the war.

Longstreet is a very competent general, but he's not as bold or daring as either Lee or Jackson.

I read his biography and I come away thinking that if he had been in charge of the AoP , he might have defeated Lee and Grant would be a footnote.

I’m sure much has been said in this thread, much that would piss me off but alas.


Stonewall was an interesting man but these things are indisputable. He was a brilliant General and a strong Christian man.

He taught his slaves to read and write and preached to them. You may say, well he shouldn’t have had slaves to begin with! Well, history is not supposed to be looked at from our point of view but the time it was in.

It was an institution, he took it upon himself to educate them and preach the gospel.

If he was at Gettysburg, the outcome would’ve been different.