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Subject: BS: Gettysburg From: beardedbruce Date: 16 Oct 08 - 07:42 AM From today's Washington Post: A Gift on Hallowed Ground By George F. Will Thursday, October 16, 2008; Page A19 GETTYSBURG, Pa. -- In 1863, 11 major roads converged on this town. Which is why history did, too. The founding of the American nation was the hinge of world history: Popular sovereignty would have its day. The collision of armies here was the hinge of American history: The nation would long endure. Which is why 200 or so generous private citizens recently gathered here for a quiet celebration of their gift to the nation -- a sparkling new Museum and Visitor Center that instructs and inspires. In 1997, Bob Kinsley, a contractor in York, Pa., decided that something should be done about the decrepit facilities for explaining the battle and displaying its artifacts. His determination survived more than 50 public meetings and three congressional hearings, and two years of resistance from rival bidders, some Gettysburg merchants and people who think the private sector takes up space that the public sector should fill. He started the Gettysburg Foundation and hired Bob Wilburn, who had administered Colonial Williamsburg. Wilburn raised the $103 million that built the new center, which includes a theater for the scene-setting film narrated by Morgan Freeman, and the Cyclorama, the circular painting that depicts Pickett's Charge on the battle's third and final day. Americans today are so constantly pummeled by a sensory blitzkrieg -- the sights and sounds of graphic journalism and entertainment -- they can hardly fathom how the Cyclorama dazzled viewers when displayed in 1884. Magnificently restored and presented, it is still stunning. The battle here was fought in and around a town that continued to grow. At one point there was a Stuckey's restaurant where the second day of fighting raged. The Gettysburg Foundation's work includes recovering battle sites from urban encroachments. It recently bought the 80-acre Spangler farm. The house, which was behind Union lines, was used as a hospital for both sides. Gen. Lewis Armistead of Virginia died there. He received his mortal wounds during Pickett's Charge, leading the deepest penetration of Union lines on Cemetery Ridge at the spot now known as "the high-water mark of the Confederacy." Recently, a Gold Star mother finally visited Gettysburg, after driving by it often en route to visit the Arlington grave of her son, who was killed in Iraq. She was especially moved by these words from a Gettysburg newspaper published four days after the battle: "Every name . . . is a lightning stroke to some heart, and breaks like thunder over some home, and falls a long black shadow upon some hearthstone." Gettysburg still stirs, but not as it used to, or should. In "Intruder in the Dust," William Faulkner wrote: "For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two o'clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets. . . ." Faulkner's sentence continued; you have just read less than half of it. To continue in his style: Ours would be a better nation if boys and girls of all regions, and particularly the many high school and even college graduates who cannot place the Civil War in the correct half-century, could be moved, as large numbers of Americans used to be, by the names of Gettysburg battlefield sites, such as Devil's Den, the Peach Orchard, the Wheatfield, Culp's Hill and Little Round Top, instead of being like the visitor here who said it is amazing that so many great battles, such as Antietam and Chickamauga and Shiloh, occurred on Park Service land; and another visitor who doubted that the fighting here really was fierce because there are no bullet marks on the monuments. Ten years ago, this column asserted that disrespect for the national patrimony of Civil War battlefields should be a hanging offense, and said: "Given that the vast majority of Americans have never heard a shot fired in anger, the imaginative presentation of military history in a new facility here is vital, lest rising generations have no sense of the sacrifices of which they are beneficiaries." Today, at an embarrassing moment of multiplying public futilities, private efforts, in collaboration with the National Park Service, have done something resoundingly right that will help a normally amnesiac nation to long remember. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Peace Date: 16 Oct 08 - 07:44 AM "The founding of the American nation was the hinge of world history:" Really? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: kendall Date: 16 Oct 08 - 07:48 AM LOL!!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: kendall Date: 16 Oct 08 - 07:59 AM Isn't it odd that so much of our history revolves around war? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: artbrooks Date: 16 Oct 08 - 08:00 AM George having a slow day? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Peter T. Date: 16 Oct 08 - 08:09 AM The thing I most remember about Gettysburg from my visit is how big the battlefield was, it stretches over miles. From books, etc., you get the feeling it was all in a tight space; but in reality (American space) it rolls on for miles. It is no wonder messages got lost and people had no idea what was going on. yours, Peter T. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: beardedbruce Date: 16 Oct 08 - 08:16 AM Sorry for those looking for humor. I read the article, and thought it was a well written piece about a significant time, and its impact on the US. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Rapparee Date: 16 Oct 08 - 09:23 AM Gettysburg's influence was far beyond the immediate lift it provided to Union morale. It prevented Europe from recognizing the Confederacy -- there were British officers there, observing Lee, and it was their recommendations that prevented Britain from recognition. I believe that there were also French officers with Lee's forces. It brought home to the Union forces that the Army of Northern Virginia could be decisively defeated. It prevented an encirclement of DC and the addition of Maryland to the Confederacy. It prevented Lee from making a large-scale invasion of the North and seizing materials the Confederacy needed -- from shoes to guns. If Meade had pursued Lee as he should have the ACW might have been over in 1863. I had relatives there, and at Shiloh, and at Atlanta, and in other places back then. 'Tain't funny to me. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Greg F. Date: 16 Oct 08 - 09:26 AM Those "inspired" by the Battle of Gettysburg and acts of supreme idiocy like Pickett's suicidal expedition would do well to read Drew Gilpin Faust's This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War. New York, Knoph, 2008. Ambrose Bierce's dozen or more 'Civil War Stories' - especially What I Saw of Shiloh - are also instructive. I believe there's a new collection of these just published. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: kendall Date: 16 Oct 08 - 10:14 AM I believe the battle of Antietam was the one that convinced England to keep out of it. Two men could have ended the war long before it did end. General Lee, probably the best warrior since Alexander the great, if he had chosen to fight for the union the war wouldn't have lasted a year. That posturing poltroon, McLellan, blew it when he failed to chase Lee's army down and finish them off after Antietam. He was as useless as a trap door in a canoe. I was thinking just yesterday that on that date in 1066, October 15, a gang of my ancestors invaded England with Wm the conqueror, and today I was reading the thread on Gettysburg, and was reminded that my great, grandfather was in the 15th Maine during that time. Of course, the 20th Maine got all the credit, mostly because they earned it. My grandfather ended up in Australia looking for gold or opals. Anything to avoid a real job. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: catspaw49 Date: 16 Oct 08 - 10:24 AM I just finished Faust's book that Greg mentions.......perhaps the best work done about that time in many years. Its a refreshing change from so many CW historians who saw far too much glory. Spaw |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: katlaughing Date: 16 Oct 08 - 11:05 AM Well, it's the start of a good discussion! Thanks, folks. I had relatives on both sides, one of them a spy and scout. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Wesley S Date: 16 Oct 08 - 11:24 AM NPR had a recent story about a visitors center built on Cemetery Ridge. It's falling apart. Some folks want it rebuilt { I guess the architect was famous } and others want it pulled down so that that part of the battlegound will look more like it did when the battle was fought. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Amos Date: 16 Oct 08 - 11:47 AM The heroism was genuine. The rhetoric then and now has been stirring, emotional, and especially powerful because it draws from the terror, rage and grief of a war that set families against themselves and split a promising nation in half. On all these thigns there is little question, and the mean there at Gettysburg--on both sides--deserve honor. But the burning question, one I have never learned the answer to, is whether this war was even necessary. Root causes are always hard to identify but where was the tippipng point, or what was the tipping lever, which decreed that massive violence was the single, inevitable answer? One of the things that has always struck me about the years leading up to the firing on SUmter. Even in the last few hours before the first mortar shell flew at Sumter, there were sane men negotiating for a bloodless end to the standoff. Here is an excerpt from an eyewitness account: On the afternoon of April 11, waving a white flag, two members of General Beauregard's staff were rowed across Charleston's harbor to Fort Sumter carrying a written demand for surrender. One of the emissaries - Stephen D. Lee - wrote of the experience after the war: Sorry for the thread creep. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: CET Date: 16 Oct 08 - 12:20 PM Maclellan was a bad general, and a posturer, but most certainly not a poltroon. His men loved him, and soldiers do not love a cowardly general. After the war Robert E. Lee said that MacLellan was the Union general that worried him the most. MacLellan, not Grant, was the one who built and trained the Army of the Potomac. His trouble was indecisiveness, not cowardice. There were very few leaders of high rank in that war who were cowards. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: kendall Date: 16 Oct 08 - 01:37 PM He was always afraid that the confederates had more men than he had, even when that was not the case. He was always calling for more troops. What do you call that? He was great at organizing and drilling but that was the extent of his ability as a general. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: kendall Date: 16 Oct 08 - 01:42 PM I'm not clear on the details here, but as I recall, there was some hostile action before they fired on Ft. Sumpter. A supply ship attempted to supply the garrison and was fired upon by a group of Military students from a military academy in South Carolina. I want to say the ship was the Star of.... not India, but a similar name. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Amos Date: 16 Oct 08 - 01:59 PM His indecisiveness cost thousands and thousands of lives, CET. He was so indecisive Lincoln once cabled to ask "If you are not using the Army, I would like to borrow it for a while...". When the Confederate Army was still gaining its feet and he had a score of opportunities to nip the War of Secession in the bud, and did not do so. At least that's my understanding. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity Date: 16 Oct 08 - 02:03 PM From: Peace Date: 16 Oct 08 - 07:44 AM "The founding of the American nation was the hinge of world history:" Really? Yes...for a while....but, all things must pass, and thanks to our present bunch of power mongering idiots, that time may be accelerated. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Rapparee Date: 16 Oct 08 - 03:07 PM McClellan was like Montgomery before Alamein: he wasn't going to move an inch unless he had overwhelming superiority in men, weapons, and supplies. When he was finally forced to move (he invaded the James Pennisula) he bungled the attack so badly that he was nearly pushed into the water. One of the big strategic problems in the ACW was that generals were still tied to notion that every single strong point had to be defeated. For example, Kennesaw Mountain could have been surrounded and forced into surrender by lack of supplies but Sherman had been schooled that it had to be reduced, that it posed a threat to his rear, and so forced his men to attack up a very steep slope. Moreover, the weapons available had far outstripped the thinking and tactics of the military minds of the time. Fredricksburg is one example of it, Shiloh and Gettysburg are others. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 16 Oct 08 - 04:08 PM Kendall said, Isn't it odd that so much of our history revolves around war? It does look that way at first blush, but when you think about it--or when _I_ think about it, it comes out differently. History is an attempt to see the underlying bones of the flow of past events that led to the present. Now, events significant enough for the student of history to link up with events prior and subsequent to build a shape of history are often unseen, often slow-developing, that move under the earth, so to speak,(ALERT! metaphor coming!) building economic or religious or cultural or business or population pressures that come into contact with other incipient movements. At some point those pressures coming together create such adversarial strains that they MUST be relieved, often by force. A war is the upshot. The really significant thing that happened is often not the war but the movements, the pressures that clash and result in the war. Those sometimes "subterranean" movements are a sort of tectonic plate, moving inexorably, often irresistably. When in a clash with other tectonic movements, the strain gets to a point where it must, it WILL be explosively released, in earthquakes, tsunamis. and the like. When a historian looks at the events of the past, he clearly sees the "earthquakes", the "tsunamis" we call wars, but the really important flow of events is often not so obvious, and the tendency is to write about the visible event, the war. But the history doesn't really "revolve around" the war, but the larger changes that lurk deep down. The wars are merely the manifestation of history happening. Dave Oesterreich |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Peter T. Date: 16 Oct 08 - 04:16 PM It could even be argued that the really important manifestations of history are not all that war related, though certainly violence was involved. E.g. the discovery of agriculture; the rise of cities; bronze, iron, steel; the catastrophic plague of the 1350s; the staggering disease mortality of the New World; etc., etc. The most important single event of our times is the loss of species worldwide. The effects will last for millions of years. Doesn't show up in presidential debates for some funny reason. yours, Peter T. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: PoppaGator Date: 16 Oct 08 - 04:40 PM The US Civil War can be viewed as the first "total war" in world history, with terror rained upon civilian populations like never before, and large numbers of ordinary citizens conscripted, and/or simply persuaded, to become cannon fodder. I have long held the opinion that armchair historians who revel in the "glory" of such carnage suffer from the delusion that, had they been alive at the time, they would have belonged to the small minority of the population privileged enough to watch the destruction, or perhaps even to direct it as a member of the officer class. Of course, the reality of that era for most young men (and, by extension, for most families) was to suffer the ignomy of long marches in worn-out boots, to experience the kill-or-be-killed terror of the battlefield, and in many cases to endure a slow and painful death from gangrene after a botched amputation. Unlike a few of you who had relatives participating in that conflict, I don't have a single ancestor who lived on this side of the ocean at that time. Three-quarters of them were scratching out a living as tenant-farmers on land they were not allowed to own in County Mayo, Ireland, despite the family having occupied that farmstead for more generations than anyone can remember. The other branch of my family tree were also farmers, in Alsace-Lorraine, where they struggled to keep mind and body together while the "great and powerful" of France and Germany fought over their homeland, passing it back and forth as they took turns defeating one another in one war after another. Perhaps that family history explains my extreme skepticism regarding tales of military glory. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Amos Date: 16 Oct 08 - 05:01 PM Thank you, gentlemen, for your fine and thoughtful posts. A far more strenuous response is to gird your loins and seek to tap into the higher angels of human nature, by finding means of communication and persuasion of a higher order, wherever possible. It is far saner to face up to that effort than to flee into the easy answer of violence because one refuses to exercise one's brains. < end rant> A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Rapparee Date: 16 Oct 08 - 05:20 PM There is glory in war -- in consists of someone putting his or her own life between carnage and those they love. It does NOT consist in the blind obedience to orders, in killing another, in charging across an open field in the face of the machine guns. It's the same glory of a single mom dragging herself to work day after day so that her kids will have some food or a father rescuing his family from a burning house. The heroes of any war aren't the generals and the REMFs. The heroes are the grunts who do what has to be done and then go home and get on with their lives as best they can. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Little Hawk Date: 16 Oct 08 - 07:15 PM Glory consists of whatever a person thinks it does, Rapaire. For different people there are different views on that. Your view of it strikes me as a pretty good one, though. ;-) *** Regarding McLellan, I doubt that he was a physical coward, but he lacked the aggressive, risk-taking nature (in terms of command decisions) that characterizes most really successful battlefield generals. My bet is that he tended to overthink everything to the point that he couldn't come to a final decision. Such people tend to have decisions thrust upon them. They end up reacting to events rather than shaping events. He was overcautious in the extreme, and he kept overestimating the strength of the Southern forces. On the other hand, he did a superb job of organizing and training the Union Army, honed it into a fine fighting machine despite his indecision on the battlefield, and was tremendously popular with the rank and file of the soldiers in the Army of the Potomac. It was said by some at the time that had McLellan decided to stage a coup, depose Lincoln, and take over the government in Washington, the troops would have backed him....he was that popular. Kind of ironical, because the man was so bad at fighting battles... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Thompson Date: 16 Oct 08 - 07:31 PM The first total war, in which civilians were targeted? No indeed. Genghis Khan had every male taller than the axle of an ox-cart killed in the countries he invaded. Hinge of world history? Yes. Enormous world events - a major battle that changes a major commercial power; a Depression that shifts profit and power to other continets - these are the hinges on which all our history swings. A couple of questions: Amos - who is this Captain James? Rapaire, is Arlington near to Gettysburg? (If you'd be so kind as to PM me, I'd be grateful, Rapaire.) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Thompson Date: 16 Oct 08 - 07:31 PM |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Thompson Date: 16 Oct 08 - 07:32 PM Oops, sorry. Thank you for the book recommendation, looking at it now on Amazon (where I won't buy, because of the Humane Society lawsuit, but it's handy as a catalogue)> |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: catspaw49 Date: 16 Oct 08 - 07:38 PM I hope you didn't take me wrong Rap re: my comment about "glory." I certainly agree with you but I find so much history written around "stirring tales" that its easy to forget what was really happening. Its obvious most on this thread are well read and can have reasonable discussions so let me throw in something else. More than the battles, more than the leaders, more than the politics, and frankly more than anyting else, I am fascinated and in awe of the geography and logistics. Visiting the battlefields is one thing but analyzing the movements and terrain before, during, and after engagements is more inspiring than any stories of battlefield courage. Much has been built since and forests harvested but the lay of the land is still pretty much the same. I guess this thought probably comes to us all somewhere but for me it came driving along I24 in Tennessee. The land between Murfreesboro (Stone River) and Chattanooga is varied and rough. After you come off the plateau and cross Monteagle the mountainous terrain is formidable. I thought of Rosecrans bringing his men along behind the Confederates under Bragg in the late winter and early spring and becoming so bogged down they had to stop for months just to regroup. NOT from the prior battle but simply because of the effects of trying to move this army and losing wagons, men, horses, artillery, supplies, and food. Rosecrans was cautious and often too cautious along with being erratic in battle but like "Little Mac" he put his men first and trained well. For this army to stop after starting speaks volumes about the terrain. When things did get going it was late and we all know the story of the Union disaster that was Chickamauga. I think of the fabrics of the times and trying to dry wool blankets and clothing. Boots that didn't fit tromping through miles of mud so the wearer could ascend a steep and long, rocky, slope.......... I have to believe it was truly a different breed of man back then and just survivng the times of NO battles was praiseworthy......and a bit unbelievable. Spaw |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Little Hawk Date: 16 Oct 08 - 07:46 PM There have been many, many "hinges of history". - The Greek defeats of the Persians at battles such as Salamis and Gaugamela. - Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon. - the death of Alexander - the life and death of Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, etc... - the battles of Pearl Harbour and Midway - the first detonation of an atom bomb - the defeat of the Spanish Armada - Napoleon's defeat in Russia - Germany's defeat at Stalingrad - the German failure in the Battle of Britain - the Fall of France - the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand - the invention of the computer - the first powered airplane flight - the discovery of electricity - the invention of radio and television - the invention of the camera - the first rubber band! - the invention of the internal combustion engine - the invention of the written word! - the first chimpanzee to run for president of the USA! Really, it's an endless list. Which part of it you focus on will depend greatly on your cultural background, I suspect (most nationalities tend to be just a tad self-centered). For Canadians, the hinge of history would be...ummm...well, I guess it would either be the British victory over the French on the Plains of Abraham...or the day Shane McBride chugged his first beer and got it all down. He was 7 years old. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Big Al Whittle Date: 16 Oct 08 - 11:06 PM the holocaust |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Lonesome EJ Date: 16 Oct 08 - 11:13 PM "The founding of the American nation was the hinge of world history" Well, I believe that an argument can be made in that regard. There had been no Republic on earth since the Roman Republic collapsed into tyranny 1800 years before. There was no blueprint for a functioning democratic government extant, and the continuance of the experiment was often in doubt, not often more so than in early July 1863. Most of us who post here are living in countries in which representative Democracy is such an established paradigm that we no longer think of it as anything special, nor perhaps anything worth protecting. It is, however, what the idea of the United States of America was all about. Whether we currently conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of that idea and that heritage is well worth examining, but I believe that nothing can impeach the nobility of that idea, nor its impact on humanity. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Little Hawk Date: 16 Oct 08 - 11:45 PM Of course an argument could be made in that regard. Surprisingly enough, Fidel Castro might agree with you, because he tremendously admired George Washington and the other founding fathers of the USA and the ideals they brought forth. Latin Americans generally modeled their own struggles against colonial rule on the American example, and they usually wrote their new constitutions directly inspired by the American one. When you go to other parts of the world, though, such as Europe or Asia, you will find them focusing on some quite different hinge of history, because it arises out of their past cultural history, not yours. The English have modern democracy too. The whole English-speaking world does. They are under the impression that they came up with it on their own steam, by their own initiative, and as a matter of fact, they did...with or without the USA's example. They peacefully transformed constitutional monarchies into representative democracies. The French had their republican revolution...a particularly bloody one...and they too eventually brought a modern democracy out of it, though not without spilling one heck of a lot of blood. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Lonesome EJ Date: 17 Oct 08 - 12:08 AM Yes, at the time of the American Revolution, England possessed a representative government too..it represented about 3% of the population. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Little Hawk Date: 17 Oct 08 - 12:13 AM Ah...yes...the rich gentry. ;-) How lovely it must have been then for people like Penelope Rutledge. The Americans and French definitely opened things up for the common man at an accelerated rate for the time. Nonetheless, the British Empire did eventually extend representation to their poor people, and they ended slavery quite some time before the USA did, so put that one in your pipe and smoke it! ;-) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Uncle Phil Date: 17 Oct 08 - 01:00 AM Following up on Fort Sumter thread drift: The name of the ship was Star of the West, a merchant ship. That attempt to resupply and reinforce Ft. Sumter with 200 troops took place in January -- after Lincoln had been elected but while Buchanan was still the president. The South Carolinians fired on the Star of the West and she made a hasty retreat. By April Lincoln had a dilemma. Anderson was running out of supplies in Ft. Sumter. If the Fort was surrendered to South Carolina it would acknowledge that the secessionist government was legit and lose tons of Northern political support for Lincoln. If he tried to blast his into Charleston Harbor to relieve Anderson he'd start a war and probably drive the border states and Virginia to secede. Lots of plots and plans were circulating, but Lincoln decided to go with a plan suggested by a guy named Gustavus V. Fox (great name). Warships would escort supply ships but stop outside the harbor. Food would be loaded on small boats and rowed into the Fort. The warships would fire only if the South Carolinians fired on the small boats. The relief expedition never went to Charleston. The Southerners knew of the expedition because Lincoln wrote a letter to Governor Pickering to explain that the small boats would only carry humanitarian supplies. The events in Amos' 11:47 AM post followed, and the Fort was attacked before the relief supplies and warships arrived. Historians debate what Lincoln's motives. It may be that he considered war inevitable, and wanted the South to start the war by firing on unarmed relief boats to rally Northern support for the war. It's also interesting to speculate on whether more border states would have seceded if the Northern warships had attacked the Southern forces surrounding Fort Sumter. - Phil Source: James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 1988, ISBN 978-0-19-503863-7 |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Big Al Whittle Date: 17 Oct 08 - 04:51 AM 'It's also interesting to speculate on whether more border states would have seceded if the Northern warships had attacked the Southern forces surrounding Fort Sumter.' What are you saying, that the South could have won? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Nigel Parsons Date: 17 Oct 08 - 06:34 AM "Glory" means different thigs to different people ... 'There's glory for you!', [said Humpty Dumpty] `I don't know what you mean by "glory",' Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. `Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"' `But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument",' Alice objected. `When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.' `The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.' `The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master -- that's all.' "Through the Looking Glass", by Lewis Carroll. From Chapter 6, "Humpty Dumpty" |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Richard Bridge Date: 17 Oct 08 - 07:12 AM Thread drift - you seem to ahve a point about Amazon, one of which I was not aware. THank you. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: kendall Date: 17 Oct 08 - 07:42 AM Thanks Uncle Phil. That's what my aged mind was trying to recall. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Uncle Phil Date: 17 Oct 08 - 08:57 AM More Fort Sumter thread drift. The importance of the border states was that they had most of nonslave population and all of the industrial capacity of the Southern states. Add Tennessee, Maryland, and Missouri to the Confederacy and maybe the war goes on long enough for the Confederates gain the support of England and France. Remember, the South didn't have to defeat the North to successfully secede – they just had to keep the Union from governing the Southern states. Could they have done that with additional resources from border states and open support from overseas? Personally I doubt it, but, yeah, anything is possible. Something else to consider is that the North states were enraged by the attack on Sumter. They provided unqualified support and recruited more troops than Lincoln himself had requested. Would he have had that level of support had he been the aggressor and attacked the forces surrounding Fort Sumter? Could Lincoln have successfully reasserted the union control over the South without unqualified support from the Northern states? - Phil |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Greg F. Date: 17 Oct 08 - 09:17 AM ...Historians debate what Lincoln's motives [were]. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. One of the more recent and best, if I may say so, discussions of the whole run-up to the attack on Fort Sumter can be found in Chapter 12 of Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals. She makes a convincing case that Lincoln, in attempting to re-supply Fort Sumter (and Fort Pickens) was simply fulfilling the pledge made in his Inaugural Address to "hold, occupy and possess" property belonging to the Federal Government, but "beyond what may be necessary" to accomplish that there would "be no invasion, no using of force." The message Lincoln sent to the Governor of South Carolinas speaks for itself: "I am directed by the President of the United States to notify you to expect an attempt will be made, to supply Fort- Sumpter with provisions only; and that, if such attempt be not resisted, no effort to throw in men, arms, or ammunition, will be made without further notice." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: CET Date: 17 Oct 08 - 09:18 AM Little Hawk got the point of what I was trying to say. MacLellan was not a poltroon. He was however a bad general, and exaggerated the enemy's strength (although in that he was abetted by the poor intelligence work of the Pinkerton organization). I would agree that his lack of aggression prolonged the war. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Lonesome EJ Date: 17 Oct 08 - 09:42 AM I toured the battlefield a couple of years ago, and found it an awesome experience. I was unprepared for the vast number of memorials that exist, most erected by individual companies and states whose soldiers fought and died there. To stand atop Little Round Top and look down on the steep slope that led up to it over which Confederate troops threw themselves in repeated assaults is sobering. And to stand in the treeline where Pickett's Charge began and look up to the distant copse and fence line that was the charge's objective gives one some sense of the courage of those men and those armies. Yes. Little Hawk, I put the slavery comment in my pipe and tried to smoke it, but I couldn't get it lit. In that regard, my country was certainly born with a streak of hypocrisy in its character. Took a war to deal with it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Greg F. Date: 17 Oct 08 - 09:45 AM Thread Drift Alert! [but I didn't bring it up in the first place] ...Amazon (where I won't buy, because of the Humane Society lawsuit This is a bullshit lawsuit - attempting to censor what books Amazon can sell. What books- other than cockfighting magazines- will they ban next, if this suit is successful? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 17 Oct 08 - 11:05 AM [Pedantic curmudgeon mode!] The Union General's name was not McLellan or MacLellan It was McClellan! [/Pedantic Curmudgeon mode] Dave Oesterreich |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Amos Date: 17 Oct 08 - 11:31 AM Thompson: According to the excerpt I posted, it appears Captain James was the gunnery officer in charge of the 10-inch mortar battery from which the first round fired on Sumter was fired. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Peter T. Date: 17 Oct 08 - 12:00 PM In terms of revolutionary hinges, the founding of the Dutch Republic in the late 16th century in the teeth of the Spanish Empire was more important than the French/American Revolutions, which copied the Dutch example. yours, Peter T. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Little Hawk Date: 17 Oct 08 - 12:56 PM Interesting point, Peter. That seems to have been an event that's gone under most people's radar...probably because Holland is a minor power in today's world. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gettysburg From: Amos Date: 17 Oct 08 - 02:11 PM Thread drift: The Dutch hingepoint: "The Dutch Revolt, Eighty Years' War or the Revolt of the Netherlands (1568[1]—1648), was the revolt of the Seventeen Provinces in the Low Countries against the Spanish (Habsburg) Empire. Spain was initially successful in suppressing the rebellion. In 1572, however, the rebels captured Brielle and the rebellion resurged. The northern provinces became independent, first de facto, and in 1648 de jure. During the revolt, the United Provinces of the Netherlands, better known as the Dutch Republic, rapidly grew to become a world power through its merchant shipping and experienced a period of economic, scientific, and cultural growth. The Southern Netherlands (situated in modern-day Belgium, Luxembourg and Northern France...) remained under Spanish rule. The continuous repression by the Spanish in the south caused many of its financial, intellectual, and cultural élite to flee north, contributing to the success of the Dutch Republic. Additionally, by the end of the war in 1648 large areas of the Southern Netherlands had been lost to France which had, under the guidance of Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIII of France, allied itself with the Dutch Republic in the 1630s against the Habsburg dynasty. The first phase of the conflict can be considered to be the Dutch War of Independence. The focus of the latter phase was to gain official recognition of the already de facto independence of the United Provinces. This phase coincided with the rise of the Dutch Republic as a major power and the founding of the Dutch colonial empire...." (From Wikipedia) |
