Thoughts on the military and military activities of a diverse nature. Free-ranging and eclectic. Blog ego cogito ergo sum.
Friday, June 1, 2012
R.E. Lee.
This is coolbert:
Thanks to David G. and the tip from Larry we have this controversial item. ON THIS DATE IN 1862 ROBERT E. LEE ASSUMED COMMAND OF THE CONFEDERATE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC [ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA].
And the course of history was changed forever.
"A TRAGIC IRONY OF HISTORY: WITHOUT LEE’S BRILLIANT GENERALSHIP, THE SOUTHERN WAY OF LIFE WOULD HAVE SURVIVED" [?]
"all of his [R.E. Lee] successes—the Seven Days, Second Manassas, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville—served to ensure that one day the Southern way of life would be gone with the wind."
"One of the most overlooked dates in American history is the 1st of June 1862. This was the day when Robert E. Lee was given command by Jefferson Davis of the Confederate Army of the Potomac . . . The promotion of Lee changed everything for the South and it would change the course of the entire nation. Lee renamed his command the Army of Northern Virginia and infused it with the martial ardor necessary to win Southern independence on the battlefield."
“By mid-May the Army of the Potomac [Union] lay on the outskirts of Richmond, hoping to capture the capital of the Confederacy and perhaps end the war. If that strategy succeeded the nation might be reunified, but without abolition of slavery.”
Those southern states of the Confederacy in rebellion on the verge of defeat, the Union preserved and only that, AS WAS THE ORIGINAL INTENT OF THOSE IN OPPOSITION TO SECESSION! A protracted conflict resulting in large measure due to the efforts of R.E. Lee while in command the continued battlefield success of the Army of Northern Virginia the war continuing in an unanticipated manner THE GOAL OF THE UNION FORCES EVENTUALLY BECOMING PRESERVATION OF THE UNION AND THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY!!
Resolution of the conflict in 1862 would have meant a continuation of the Union BUT not an abolition of slavery?
Devoted readers to the blog have an opinion on this matter?
coolbert.
It's an article of Faith that Lee was some kind of brilliant commander. Actually you could say he lost the war for the South, and Lee himself might agree with it.
ReplyDeleteHe certainly lost Gettysburg, and said so Why not accept him as his word -- it was his fault. Do you know why he said he had erred? I doubt you do. Lee thought God would magically, supernaturally bless his plan. He had been fortunate before -- and attributed that to God.
But there is thanking God AFTER you get lucky, and depending on GOD when you send thousand plus men against compressed fire. If anyone on earth should have known the folly of his Gettysburg plan, it was lee himself.
His generals told him time and again, and again, and AGAIN, not to attack there. But thinking God gave him his plans, and thinking God was on his side, Lee had the attack take place.
There probably isn't a soldier, living or dead, who did not attribute some lucky thing to God. All sides do it. They did so 1000 years ago, 150 years ago, and they do today. So don't think Lee was some kind of nut -- that's what he thought. And afterwards he had the courage to SAY so -- he said he was WRONG to believe they could not be beaten. The REASON he thought they could not be beaten, he believed this was all destiny, God, whatever.
Virtually everyone thought like that then -- even Lincoln, famously. But Lincoln didn't order suicide attacks thinking God would intervene and make it right.
Lee also had MORE troops that the Union in this battle. In fact the common mantra of the South being outnumbered is overstated. Gettysburg was an example. When Lee was on the attack, he goofed up like others. His specialty was defense.
One of the under reported aspects of Lee's career is that first year of the Civil War, those first few months. Did you know he was put in charge of the massive SLAVE built earth works around Richmond? yes, he was. Do you know that construction job was probably the biggest "government" project in the South till the TVA 70 years later. Facts are hard to come by -- but the earth works wee 70 mile long, and and consisted of row after row of massive, almost impenetrable earth works,
We know all kinds of things about the slave labor used by Hitler in WW2, but hardly a peep about the slave labor used by RE LEE. It would be fascinating to learn more.