I was a big Civil War enthusiast as a boy. My sixth grade teacher wrote on my permanent record that I was “overly interested in war.” In this photo (probably snapped at Gettysburg), I’m sitting astride a cannon wearing a pair of flip-flops that definitely would have been out of place a century earlier. My brother is in the foreground of the photo, adding tone.
At Gettysburg 150 years ago, Robert E. Lee learned he was not invincible. When will our current politicians learn the same lesson?
I recently read Shelby Foote’s discussion of Gettysburg in his 3 volume history of the Civil War. Even more enlightening were the memoirs of Porter Alexander, the commander of the Confederate artillery barrage that preceded Pickett’s charge. Alexander is most refreshing – a southern officer who does not genuflect to the myths of the Lost Cause. Instead, he lays out plainly and simply the military errors that preceded the South’s greatest defeat.
Lee was a brilliant commander at Second Bull Run, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, the Wilderness, and several other battles. But, as Alexander points out, Lee simply ignored the vast advantages that the terrain gave the northern army at Gettysburg.
Not sure of the source – but I think it may have been Shelby Foote who pointed out that Gen. Longstreet was the only high-ranking Confederate officer who did not underestimate the capability of the Army of the Potomac prior to Gettysburg. Longstreet’s strategic vision – aspiring to sway the Yankees to attack the southerners in formidable positions – seemed far superior to Lee’s in this campaign.
Reading the history of the battle, I am stunned at how many valiant soldiers were slaughtered simply because their commanders did not bother gathering sufficient intelligence before sending them charging ahead. This was the normal routine for Confederate armies west of Virginia, but the follies that the Army of Northern Virginia committed on July 2 and July 3, 1863 were astounding.
One tragedy of the Civil War – both sides believed they had lofty motives at the start and both governments became increasingly tyrannical as the war progressed.
Deja vu? Obama took office almost 5 years ago spouting ideals and sounding like he would rein in the excesses of U.S. foreign policy. And here we are – with far more military interventions in Sub-Saharan African, with a debacle from a toppled Libyan regime, and plunging forward into a Syrian vortex. And his record on civil liberties is degenerating to Lincolnesque levels.
Dig even further back in history – didn’t President Bush promise a more humble foreign policy, after the Clinton foreign adventures? Obama is doing nothing more than continuing policy and precedent going back … well, arguably back to at least Wilson and possibly back as far as Lincoln. With a case to be made for even back to the War of 1812.