Big RR wrote: ↑Thu Sep 09, 2021 4:31 pm
I love statement that the civil war would have been over in one day if Lee commanded the northern army (presumably the army of the Potomac?); I have great respect for his strategic skills, but one day? Trump has shown once again that he is a big ass.
And Lee in Afghanistan? What, on horseback using Napoleonic tactics? As Bugs Bunny would say, "What a maroon".
Army of Northeastern Virginia actually - under McDowell until after 1st Manassas/Bull Run. McClellan took charge of the Department of the Potomac and that of Virginia and cancelled out the Union losers, creating the Army of the Potomac in July 1861. Good name change - otherwise one wonders what Lee would have called his lot?
One day - well, would that have been at 1st Manassas one wonders? Or earlier, before the armies could even get to grips, waving a magic wand? Lee was as inept as anyone in those early days, viz his nicknames of Granny Lee and King of Spades, unable to save Kanawha (where McClellan farted about successfully) and thank you Lee, there's West Virginia.
Note that the Confederacy didn't think so highly of his skills either - having lost at Cheat Mountain he was banished to coastal defences in SC and GA. He did well (King of Spades) in engineering those. It wasn't until the "best general" in the Confederacy Joe Johnston was wounded that Lee was put in his place at the head of the Army of Northern Virginia (not to be confused with McDowell's mob earlier). That was JUNE 1862 one full year after 1st Bull Run - not one full day.
Gettysburg did not destroy the Confederacy or the AONV. Vicksburg did the first and, by extension, the second. Lee LOST Gettysburg, a most badly mismanaged battle. He invaded the North twice and LOST both times - his strategy and his tactics questionable after Chancellorsville. Can't blame JEB Stuart for his absence from the Gettysburg campaign - Lee gave him permission to make a choice, one of which was disastrous and that's what JEB chose. Can't blame Ewell for failing at Culp's Hill on day 1 - Lee with his patrician "if practicable" laid out Ewell's cautious course there. Both predictable given the character of the sub-commanders.
Would Lee have been swiftly successful in command of the National army from day one? Maybe - he certainly made the template that Grant followed in '64 when he smashed McClellan (and much of his own army) on the Peninsula in '62. If USG was a butcher, then Lee was equally so. IMO
Trump is a historilliterate.
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts