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I don't care how many managing general wins he had, Pickett's charge was stupid. Run a mile across an open field against a well-defended position in broad daylight? Moronic.

I'm in Gettysburg right now, and I think I'm going to move here. There are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of monuments, each one has a story, and I'll leave tomorrow morning only knowing a couple of them. I wish I had more time.

Ah, but he was no Ambrose Burnside.

Ugh. Fredericksburg was like Tony La Russa versus Bob Boone.

I was there 25 years ago in college. I need to go back, I would get so much more out of it.

But those battlefields are insane, I was at the place where they had the battle of Bull Run. They were showing us where the troops were, and it's crazy. No cover at all, just an open field.

jim wrote:But those battlefields are insane, I was at the place where they had the battle of Bull Run. They were showing us where the troops were, and it's crazy. No cover at all, just an open field.

The same thing still holds true with our army today. We put so much money into tanks, when really they're outdated weapons of war.

Although its not us, one hundred years from now historians will look back and say the same thing about the Iraqi's in the 2003 war.
"So those soldiers sat inside giant metal boxes, bullseyes from the sky, while the U.S. simply dropped bombs on top of them? And they didn't learn their lesson 12 years after the first war? That's crazy."

greenback44 wrote:I don't care how many managing general wins he had, Pickett's charge was stupid. Run a mile across an open field against a well-defended position in broad daylight? Moronic.

I'm in Gettysburg right now, and I think I'm going to move here. There are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of monuments, each one has a story, and I'll leave tomorrow morning only knowing a couple of them. I wish I had more time.

I'm reading the biography of James Longstreet, who argued with Lee against making a direct attack against a well entrenched Federal Army that held the high ground. For some reason, Jeb Stuart and his calvary disappeared for a week, leaving the Confederate Army blind to the surrounding terrain and situation around Gettysburg. Longstreet wanted to move around the Union army and get between them and Washington, but one reason Lee was against it was he didn't know what would be ahead. Lee said later he wished he had listened to Longstreet.

If any of you haven't read Killer Angels do so asap.

lukethedrifter wrote:If any of you haven't read Killer Angels do so asap.

OUTSTANDING book....and I believe the author's son wrote "Gods and Generals", another excellent book. I read those years ago; I'll have to re-read them since I now live down South. Must learn a different angle about the War of Northern Aggression!

I've lived in the south all of my life, and there are two song lyrics that give me me chill bumps.

Johnny Cash did "Ragged Old Flag" with the line:

There was Lee and Beauregard and Bragg
and the South wind blew hard on that ragged old flag

Another is from a group called Shennadoah, with a song called "Sunday in The South":

A ragged rebel flag flies high above it all
poppin' in the wind like an angry cannon ball
now the halls of history are cold and still
but they still smell the powder burning
and they probably always will


I'm proud to be a southerner, but I think flying a rebel flag outside of historic battlegrounds or reenactments is about as redneck as you can get.

Although Lee messed up at Gettysburg, he had been brilliant up to that point. George Meade had just taken command of the Army of the Potomac, and Lee seemed to even be intimidated by Meade.

lukethedrifter wrote:If any of you haven't read Killer Angels do so asap.

I was going to say the same about Alan T. Nolan's "Lee Considered", which would support greenback's assertions about Robert E. Lee. The book takes the Lee myth and renders it swiss cheese.