Right Wing Nut House

Pat Curley had a great idea for a lazy summer’s day; compile a list of the 10 Most Influential Human Beings of the Second Millennium:

A friend asked me to put together a list of the ten most influential people from 1000 AD to 2000 AD. They did not themselves have to live in the second millennium, just have influence. Here’s my list:

1. Jesus Christ
2. Galileo
3. Sir Isaac Newton
4. George Washington
5. Napoleon
6. Karl Marx
7. Adam Smith
8. Aristotle
9. Muhammad
10. John Locke

I love these kind of thought experiments for a variety of reasons. First, no matter who you come up with, someone is going to get mad at you for leaving out one of their favorites. And since Glenn Greenwald is ignoring me lately, I miss having people mad at me.

Secondly, it makes you think and (depending how much beer you’ve drunk or Oaxacan ditch weed you’ve inhaled) your writing takes on the patina of profundity; reason enough for any blogger to jump at the chance of sounding, well, smart.

Finally, what else is there to blog about on a Friday afternoon? There are only so many posts you can do about what you believe is happening in the Middle East. Or what a douchebag Glenn Greenwald is. Or how badly the Republicans are screwing things up. Or what a bunch of poopy heads the Democrats are.

Obviously, I need a little more of that ditch weed. Fire up that bowl!

Okay, here is my list of the 10 Most Influential Human Beings of the Second Millennium:

1. Johann Gutenberg
2. Martin Luther
3. Isaac Newton
4. Galileo
5. Mao Zedong
6. Muhammad
7. Napoleon
8. James Madison
9. Karl Marx
10. Albert Einstein

Honorable Mention: George Washington, Adam Smith, James Clerk Maxwell, William Shakespeare, Robert Goddard.

A couple of notes before you rip me to shreds.

First, there is a difference between most popular and most influential. The popularity of Jesus Christ may have been profound but judging by the bloodletting on the planet in the 20th century alone, one would have to sadly relegate him to the second tier because his influence on world events (his teachings) was not that great.

You’ll notice there are 4 scientists in my top 15. The reason is simple; the modern world would not be possible without Newton, Galileo, Maxwell, or Goddard. We’d still be living in mud huts and flinging pig feces at each other if those gentlemen hadn’t made their illuminating contributions to our general knowledge of How Things Work.

Here now is where I justify my picks (and enrage you further):

1. Gutenberg. No Johann, no mass literacy. No mass literacy, no protestant reformation. No reformation, we’re still buying indulgences and the finger bones of St. Peter.

2. Martin Luther. With many of my choices, one can make a strong argument that “if not this guy, then someone else.” Indeed, this entire exercise would be dismissed out of hand by most historians for that reason. They tend to downplay the role of individuals and singular events in history preferring to look at the vast and powerful undercurrents that drive history forward. Their reasoning goes something like this: There was a need for reformation ergo if not Luther, someone else would have taken on the Roman church.

There may be something to that. But the romantic in me doesn’t buy it. Luther’s towering intellect and tortured personality as well as a divinely inspired logic swept Europe off its feet and led directly to the formation of independent nation states. When historians find someone else living at that time or even a few decades later who could have done what Luther did, then I’ll buy their relativistic view of history.

3. Newton, enemy of everyone condemned to take integral calculus in order to get a degree (he was one of the inventors of it), not only contributed to our understanding of the universe, his theories on optics and light made much of modern technology possible.

4. Galileo. Only because he may have been the smartest human who ever lived. We still find him looking over our shoulder when we turn around.

5. Mao. Ranked higher than Marx because his teachings influenced about 3 times as many people. And he may be the greatest mass murderer in history. And his influence in China (and leftist moonbats here and in Europe) is still being felt today. And also because he was something of a military genius. That enough for ya?

6. Muhammad. Not only his teachings but the fact that he conquered most of Arabia.

7. Napoleon. Hard to overstate his impact on Europe and the world in the 19th century. Can’t get more influential as the fall out from his life and career carries through to today.

8. Karl Marx. 40-60 million dead as a result of his ideas. And that’s not counting people who died in wars of “national liberation.” That’s the body count from domestic upheavals in countries where communism was imposed.

9. James Madison. Wrote the Constitution of the United States. Nuff said.

10. Einstein. His contributions may have been more in the theoretical than the practical sphere of science except for one, small exception; the atomic bomb.

Honorable mentions are pretty self explanatory. Washington invented the Presidency of the United States as well as keeping the country from flying apart the first 8 years of its existence. Adam Smith didn’t invent capitalism but he explained it so well his writings still influence people today. Maxwell’s equations are the reason you can read this on your computer - they made every modern device from radio to Diebold voting machines possible. I put Shakespeare in there because of his profound influence on the spoken words of everyday people. And if you look inside the rockets that power the Shuttle, you’ll still see Robert Goddard’s basic design.

Okay - have at me. Check back often as I skewer your choices with my perspicacious wit and devastating logic. Or, I may get lazy this weekend and ignore you.

At any rate…have fun!

One the the reasons I love to study American history is the opportunity it affords me to travel back in time and put myself in the shoes of people who lived long before I was born.

Don’t get me wrong. There is no doubt in my mind that these are the best of times in which to live and I wouldn’t trade places with those earlier Americans for anything. The fact is, I’m much too addicted to flush toilets, electric lights, and bologna sandwiches to pine for an opportunity to live in a time when outhouses were a fixture of the American landscape and going nearly blind by being forced to read by the light of whale oil candles was considered part of the price of being an educated man.

And needless to say, given the way that bologna is processed today, I can’t even contemplate the 19th century alternative although sweeping the floor of the slaughterhouses here in Chicago and placing the contents in a sack would probably come pretty close to what our ancestors would translate as my favorite food.

But I think that visiting the 18th or 19th Century for a while would do all of us some good to one degree or another. It would help in understanding that the times we live in today are, in many ways, not that much different than the way things have always been in America. I have to laugh when someone on the right or the left points to our divisions, our polarization, the nastiness of our politics and use adjectives like “the worst” it has ever been or “we’ve never been this close to dictatorship” or anything to do with religious oppression, or race relations, or the economy, or any of a dozen other benchmarks that those ignorant of our past will use to try and convince us that the times we live in are unique in the strife and struggle manifested in our polity and politics today.

Balderdash!

Washington bemoaned the divisions in America of his day as the country split down the middle between those who supported the British and those that backed the French during the revolutionary struggles in France during the late 18th century. Washington himself was often accused of trying to set himself up as a monarch, a preposterous charge looking back on it but a cause for real concern back then.

During the campaign of 1800, Jeffersonians actually believed that if their man wasn’t elected, liberty in America would be destroyed (sound familiar?). When Jefferson won, there was a tremendous surge of relief that the evil Federalists would be prevented from turning the country into an English lap dog and a debased aristocracy.

This kind of thing wasn’t just rhetoric. Reading accounts of Jefferson himself from that time makes it clear that he saw his election as a fortuitous circumstance in history, that 4 more years of Federalist rule would have meant the nation’s ruin.

Boy - the Democrats sure haven’t changed much in 200 years.

During the Compromise of 1820, when South Carolina was agitating for the umpteenth time already to leave the union, the American people were ready to go to war to prevent such an occurrence. The level of vituperation directed against each other in Congress is shocking (as it would be until long after the Civil War ended) and individual members routinely came armed with pistols when the House sat in session.

Abraham Lincoln was usually caricatured as an ape in opposition newspapers. The invective hurled at our 16th President makes George Bush’s term of office look like a cakewalk.

I could go on and on. The clergy of early America railed against the materialism and the grasping for possessions of the American people - something de Tocqueville commented on as well. There were cries against the influence of religion in politics during elections of the late 19th century as prairie populism swept the country.

Moral condemnation has always been popular in politics. Abolition, “race mixing,” prohibition, and a dozen other “moral crisis” have roiled American politics since its founding. To believe that the mixing of politics and religion by ministers from the pulpit is somehow a new and novel political development indicates that those who make such an argument never read any of Martin Luther King’s thundering denunciations of racism and segregation from the pulpit of the Ebeneezer Baptist Church.

This is a very special 4th of July. It is special because despite more than 200 years of pretty much being at each other’s throats, America is still here. The miracle of America to me has always been this disconnect between our ideals of unity, community, and togetherness and a reality where those concepts are honored in the breach. And where the biggest schism occurs and where our schizophrenia is revealed in all of its glory is in the constant tension between individual liberty and sacrificing some of that liberty for the common good.

In the end, you can’t have charity without selfishness, altruism without greed, or love without hate. Not in this country. Not where 300 million people jostle each other on a daily basis with conflicting goals and ambitions. The friction caused by interest groups would make any other nation fly apart at the seams. Farmers versus city folk. Management versus labor. The rich versus everybody else. It’s a wonder sometimes that our preternaturally violent culture doesn’t explode into paroxysms of hate and murder given all the excuses we give ourselves to try and hurt each other.

To my mind, this is the most exceptional thing about America; our ability to live together in relative peace despite our differences.

So the next time you hear some blow-dried pundit solemnly intone about how unique our problems are, you have my permission to smile to yourself and remember that he doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about.

This is the fourth in my series of week-long blog posts called Countdown to Gettysburg“. They are written from the perspective of someone who lived at that time and as if the internet existed in 1863.

The introduction to the series is here.

Previous Posts:

June 27, 1863

June 28, 1863

June 29, 1863

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(Check back for updates during the day)

Have you heard what our infantry says every time a cavalryman passes?

“Seen any dead cavalrymen lately?”

Well, it looks like those infantrymen are going to have to stop insulting the cavalry because Stuart is in Hanover with 5000 reb horsemen. As I write this, there’s a battle going on right smack dab in the center of town. It appears that General Judson (Kill Calvary) Kilpatrick has taken his brand new 3rd Cavalry Division into action for the first time. If true (and check back later because I’ll probably have details) then that would make this engagement the largest cavalry action of the war to date.

But Stuart in Hanover! How the devil did he get there? He’s obviously trying to connect with Lee’s army - which is now hurrying toward the road junction of Gettysburg - by moving directly west, right across our front. Apparently, Stuart was raiding somewhere southeast of Baltimore which is heavy sesesch country. I imagine this is why we didn’t hear about his movements until now.

Advance elements of the reb army may already be close to Gettysburg as I write this. There was a report that a couple of brigades from Henry Heth’s Division were sweeping aside the Pennsylvania militia to make way for Richard Ewell’s Corp and were somewhere to the west of Gettysburg causing considerable alarm in the town itself.

Those fat, rich, and happy Pennsylvania farmers are in for a big surprise if the rebs occupy Gettysburg. I hear General Early demanded $100,000 from the good citizens of York or he swore he’d burn the town. There’s also word that the rebs destroyed a large cache of whiskey in Chambersburg. Serves those copperheads right. Maybe now they’ll stop bad mouthing the war and get behind our President.

As in the past when I’ve blogged battles, my sources in the War Department telegraph office, in army intelligence, and officers who are “in the know” will be updating me regularly. I expect to have some news shortly from both the town of Gettysburg and Hanover so make sure you check back later.

UPDATE

As promised, here’s the skinny on the engagement at Hanover. It comes from an account wired to me by a reporter for the local Hanover Citizen.

From what I can gather, old Kill Cavalry Kilpatrick was pretty much ambushed. While the head of his column was several miles ahead near New Baltimore at Abbottstown, the 18th Pennsylvania, which he had left as a rear guard, was bushwhacked right in the center of town by two brigades of North Carolina Tar Heels. Stuart split the 18th in half and there was wild confusion as terrified citizens mixed with union troopers in the center of town, all trying to find cover.

Meanwhile, Brigadier General Elon Farnsworth commanding the 1st Brigade heard the commotion back in town and sent two brigades to investigate. Arriving in town himself, he coolly sized up the situation and led the 5th New York in a spirited countercharge that temporarily broke the rebs advance.

Kilpatrick himself rode like a demon back into town when he heard that Stuart had occupied it. By the time he got there, the rebs had been driven from the town by dismounted union troopers and Farnsworth’s courageous attacks but were still a danger.

So Kilpatrick occupied a range of low hills to the west of town and started to bombard Stuarts exposed positions. Of course, he also bombarded a few houses in the process which likely displeased the residents mightily. It was at this point that he sent a newly minted Brigadier by the name of George Armstrong Custer (who my sources tell me is a real “comer” and to watch his career closely) and two brigades of Michigan troopers in a dismounted counterattack. While my source in intelligence won’t be specific, he tells me that Custer’s men used a brand new rifle in their attack. My guess would be it’s that 7 shot Spencer repeater I’ve heard so much about. At any rate, it was fierce enough and sustained enough that Stuart was forced to make a hasty withdrawal.

As battles go, it wasn’t much. Looks like about 300 total dead and wounded with the rebs getting the worst of it. What gladdens the heart is that our troopers stood toe to toe with Jeb Stuart and gave as good as they got. That bodes well for the future.

And Stuart will have to make a long detour, probably by way of Carlisle, in order to reach Lee’s army at Gettysburg. All in all, a pretty good days work.

Note: My fried at the War Department telegraph office tells me to expect some dispatches a little later. Check back for updates.

UPDATE II

From Gettysburg:

I entered this place to-day at 11 a.m. Found everybody in a terrible state of excitement on account of the enemy’s advance upon this place. He had approached to within half a mile of the town when the head of my column entered. His force was terribly exaggerated by reasonable and truthful but inexperienced men. On pushing him back toward Cashtown, I learned from reliable men that [R.H.] Anderson’s division was marching from Chambersburg by Mummasburg, Hunterstown, Abbottstown, on toward York. I have sent parties to the two first-named places, toward Cashtown, and a strong force toward Littlestown. Colonel Gamble has just sent me word that Lee signed a pass for a citizen this morning at Chambersburg. I can’t do much just now. My men and horses are fagged out. I have not been able to get any grain yet. It is all in the country, and the people talk instead of working. Facilities for shoeing are nothing. Early’s people seized every shoe and nail they could find.
I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant.

[P.S.] - The troops that are coming here were the same I found early this morning at Millersburg or Fairfield. General Reynolds has been advised of all that I know.

General Buford’s cavalry has run into Henry Heth’s men (Pettigrew’s Brigade) from A.P. Hill’s Army. The rebs are moving quicker than anyone here imagined although you’d think after the feats of marching pulled off by Stonewall Jackson in the Shenendoah Valley last year our brass hats would have a good idea of what the rebs were capable of.

And good for General Johnny! Reynolds has pushed his men hard and they appear to be within a few miles of Gettysburg proper. That’s great news. Buford should be able call on the Black Hats if things get sticky later today.

Here’s a little background on Gettysburg I got from the Army:

Established in 1780, Gettysburg lies among a series of gently sloping ridges generally running north to south with the town itself the center of a road net composing of eight main and two branch roads extending in all directions. Running westnorthwest towards Cashtown was the Chambersburg Pike while just to the north the Mummasburg Road also stretched out in a northwesterly direction. Continuing clockwise was the Carlisle Road branching out due north, then the Harrisburg Road to the northeast, the York Road to the east-northeast, the Hanover Road to the east-southeast, the Baltimore Pike to the southeast, the Taneytown Road due south, the Emmittsburg Road to the south-southwest and finally the Hagerstown Road to the westsouthwest

You can see why Bobby Lee chose Gettysburg to concentrate his army for the coming fight. Looks like just about every decent road in southern Pennsylvania goes through the little town. And Baltimore is just two days march from the town down the Baltimore Pike. We better not let General Lee slip by us as he’s done so many times. He could be halfway to Baltimore before we got organized.

I may have one more update later today. If I get any further dispatches from Buford or Reynolds, I’ll definitely post them.

UPDATE III

Here’s the latest from Buford who has taken up a strong position on a ridge next to a Lutheran Seminary:

I have the honor to state the following facts: A.P. Hill’s corps, composed of Anderson, Heth, and Pender, is massed back of Cashtown, 9 miles from this place. His pickets, composed of infantry and artillery, are in sight of mine. There is a road from Cashtown running through Mummasburg and Hunterstown on to York pike at Oxford, which is terribly infested with roving detachments of cavalry. Rumor says Ewell is coming over the mountains from Carlisle. One of his escort was captured to-day near Heidlersburg. He says Rodes, commanding a division of Ewell’s, has already crossed the mountains from Carlisle. When will the reserve be relieved, and where are my wagons? I have no need of them, as I can find no forage. I have kept General Reynolds informed of all that has transpired.

Major Rathbone tells me that by morning, it’s likely that Buford’s 2700 dismounted cavalry will be facing upwards of 10,000 rebs. They’ll be coming at him “three skirmishers deep” says the Major, “thick as fleas and mad as hornets.” He’s got a good defensive position but General Reynolds better start moving his I Corp at first light. We don’t know how long Buford can hold the high ground.

One more note from Pinkertons: They’ve identified units of Longstreet’s Army coming fast down the Cashtown Road. And with A.P. Hill sweeping down from Carlisle, our entire left wing is in danger of being flanked before half our boys even get to the battlefield.

Looks like Buford and Reynolds have their work cut out for them in the morning.

And so…there’s no avoiding it. Tomorrow will see these two great armies engaged in what everyone knows is the most important battle of the war. I hope our boys are getting a good nights sleep. They’re going to need it.

This is the third in my series of week-long blog posts called Countdown to Gettysburg“. They are written from the perspective of someone who lived at that time and as if the internet existed in 1863.

The introduction to the series is here.

Previous Posts:

June 27, 1863

June 28, 1863

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The situation along the Maryland-Pennsylvania border is very confused. I sat down with Major Rathbone this morning to try and make sense of things but it’s very difficult to sort out what’s true, what’s rumor, and what’s just plain false. I guess this is what they call the “fog of war.” At any rate, I’ll start with what we know.

What is absolutely certain is that there’s been a dramatic change in reb army dispositions over the last 24 hours. Where yesterday Bobby Lee’s forces were strung out from Chambersburg to Carlisle (with General Early at York) today they’re all on the move. Early has abandoned York and A.P. Hill is busting hell for leather tearing down the Chambersburg Pike. There’s a reliable report that the rest of Ewell’s Army is hurrying down the Carlisle Road.

(CLICK TO ENLARGE)

What does it mean?

Just yesterday, Lee seemed pretty unconcerned that his force was so spread out and our boys just hours away. “Marse Robert” must have finally figured out the fix he was in and realized he had to do something. Strange that we apparently surprised him like that. Jeb Stuart usually keeps the rebs pretty well informed. I heard this Cavalry officer named Custer say that our boys couldn’t blow their noses without Jeb Stuart knowing about it.

So Rathbone and I both agree that Bobby Lee is concentrating his army and is turning to fight. But where? Cashtown is a possibility but that’s a long way for most of Ewell’s army to march. Meade is being very cautious. We know he’s now got three Corps (I, III, and XI) making a forced march from Emmittsburg up the Emmitsburg Pike. This would seem to force Lee to fight further west. So it looks like it will be Gettysburg - if John Reynolds and his “Black Hats” can get a move on. Otherwise Bobby Lee is just as likely to make a dash for Baltimore straight down the Baltimore Pike - not a good turn of events that.

Howard’s XI Corp is also double timing it up the Pike with III Corp bringing up the rear. The problem as I see it is a question of numbers; can enough of our boys arrive on the battlefield before they’re overwhelmed by Bobby Lee’s forces? And what’s the ground like around Gettysburg? On a map, it looks pretty flat with some low hills to the north. If Lee gets the high ground like he had at Fredericksburg, there will be many a brave boy whose future will be cut short.

The other 4 Corps of our boys are about a day behind Reynolds but moving fast. Those poor fellows are marching 30 or 40 miles a day in 90 degree plus heat. I wonder what shape they’ll be in when they finally “see the elephant?”

Rathbone has a theory that Lee came north originally not to fight but to raid. He pointed out that the northern part of Virginia had been ravaged by more than two years of war what with both eastern armies fighting from just outside Washington D.C. all the way to the gates of Richmond. He thinks that supplies in Virginia are getting scarce so Bobby Lee decided to come north to feed his army and take back as much as he can carry. And if he can take a state capitol like Harrisburg, maybe the Copperhead Democrats will carry the country next year and give our railsplitting President the boot.

It sounds logical except for one thing; Lee is a fighter. I can’t believe he came all this way just for a few wagon loads of food. Lee means to destroy our eastern army and force Grant to lift the siege at Vicksburg and come back to defend Washington. So my thinking is that Lee was planning for a fight and was just waiting for the right moment on the right ground.

And speaking of Vicksburg, ever since General Grant’s brilliant maneuvering below that Gibraltar, it’s been clear that the fortress was doomed. You’ll recall that Grant tried several stratagems last winter, none of them getting him any closer to victory. The reason, of course, was that he was on the wrong side of the river. In order to take Vicksburg, Sam had to find a way to cross the river and come up on the town from the rear. His crossing at Grand Gulf 50 miles below Vicksburg looked suicidal at the time. Boy, were we wrong! When the Rebs slashed around in Grant’s rear looking to cut his supply lines from New Orleans, Grant fooled them by simply living off the land. There were no supply lines to cut!

Here’s a map of the rest of his campaign where he quick marched his 50,000 men to take care of the Reb army at Jackson to clear his rear of interference and then marched steadily to Vicksburg, finally investing the town in the middle of May:

Can’t imagine those Rebs under General Pemberton being able to hold out much longer.

If I’m right and its a fight Bobby Lee is looking for, it’s a fight he’s going to get. By my estimate, close to 70,000 of our boys are wearing out shoe leather heading for the road junction of Gettysburg. Estimates of Lee’s army vary. My source at Pinkerton thinks Lee has more than 90,000 men but that’s surely too high. Reb strength is probably a little less than our own.

Washington is very quiet, very expectant. Something big is about to happen and everyone knows it. My source in the War Department telegraph office tells me that Lincoln spends a lot of time there, pacing nervously back and forth with a haunted look on his face. Who can blame him. Bobby Lee’s boys have never tasted defeat. We have a brand new, untested commander facing what even some of our military people are saying is the best army in the history of the United States. Time is moving very slowly. Soon…very soon now, we’ll know.

This is the second in my series of week-long blog posts called Countdown to Gettysburg“. They are written from the perspective of someone who lived at that time and as if the internet existed in 1863.

The introduction to the series is here.

Previous Posts:

June 27, 1863

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(See Update Below)

As I posted here, George Meade was indeed named Commander of the Army of the Potomac. Pity the poor soul! My source at the War Department telegraph office said Meade was none too happy with the assignment saying he “was in ignorance of the exact condition of the troops”–his own–or “the position of the enemy.”

No matter. General Halleck was able to tell him plenty. And I’m sure “Old Brains” was burning up the wires between Washington and Meade’s headquarters just outside of Frederick, Maryland with all sorts of useless advice that, if he’s smart, Old Hawknose will ignore.

Halleck is a goose. This is the man who almost cashiered General Grant, a man proving to be the best field general in the Union Army, for what he called “insubordination.” Actually, Grant couldn’t stomach the man any more than the rest of us. Why Abe finds Old Brains useful is beyond me. He’s a good administrator, true. But I was able to get a look at some of the messages he sent to McClellan when Little Mac was on the Peninsula last year and let me tell you, the gentleman is a buffoon. His orders were vague and contradictory simultaneously telling Little Mac to advance quickly but to be careful.

Sometimes I wonder whose side these West Pointers are on.

Meanwhile, it seems the Johnny Rebs are infesting the state of Pennsylvania. The Harrisburg papers say that Reb General Early is in York! That’s just a hop, skip, and a jump from Harrisburg. “Old Jube” for the moment is just sitting in York waiting. But waiting for what? Will General Rodes, whose division has been in Chambersburg for more than 48 hours swoop down on Harrisburg from the west while Early hits the city from the south? There’s also word that Reb General Edward Johnson (how many “General Johnson’s” do the Rebs have!) who commands Stonewall Jackson’s old outfit is headed toward Carlysle. Here’s a map showing how spread out the Rebs are.

(CLICK TO ENLARGE)

Early’s division is pretty isolated way over in York. I wonder why? By now all our boys are on the east side of South Mountain. Lee must not know this, otherwise he wouldn’t be so danged spread out. He’s got his divisions wandering all over most of southern Pennsylvania and if Meade can get a move on, he can catch the Rebs before they can concentrate somewhere.

It appears to me that our boys are in pretty good shape. We’re pretty bunched together what with 5 Corps double timing it down the dusty Maryland roads on the eastern foothills of South Mountain while the Rebs are spread out from the Susquehanna river in the east to South Mountain in the west. The rest of Lee’s army must be between Chambersburg and Carlisle. But what about Stuart and his murdering cavalry? The last we heard from him he was actually spotted in the Shenandoah Valley at Front Royale. But that was two days ago. He could be halfway to Washington and we’d never know it.

Are our boys racing into a trap? Bobby Lee must have some stratagem up his sleeve otherwise I can’t for the life of me figure why he doesn’t realize the danger he’s in. Meade is 48 hours away from defeating his army in detail and there Early sits with 20,000 men in York, more than 25 miles from his closest relief.

Has Lee blundered?

Keep pushing boys…keep pushing.

UPDATE

My source at Pinkerton’s says that A.P. Hill and Longstreet are east of Chambersburg enroute to Gettysburg and General Meade has ordered Sickles’ III Corps to join Reynolds’ I Corps and Howard’s XI Corps outside of Emmitsburg. I’m not sure where our cavalry is at the moment which is nothing new. Both Generals Buford and Kilpatrick are out there somewhere. Maybe if we get lucky they’ll blunder into Jeb Stuart and then we’ll see what our boys are made of.

Looks like Bobby Lee has finally discovered that Meade is close on his heels and is now turning to fight. And all the roads - north, south, east, and west - converge on some town called Gettysburg.

Never heard of it. All I got when I googled “Gettysburg” was some Lutheran Theological Seminary.

Last year, I carried out an experiment in blogging that was both fun and challenging for me and, I hope, entertaining for you. I decided to “blog” the Battle of Gettysburg as if we could be magically transported back to those fateful 7 days leading up to and encompassing the battle and pretend that the internet existed in 1863. The result of this experiment was a little uneven in quality, but made me look at the battle with a whole new perspective. It is my hope that by repeating the experiment, using more maps and better sources as well as polishing some of the rough spots, I can create something that will inform and entertain both you and me.

In that fateful early summer of 1863, everyone in America knew that a titanic battle was going to take place somewhere north of Washington. The soldiers were especially aware of this as their numerous diaries and regimental histories make clear. Since most of the major media was located on the east coast, the Army of the Potomac - “Mr. Lincoln’s Army” as Bruce Catton called it - was covered disproportionately compared to other theaters of that war and received the lion’s share of the criticism doled out by the likes of the New York Tribune’s sometimes hysterical editor Horace Greeley. This meant that both the officers and men felt themselves under a microscope at times, a state of affairs that did not engender risk taking by the army’s many commanders.

As the two armies made their way toward the little crossroads town of Gettysburg, the nation literally held its breath, hoping for the best but fearing the worst. Lincoln, a tortured soul even under just the day to day circumstances of the war, haunted the telegraph office at the war department, aching for news. And there was wild speculation in the Washington and Baltimore papers about where Lee was and what his intentions were.

In many ways, this unbearable tension leading up to the battle made the explosion on July 1-3 all the more dramatic, as if all the furies of the war had been unleashed at once to torment the nation. It truly was one of the more remarkable times in American history, something I hope comes through in the retelling of events.

Utilizing the extensive on-line databases available on the internet as well as information from my own library, I’ll be posting on events leading up to the battle, not only in Pennsylvania but also other theaters of the war, including Grant’s simultaneous capture of Vicksburg that some historians argue was more important to ultimate victory for the north than what was happening in Pennsylvania.

I hope you stop by often over the next 7 days as I will be updating the posts just as if I was getting updates from the battlefield. It should be an interesting week.

The following is the first in a series of posts leading up to and including the Battle of Gettysburg. I have written these posts as if we had all been magically transported back to 1863 and as if the internet existed at that time.

An introduction to this project is here.

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THE MARCH TO GETTYSBURG. UNION ARMY REPRESENTED BY DARKER ARROWS

Big news from Washington today as apparently “Fightin’ Joe” Hooker has been replaced as commander of the Army of the Potomac. I guess Joe couldn’t take the heat from Horace Greeley and the MSM for his mismanagement of the army at Chancellorsville although maybe he should get credit for getting rid of Stonewall Jackson. That said, when he casually mentioned before he was made commander that maybe a military dictator should take over and run things in Washington, you knew he’d have to deliver or be cashiered. Well, he didn’t deliver and Honest Abe has replaced him.

I’ve since gotten a hold of a copy of a letter The Railsplitter sent him prior to Hook being placed in command. Abe let him know he had heard about the “dictator” crack telling him:

“I have heard, in such a way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the army and the government needed a dictator. Of course it was not for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command. Only those generals who gain success can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship.”

Heh.

So who’s the next victim? Major Rathbone thinks it might be II Corp’s General Couch but I hear the Warhawks won’t stand for that. My guess would be Meade. “Old Hawknose” gets the nod probably because he’s the least objectionable. I hear from my friends at the War Department that they actually offered the Command to I Corp’s John Reynolds but that he turned them down flat. Too bad. General Johnny would do a great job. He’s also no fool. There have been 5 other Commanders of the Eastern Army and none of them could survive the scrutiny of the MSM and the Committee on the Conduct of the War.

Meade’s V Corp has fought well and the Pennsylvanian may be the only General in the whole damn army who doesn’t want to be President after the war! At any rate, he appears to be “it.” so we better support him the best we can.

So it’s a helluva time for Meade to take over what with Bobby Lee running wild in Maryland. There’s a rumor that Reb General Early is in Pennsylvania heading for Harrisburg, but that might be Stuart’s cavalry that was sighted north of Frederick. Hard to tell exactly because the only opposition so far to this thrust by the Rebs has been from State Militia. It’s all very confused and, as usual, our cavalry is no where to be found. I just wish we used them like the rebs use cavalry. Our cavalry units are too dispersed IMHO. We should marry up the units and concentrate them into division sized formations like the Rebs do, using them as shock troops.

That Jeb Stuart just rides rings around us anytime he wants to. Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll run into a Minnie ball soon.

One thing is certain. A big fight is coming. With our boys quick marching down the dusty roads of southern Maryland and Bobby Lee’s Rebs using South Mountain to screen its movements from the prying eyes of our scouts, it looks like Lee could make a stab at either Baltimore or Washington or maybe even Philadelphia. So we’re guarding the passes through the mountain to keep Lee from carrying out any plan like that.

The Rebs strategy is pretty obvious. Traitor Davis sent Bobby Lee’s army north in hopes that Mr. Lincoln will recall General Grant whose army is strangling Vicksburg as I write this. Reb General Pemberton’s 20,000 men are gone gooses unless Grant either up and leaves or takes to the bottle again. Rumor is the civilians in Vicksburg are already eating rats. It won’t be long now. And then the Mississippi River will be open and the South will be split. Not bad for a, “ignorant rail splitter” eh? Vallandingame and the Copperhead Democrats be damned!

A victory in Vicksburg will be meaningless if Bobby Lee whips Meade and moves on to Washington, D.C. The Brits and Frogs would have no choice but to recognize the Confederacy if that happened. And then, God knows. The State Department thinks that the French especially will try and break the blockade. If that happens, we may as well start peace negotiations with the Rebs.

So a big battle is coming. Where is anybody’s guess, but it better take place south of Harrisburg. If Bobby Lee were to get astride of that B & O rail line, he could strangle Washington and Baltimore in no time. That guy is something else. I just wish he was on our side.

It seems as if the whole country is holding its breath, both North and South. Something really big is building up. Maybe in Maryland. More likely in Pennsylvania. And with Vicksburg due to surrender any day, this could be the greatest 4th of July since 1776.

If we win, that is.

(This post originally appeared June 25, 2005)

A STYLIZED AND UNREALISTIC PORTRAYAL OF CUSTERS LAST STAND

George Armstrong Custer surveyed the low, rolling Montana countryside before him on that brutally hot Sunday afternoon of June 25, 1876 and must have felt a twinge of anticipation. He was a warrior. And prior to every battle he was ever involved in, from his glory days in the Civil War to this, the last battle of his life, Custer felt the tingling of impending combat. He considered himself invulnerable. His confidence - some would say arrogance - inspired both intense loyalty and profound disdain from the men and officers under his command. This, more than anything else, led to his destruction.

The Battle of Little Bighorn (the Lakota call it “The Battle of Greasy Grass Creek”) is the most closely examined battle in American history. Custer’s every known move has been examined, debated, dissected, re-examined and criticized by historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, and scientists. It’s also been one of the most popular subjects for artists as every generation since the battle has had both ridiculous and stylized portrayals as well as historically accurate reproductions. And thanks to Hollywood, just about everyone has heard of both the battle and its two major players - Custer and Tashunca-uitco AKA “Crazy Horse.”

The evolution of attitudes toward the battle is one of the most fascinating aspects of its history. Originally seen as a massacre of white soldiers by merciless Indians, the loss of of 267 American soldiers outraged and humiliated a country that was in the process of celebrating it’s Centennial. The resulting outcry sealed the doom of the Lakota, Cheyenne and other plains Indians tribes who had united for one last great war against white encroachment. Custer was portrayed as a great hero, thanks in no small part to his wife Libby’s hagiographic biography of their lives together called Boots and Saddles.

Then in the 1960’s, a welcome re-examination of America’s mythic heroes, including Custer, was initiated by historians eager to take advantage of the American people’s desire for the “truth” about our past. The pendulum swung in the opposite direction and Custer emerged as a vainglorious martinet of an officer, so eager for glory that he sacrificed his men on the altar of personal ambition.

By the late 1970’s, Custer’s image had been slightly rehabilitated thanks to a re-examination of his outstanding career as a Civil War cavalry leader. And along with authors like Jeffrey Wert and Evan McConnel, a new, more personal side of Custer emerged. The arrogant martinet became the loving and devoted husband whose letters to his young wife reveal a playful, likable man with a penchant for teasing.

But on that fateful Sunday, Custer allowed the darker side of his personality to take over. This was a Custer that was unconcerned with the lives of his men. This was the Custer who had been court martialed and suspended for a year for disobeying orders. And this was the Custer whose overweening confidence in his own abilities and suicidal disdain for the fighting skills of his adversary sealed his fate and the fate of so many in his command.

He was not technically in violation of his orders. General Terry who was making his way to the Little Big Horn with 2,500 infantry was due the next day but had not specifically ordered Custer to wait. So despite the warnings of his faithful Crow scouts (”Many Sioux” they had told him, a warning he didn’t heed because he thought the Indians couldn’t give an accurate count of warriors), Custer rode to his death.

His survey of the Indian encampment before him was superficial. All he could see from his vantage point was the north end of the village. This was due to a quirk in the topography of the battlefield. If you ever visit the Little Big Horn Battlefield National Monument, you’ll be struck by the gently, rolling hills that give the impression of a single valley stretching out in the distance. What Custer couldn’t see were intervening copses and indentations that hid not the 5,000 or so Indians he believed he was facing, but fully 15,000 men, women and children in a gigantic encampment that stretched for more than 5 miles across the plain.

At the sight of Custer’s men, the Indian warriors rushed to their families and helped to get them out of harms way. Custer interpreted this as a sign that the Indians were preparing to flee and divided his command into 3 sections. He sent Major Reno around to where he thought the south end of the camp was, ordering him to ride through the village and sow confusion while he attacked from the north and the other column commanded by Major Benteen attacked from the east.

It was stupid, rash, and doomed to failure. Reno, an inexperienced (some would say cowardly) officer took one look at the immense village before him and retreated. Some historians believe that if Reno had attacked while the warriors were busy looking after the safety of their families he could have in fact caused the kind of confusion that Custer was looking for. What this would have meant to the outcome of the battle is uncertain. It may have given Custer time to find better defensive ground as his subordinate Major Benteen was able to do by linking up with the incompetent Reno who had taken up a position on a steep bluff overlooking the Little Big Horn river. Given Custer’s impetuous nature, this probably wasn’t in the cards.

Custer’s 267 men rode along a bluff that he thought hid him from sight of the village. He was tragically mistaken. The Indians, alerted to his presence by the incompetent Reno were now swarming between the copses and in the shallow depressions that marked the north end of the battlefield. Too late, Custer realized his predicament and ordered his men up to the top of a gently sloping hill northwest of the village. Known as “Last Stand Hill,” approximately 900 Lakota and Cheyenne warriors were able to surround Custer’s command and wipe them out to almost the last man. (One of Custer’s Crow scouts escaped by wrapping a Lakota blanket around himself and simply wandering away).

In the aftermath of the battle, General Terry arrived and after hastily burying the dead, started after Sitting Bull and his people. Evading capture for two years by going to Canada, the starving Lakotans finally surrendered on their own and were forced onto reservations.

The spectacular victory of the Indians over the United States army was the last major engagement of the Indian wars of the 19th century. There would be other skirmishes and campaigns - most notably against Goyathlay AKA “Geronimo, the great Chiricahua Apache warrior - but Little Big Horn would be the last time so many warriors on both sides were involved.

As for history’s judgment, Custer’s legacy will be a mixed one. Perhaps it’s unfortunate that Little Big Horn will overshadow his real accomplishments as a cavalry commander during the Civil War. He remains one of the most fascinating characters in American history, reason enough for the continued fascination with the battle that claimed his life.

Lori Byrd has an interesting follow up to her excellent column from last week in Townhall about why the war has proven to be so difficult to explain to the public. She posits the notion that this is due to a lack of a good education in history, specifically the almost total absence of learning any military history.

She identifies correctly the current emphasis on “social history” (stressing the role of various minorities who feel previous texts ignored their accomplishments) rather than a straight narrative of chronological events, highlighting major historical mileposts and the players involved. This has led to ludicrous “history” texts that devote several chapters to the women’s rights movement while including only a couple of paragraphs on Washington’s presidency.

This kind of idiocy is the result of textbook manufacturers needing to sell books to a wide variety of school districts. Wanting to sell textbooks to both Berkley, CA and Houston, TX has made a mish mash of textbook writing and has ended up pleasing no one while giving an extraordinarily skewed picture of our past.

There is something to be said for “social history” as both Page Smith and Howard Zinn could tell you. After all, it was people who made the United States. And learning about Carrie Nation and Margaret Sanger is important to teaching our national story. But when other, equally important (or vastly more important) people and events are given short shrift thanks to the limitations of what a student can learn in a semester, serious problems arise in how our national narrative is absorbed by students.

I doubt that too many students today are forced to memorize Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address as I had to when I was in 6th Grade. By the same token, I hope that many of them are forced to learn long passages from Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. The point being, there is little effort on the part of textbook manufacturers or school district authorities to teach history in a coherent manner. In trying to please everyone by including minor or even irrelevant historical events and characters, they have muddied the American narrative and downplayed the significance and accomplishments of other, more worthy historical players.

But I disagree with Lori about the teaching of military history and why this may be a proximate cause for people’s lack of understanding of what’s going on in Iraq. There is no comparison, as Lori points out, between what is happening in Iraq and what occurred in previous American wars.

During World War II, American kids would wake up every morning to a newspaper that invariably had one or more maps on the front page. The kids (and parents who also poured over the maps looking for evidence of where their loved ones were in harms way) would hang on to those maps, listening to the radio and trying to follow the march of our armies through towns and cities with place names that were foreign and unfamiliar. They would use those maps in geography class in school. Mothers and wives would carefully cut the map out of the paper and carry it around so that she could show her friends where her son or husband was in combat. When talking over the back fence, neighbors would drop the names of towns and cities where our men were fighting knowing that the person they were talking to knew exactly what he was referencing.

The war was a truly national obsession where almost every waking moment, one was reminded of the conflict. Rationing, bond drives, scrap drives, tire drives, victory gardens, air raid drills, the USO - all were part of everyday life in America during World War II. And with so many young boys scattered to the four corners of the earth, everyone seemed to have a brother or a husband or a son far, far away. And this on a world that was much, much larger than the one we inhabit today. No jet aircraft and it was 5 days from New York to Liverpool by ocean liner.

As far as military news, the strategic goals of our armies were no secret and widely known; unconditional surrender of the Japanese and Germans. With the American people united and committed to both the goals of the war and to making the material sacrifices necessary to achieve victory, the outcome was truly never in doubt.

Americans back then knew the Generals, knew the battles, knew what taking Caan meant to the invasion, knew that Operation Market Garden could shorten the war - they knew all these things because they had a living, breathing, stake in ultimate success or failure of our troops.

And that’s the huge difference between then and now. Where George Bush has failed miserably as President is in not offering to make the American people full partners in this conflict, sharing the sacrifices and giving all of us a stake in the outcome. It doesn’t matter very much that most Americans know little of military history or how to read a map. What matters is that the burden of sacrifice has fallen on so few of us. Part of this is a consequence of having an all volunteer, highly professional army. But while most Americans “support” the troops, they have no personal stake in the success or failure of our war policy.

I’m not sure how he could have or should have done this. I know that after 9/11 he could have tried. Congress, the press, the people were all with him. If this is truly a war for our survival - and I am absolutely convinced that it is - then our Commander in Chief has done a piss poor job of making the war our number one national priority. He has, in fact, tried to do the exact opposite. He pushed his domestic agenda, hoping that the war would drift off the front pages, forgotten by all but the families of our military who bear the bitterest fruit from this strategy. It is they who wait anxiously for their loved ones to come home.

You can bet they know where Falluja or Ramadi, or Tikrit is even if the rest of us don’t.

I appreciate what Lori is saying. And she has a point of sorts that a good grounding in history would perhaps give a little context to the war and help the American people understand what we’re trying to accomplish in Iraq . But I think it’s time we face the fact that this is a war that suffers from a lack of shared sacrifice and that is why people seem so disconnected from the consequences of failure.

It was the first day at the Battle of Gettysburg and things were not going well for Abe Lincoln’s boys in blue. Robert E. Lee’s Johnny Rebs had arrived on the battlefield almost behind General Oliver Otis Howard’s 11th Corps which panicked the “Dutchmen” and sent them flying towards the town of Gettysburg.

This left General John Reynold’s 1st Corps all alone to face most of the Confederate Army. Surrounded on three sides, the “Black Hats” were taking a terrible beating. In the 143rd Pennsylvania, the color bearer, Sergeant Benjamin Crippin stood in full view of the enemy, waving the flag vigorously, trying to rally the troops to hold their ground and keep fighting.

But the inexorable logic of superior numbers ground down Reynold’s men and eventually, they too broke and ran. As they retreated, Sergeant Crippin, still carrying the flag which now featured 23 bullet holes shredding the precious fabric, turned toward the enemy and in an act of defiance memorialized in legend and statue, shook his fist at the oncoming Rebels, daring his foes to take the flag from him. It is reported he did this several times, even eliciting sympathy from General Ambrose Hill when his troops, enraged at the taunting figure, shot him down in a hail of bullets.

There was no more deadly job in the Union Army than color bearer - and none more honored. Carrying the flag into battle made one an instant target, the enemy believing quite correctly that killing the color bearer would sap the will to fight in their opponents. It became a point of honor for a regiment that if the standard bearer fell, another would immediately pick the fallen flag off the ground and take his place. There was a reverence for the flag then, a feeling of personal responsibility for upholding what it represented. It was a tangible way for these men to express something inexpressible that lived in their breasts and enabled them to march into almost certain death and remain while their comrades fell around them. The flag gave them courage while reminding them of what they were fighting for.

What is it about the flag that brings to the surface such overpowering emotion and devotion? Grown men weep at its passing. And thank God there are still men and women willing to die protecting what it represents. But as a symbol, why does it take up such a large corner of our hearts?

There are so few things that actually unite Americans in a traditional sense that make us a nation. Other countries have hundreds even thousands of years of cultural touchstones and myth that are almost hard wired into their brains to make them a “nation.” The United States on the other hand, is too young for myth making. Instant legends like Davey Crockett or George Custer exist alongside their more unattractive and definitely human historical selves, taking the luster off some of their accomplishments. And other symbols of nationhood found elsewhere like castles or palaces or ancient battlefields are absent here.

For Americans, it is in the flag that we infuse all of our feelings of love and respect for country, for home, for each other. Each of us are reminded of something different as the flag passes. This is what makes it a personal icon, a talisman to be touched and stroked so that the longing in our hearts to belong to something greater than ourselves is fulfilled. The flag is home. And no matter where home might be, we, the most mobile of modern societies, carrying that feeling of home with us in our travels, see the flag as an anchor, a permanent standard representing all the good and decent things in ourselves and our country.

We may be the only nation whose national anthem is actually an ode to a flag. We are all familiar with the story of how Francis Scott Key ended up writing “The Star Spangled Banner,” a poem to commemorate the overpowering emotion he felt upon seeing the flag still flying after a night of horrific bombardment of Fort McHenry by the British during the War of 1812. And we are all too familiar with the first verse of Key’s poem, sung ad nauseum at every opportunity imaginable so that the very moving and heartfelt words are mouthed unconsciously, and the anthem itself butchered into unrecognizabilty by pop stars and celebrities.

Almost never heard are the anthem’s three other verses, extraordinarily descriptive stanzas of the relief and pride felt by the author upon seeing that huge 42′ by 30′ flag waving in the “dawn’s early light.” In the final stanza, Key captures in a few short lines of poetry all the patriotic devotion that many of us feel when we see the flag pass:

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation,
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n - rescued land
Praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserved us a nation.

Then conquer we must, for our cause is just,
And this be our motto–”In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave

Today is Flag Day. I think it fitting that we honor not only our flag but also the “free men” who “stand between their loved homes and the war’s desolation” around the world, protecting us and reminding us all what the flag truly means - simple, patriotic love for one’s home and country.

This love, shared by tens of millions of Americans, has lately been belittled, sneered at, even thought of as “evil” in some quarters. The flag itself has taken something of a beating in recent decades, used and abused by both commercial enterprises and thoughtless dissidents who shamelessly appropriate the feelings Americans have for our national emblem to sell everything from soap to cars. Or, in the case of the haters of liberty, to deliberately incite rage by burning it. There are even some who wish to supplant the nobility of what the flag represents by injecting all the sins (both real and imagined) committed by American governments over two hundred years into our national symbol in order to mold it into an emblem of shame.

In this, they and all the haters will fail. As long as there are men willing to pick up the standard when it falls, the flag will continue to represent all of the good and noble things about this country, forcing us to wipe a tear from our eye whenever we see it pass, remembering all that it means to be an American.

Please fly a flag today to honor both the emblem itself and all those who have served it in the past and continue to serve it today.