Gettysburg was a total screw-up, which wouldn't have happened if Confederate
Gen. A.P. Hill hadn't dispatched a platoon into the town looking for shoes,
since some of his soldiers had none. They ran into Union calvary and it all got
started there. Lee, of course, rushing in from miles away, made the worst
decision of his entire career by ordering Picket's charge, which resulted in
about the worst carnage of the war, except maybe Antietam for the South and
Cold Harbor for the Yanks.
Walt
--
"Anything more than 500 yards from
the car just isn't photogenic." --
Edward Weston
-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Joel Wilcox" <jfwilcox@xxxxxxxxx>
>
>
> Yeah, I apologize for screwing up the name. I worked with a guy named
> "Bedford-Jones" once. First hyphenated guy I ever met who wasn't a
> Brit. The "Jones" just slipped in. No disrespect intended.
>
> In fairness, the Northern generals used the advantage of numbers to
> little advantage. The same anguish you feel over Gettysburg I feel
> about Fredricksburg, Chancelorsville, Chickamauga, and Coal Harbor
> (not even Grant escaped humiliation). When Lee assumed an offensive
> strategy, he tasted the other end of the lash.
>
> I didn't know that about Grant and Longstreet. Grant was smart to
> avail himself of Longstreet. He knew that Lee was over-reaching at
> Gettysburg.
>
> What do you suppose went through Lee's mind in his last years? The
> feds took his land for Arlington National Cemetary, he refused a
> college presidency, he died in 1870, he left no memoirs. Did he say,
> "Whew, glad that's over" or like Kurtz, in Heart of Darkness "the
> horror, the horror."
>
> I guess the most memorable thing he said (for me) is "It's a good
> thing war is so terrible, else we'd grow too fond of it" or something
> like that.
>
> Joel W.
>
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