Posted on 08/27/2014 7:10:27 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
Chamberlain was awarded the Medal of Honor for Gettysburg in 1893, 30 years after the battle and long after his political career was over as well. His was well deserved.
Oh, definitely agree on that about Chamberlain. I tend to agree with assessments that the modern emphasis of his role on Little Round Top (driven by Killer Angels/Gettyburg) overshadows, a little too much, what guys like Strong Vincent and the other Regiments on his right were doing, but he’s still one of my heroes.
If only most of his writings (Bayonettes Forward and Passing of the Armies) were readable ...
(I will state that his letters trashing Oates over the intended placement of the 15 Alabama monument behind the 20th Maine’s lines were works of art in telling someone to go f*ck themselves in the most polite and eloquent - if wordy - manner possible.)
Only because it's just to d*rn easy to find basic data there, so people don't get into endless arguments over disputed "facts".
And what's the fun of that?
Why not instead keep everybody ignorant, or guessing, or searching through highly partisan sites for conflicting data?
Then the real experts, those history professors, can step in and pronounce judgment on which interpretations they consider "correct".
Mustn't let the peasants get too smart, you know... ;-)
< /sarc >
You can use Wiki to find sources, but Wiki is not a source.
Pretty simple
And don’t forget the fights in the Peach Orchard, the wheatfield, and Devil’s Den that allowed time to get things organized on Little Round Top.
Pelham died gallantly, in J.E.B. Stuart's command, at Kelly's Ford near Culpepper, Virginia on March 17, 1863 3-1/2 months before Gettysburg.
Later "in 1863, Stuart named his third child Virginia Pelham, in honor of the cannoneer he had admired."
All of which happened because Dan Sickles, still ticked off about what happened to him at Chancellorsville (ordered to pull back from Hazel Grove into trenchworks, with the Hazel Grove high ground being occupied by Confederate artillery. Which proceded to shell him), moved his Corps forward against Meade’s orders.
Sickles of course being an idiot that made the near collapse of the Union Left Flank possible. Lee didn’t have good intel on the Union lines, thought Emmittsburg pike was closer to, and ran parallel to, Cemetery Ridge. And that Union forces were deployed more forward than they were.
Had Sickles stayed put, Longstreet would have marched forward just North of Little Round Top, rotated Left anchoring his Left flank on Emmittsberg Pike and continued forward to the North in an attempt to roll up the Union flank.
Which would have actually been on his RIGHT, backing to the low hills North of Little Round Top.
Longstreet would have been enfiladed by both Sickles and Hancock’s Corps. Might have been game over for Lee at that point, given the losses the Union ultimately took trying to defend Sickles’ salient.
Total complete rubbish.
First, Lincoln's government after the war was basically the same size as before it -- consuming circa 2.5% of GDP.
Second, it's growth to today's behemoth size (over 20% of GDP) only began 50 years later, in 1914 cheered on by Southern Democrats who enthusiastically supported the 16th and 17th Amendments providing centralized power & money for unlimited Big Government growth, Southerners who unanimously voted for "Progressive" Southern Democrat President Woodrow Wilson, and then the most "progressive" of all: Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Third, on the Constitutional issue of secession: no state has entered the Union without expressed or implied Congressional approval, and so no state can leave without the same approval.
See US Supreme Court ruling in Texas v. White (1868).
Fourth, Lincoln never got to finish. I will always think that the perpetually open wound of racism that infests us to this day, would have been much further along in healing, if it weren’t for that guy who shot him. Lincoln had plans for healing the nations wounds.
> Cushing commanded Battery A, 4th U.S. Artillery at Gettysburg, and was hailed by contemporaries as heroic in his actions on the third day of the battle. He was wounded three times. First, a shell fragment went straight through his shoulder. He was then grievously wounded by a shell fragment which tore into his abdomen and groin. This wound exposed Cushing’s intestines, which he held in place with his hand as he continued to command his battery. After these injuries a higher-ranking officer said, “Cushing, go to the rear.” Cushing, due to the limited number of men left, refused to fall back. The severity of his wounds left him unable to yell his orders above the sounds of battle. Thus, he was held aloft by his 1st Sergeant Frederick Füger, who faithfully passed on Cushing’s commands. Cushing was killed when a bullet entered his mouth and exited through the back of his skull. He died on the field at the height of the assault. Cushing’s headstone at West Point His body was returned to his family and then interred in the West Point Cemetery in Section 26, Row A, Grave 7. His headstone bears, at the behest of his mother, the inscription “Faithful unto Death.” Cushing was posthumously cited for gallantry with a brevet promotion to lieutenant colonel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alonzo_Cushing
wow, he disobeyed a direct order, he should have been posthumously court-martialed! /s
:’)
Why not?
It is my opinion, there many great and valorous acts known only to God.
That said; what new information brought the change of status for Lt Cushing ?
For this administration, ‘honor’ is just another word. Awards are just another opportunity to push a message. Everything they do is suspect.
As we move into the modern era survivability is much improved; more memories, more honors granted or not?
Civil War (Union)
1861–1865 1522 MOH
Too many footnotes to list.
U.S. troops engaged: 2,213,363
Battle deaths: 140,414
World War II
1939–1945 464 MOH
U.S. troops engaged: 16,112,566
American casualties: 291,557
Korean War
1950–1953 137 MOH
U.S. troops engaged: 5,720,000
American battle deaths: 33,741
Vietnam War
1955–1975 247MOH
U.S. troops engaged: 8,744,000
American battle deaths: 47,410
Yep - I went to Gettysburg College. I know that length of fence well. Sickles was a Tammany Hall prick of the highest order, and while he may not have been the most tactically competent general, one has to concede that words like, “brazen,” and, “ballsy,” were crafted for people like him.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.