Posted on 10/01/2016 9:31:00 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
Earl J. Hess’s “Braxton Bragg: The Most Hated Man of the Confederacy” is a thoughtful re-examination of a man who has become, unfortunately and unfairly, the South’s “chief whipping boy.”...
Mr. Hess is a diligent old-school chronicler of battlefield history, producing a stream of studies of lesser-known battles, infantry tactics, and even small arms and field fortifications....
Mr. Hess does provide a fascinating glimpse of Bragg’s prewar friendship with another famously prickly officer, William Tecumseh Sherman....
Mr. Hess attributes Bragg’s execrable reputation to a number of factors: the benefit of historical hindsight; a host of scheming, incompetent subordinates; apocryphal stories of cowardice and cruelty; and what the author calls “the shadowy world of newspaper correspondents and their often venomous attitude toward the general.” The rumor mill, from the firesides of the army to the parlors of Richmond, was particularly unkind to Bragg....
“More depends on a good General than the lives of many privates,” Sam Watkins said in closing his own remembrance of Braxton Bragg. “The private loses his life, the General his country.” And so did Bragg lose his, during the war and ever since. Mr. Hess’s sharp-eyed profile of the general’s dour personality and snakebit career will bring much-needed perspective to future studies of the Confederacy. It may even evoke some measure of sympathy for the general that a Rebel nurse once called “the best-abused man in the world.”
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
There was no need during the Civil War for the USA to employ total warfare. The USA remaining states were under no threat of occupation or losing any territory. The South’s stated goals were separation. Nobody thought the South was going to “conquer” the North. The South didn’t want to and didn’t have the resources to do that anyway. The concept is laughable and ridiculous. Total warfare is used when there is an existential threat to a nations existence. There was no threat to the USA. OTH The CSA was under that existential threat from minute one.
This simply is not true. Insurrectionists immediately set about seizing or appropriating anything they desired. That they didn't go after Maine or Michigan is only because they didn't desire those states.
A few clues for you cva.
Too bad about you being a poor orphan and lacking a proper upbringing.
May have slept through some classes?
Not to worry, the few times I attended class, I didn’t pay attention.
Note that Sherman’s March to the Sea is generally considered “total war”.
Simply stated, the use of ‘total war’ is to end the war with fewest possible casualties, by using everything you have for an for an overwhelming blow.
It is complicated and far too much for me to type.
Better, you should study up on it.
Try and stay awake this time.
Also overlooked by cva is the Copperhead movement and the Draft riots.
The Union was very weak, we are fortunate it survived.
Yes, but cva must have fallen asleep. Being an ill mannered orphan, did not provide the best of employment options.
Probably has job that is most arduous, with long hours and meager pay.
cva will explain it all just as soon as he awakes from his nap.
Mr. Lincoln's War was optional.
You may have noticed, cva is awake and disgruntled!
Being a history guy, cva should be familiar with Hobbes.
Hobbes knew about those such as cva and how they live.
“No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”
In this case due to a pronounced lack of manors.
Too bad, so sad.
manners !
More appropriately Mr. Davis’s war and yes - it was entirely optional to all except Mr. Lincoln. Lincoln was duty-bound to defend and protect the union once it was attacked.
“Maybe it goes back to Fort Henry and Donaldson where the original southern western army was captured leaving a big void to be quickly killed in.”
It goes back the death of General Albert Sidney Johnston at Shiloh. Johnston was Lee’s equal as a general and had he lived the war in the west would likely have been much different.
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