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The South’s Chief Whipping Boy
WSJ ^ | 30 Sept 2016 | RUSSELL S. BONDS

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 ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Military/Veterans
KEYWORDS: csa
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Something completely different. I may barf, from all the hillary BS.

“the shadowy world of newspaper correspondents and their often venomous attitude toward the general.”

1 posted on 10/01/2016 9:31:00 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
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To: DUMBGRUNT

For later


2 posted on 10/01/2016 9:33:00 AM PDT by kalee
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To: DUMBGRUNT

Still better to be lucky than good. Thank goodness he was an incompetent boob, else my Yankee ancestors might’ve died, and I wouldn’t be here.


3 posted on 10/01/2016 9:35:29 AM PDT by MuttTheHoople (Yes, Liberals, I question your patriotism)
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To: DUMBGRUNT

Fort Bragg


4 posted on 10/01/2016 9:41:15 AM PDT by onedoug
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To: MuttTheHoople

Some of my kin were captured and held, those that took an oath, NOT TO RETURN TO THE FIGHT,were released!

They had a long walk home!
Kansas to Ohio.


5 posted on 10/01/2016 9:42:21 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT (Looks like it's pretty hairy.)
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To: onedoug
Fort Bragg

Might be best to keep that quiet!
More than a few Army Posts are named after Confederate Officers.

6 posted on 10/01/2016 9:46:08 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT (Looks like it's pretty hairy.)
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To: DUMBGRUNT

I would say General Hood could give Bragg a run for his money in the hated department.


7 posted on 10/01/2016 9:46:33 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: DUMBGRUNT

General Jackson was pretty much reviled by his troops right up until the actual fighting started. Then they loved him.


8 posted on 10/01/2016 9:48:34 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: DUMBGRUNT

Even though he was a Texan, my bet is on John B. Hood. He completely destroyed his army in the battle of Franklin.


9 posted on 10/01/2016 9:48:45 AM PDT by wildbill (If you check behind the shower curtain for a slasher, and find one.... what's your plan?)
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To: central_va

The same could be said of Robert E. “Granny” Lee - until he found his stride.


10 posted on 10/01/2016 9:54:43 AM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: DUMBGRUNT

He contributed to the South being defeated

That will be celebrated by most here

The whipping boy is the South not Braxton Bragg

Course now all of White America is pretty much under attack so good works Yankees are getting a taste of their own meds

But given their natural chutzpah and proclivity for hypocrisy I doubt it will sate their cheap virtue addiction on our backs


11 posted on 10/01/2016 9:54:59 AM PDT by wardaddy (free republic is an aging demographic)
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To: wardaddy
The whipping boy is the South not Braxton Bragg

A very good point!
Just as true today ,or more so as in 1860!

And just who is it, that floggs the many myths; need I ask?

Yes, I've heard that history belongs to the victors.

12 posted on 10/01/2016 10:04:41 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT (Looks like it's pretty hairy.)
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To: DUMBGRUNT

Bookmark


13 posted on 10/01/2016 10:10:13 AM PDT by Fiddlstix (Warning! This Is A Subliminal Tagline! Read it at your own risk!(Presented by TagLines R US))
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To: DUMBGRUNT

I thought Longstreet was the most hated Confederate for opposing Lee at Gettysburg...and becoming a Republican after the war.


14 posted on 10/01/2016 10:10:31 AM PDT by mac_truck (aide toi et dieu t'aidera)
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To: rockrr

One of my favorite reads is “Les Misérables”.
The first English translation came out in 1862.
Was very popular, North and South.

“Lee’s Miserables” was a name proudly taken by the men of Army of Northern Virginia.

IIRC the southern version, was less ‘political’.


15 posted on 10/01/2016 10:16:29 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT (Looks like it's pretty hairy.)
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To: mac_truck

The whipping boy is the South not Braxton Bragg.

Wardaddy post#11.

Any name associated with the C.S.A., and many will attempt to muddy it up.

I’m not of the south.
That said, many men of HONOR fought for the south.
As was their right.


16 posted on 10/01/2016 10:22:36 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT (Looks like it's pretty hairy.)
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To: DUMBGRUNT

Sherman grasped something most humans struggle to comprehend. What is the quality of Mercy?


17 posted on 10/01/2016 10:27:13 AM PDT by wastoute (Government cannot redistribute wealth. Government can only redistribute poverty.)
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To: rockrr
Lee was never reviled and ridiculed like Jackson.

His own troops thought he was one strange bird. As such having your regiment attached to the Stonewall Brigade meant marching almost beyond human endurance. The only saving grace was when your regiment went into battle under Jackson's command you were fairly confident that he had a firm grasp of the situation and soon the Yankees would be reversing direction.

18 posted on 10/01/2016 10:40:15 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: wastoute
Sherman was a war criminal. He ordered troops to destroy non military targets. It's on thing to turn your head but it's another to actually order the destruction.

Scorched earth warfare had been dead a long time until he resurrected it.

Any general today acting like him in Iraq of Afgan would have been court martialled.

19 posted on 10/01/2016 10:43:58 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: wastoute
Sherman grasped something most humans struggle to comprehend. What is the quality of Mercy?

Sherman was the equivalent of a Nazi Curtis LeMay. He had the knowledge and ability to destroy things, but he did so in a bad cause.

20 posted on 10/01/2016 10:45:04 AM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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