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To: Badeye
Until this post... I was liking you. :)

I would put Stonewall Jackson up against any General in the Union... He would have won, hands down!!!!!!!!!!!

LOL!

106 posted on 04/29/2004 6:35:49 AM PDT by carton253 (I don't do nuance)
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To: carton253
He he he....yeah, I can understand my Southern friends recoiling at the heresy I posted.....LOL!

Simple fact is most historians have noted at one time or another Lee himself wondered if Jackson would have been a disaster in the later stages of the war. The comment attributed to Lee in this regards was along the line that Jackson was a "wild animal, that left on his own would attack until not a man was left" which is a poor strategy when faced with overwhelming opposition. Did you know Jackson actually commissioned thousands of pikes for his troops?

That kind of thinking wasn't amenable to the new technology of warfare, as Malvern Hill, Fredricksburg, Gettysburg, and Cold Harbor demonstrated. Jackson's ability to move troops is unquestioned....however his blind faith in God Almighty caused him to be dangerous to his own command in my opinion. He simply believed whole heartedly that "God's Shield" would protect his men. Thats all well and good....right up until the point where you order a frontal assault against a heavily fortified and reinforced position that includes dozen's of cannon firing double and triple cannister.

This is why I have always doubted the claims of some that Gettysburg would have been different, in a positive way for the South. After walking the battlefield, reading most of the books on that particular campaign, I've come to the conclusion that if Jackson had survived Chancellorsville, and had been in command of his corps on July 1st, 1963....he would have been gutted in the waning hours of that day attempting to take Cemetary Ridge.

It would have been different, all right. The CSA's Second Corps would have been knocked out of the battle completely.

Just my opinion.
115 posted on 04/29/2004 7:51:07 AM PDT by Badeye
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