I always find the southern "explanation" for Gettysburg fascinating, relying as it were 100% on Jackson's presence for success. Yet the Union managed to win the war despite going through a half dozen incompetent generals and having John Reynolds (arguably the best, aside from Grant and Sherman) in the Union Army. Nothing is made of that.
It leads me to ask how good is an army when the loss of a single general---who isn't even the commanding general---dooms it to defeat?
Yet the Union managed to win the war despite going through a half dozen incompetent generals and having John Reynolds (arguably the best, aside from Grant and Sherman) in the Union Army. Nothing is made of that. I have been watching Ken Burn's brilliant Civil War documentary, and one of the things mentioned by an old historian is that the North fought the war "with one hand tied behind its back." Some units, he said, hardly saw combat.