Posted on 07/13/2013 11:19:13 AM PDT by Brad from Tennessee
Outside, a heavy summer rainstorm thrashed the streets of Richmond, Va. Inside Libby Prison that afternoon — July 8, 1863 — hundreds of captured Union officers sprawled across the bare wooden floors of the converted tobacco warehouse, picking lice out of their underwear and passing around copies of Richmond newspapers. The news was grim for the Yankees: Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Confederate army had defeated Gen. George Meade’s Union troops at a Pennsylvania town called Gettysburg.
“OUR ARMY AGAIN VICTORIOUS,” read the headline in The Richmond Examiner, “MEADE’S ARMY ANNIHILATED.”
“THE ENEMY ROUTED,” reported the Richmond Dispatch. “FORTY THOUSAND PRISONERS CAPTURED!”
The articles confirmed what the Richmond papers had reported the previous day: Lee had whipped the Union Army yet again and the hapless Yankees were fleeing in panic, skedaddling toward Baltimore. Meanwhile, the brave Confederates defending Vicksburg, Miss., continued to stymie General Grant’s impotent Union soldiers. The Examiner couldn’t resist mocking the pathetic Union soldiers:
Not even the Chinese are less prepared by previous habits of life and education for martial resistance than the Yankees. Scarcely a man can be found familiar with the use of a gun; few have any skill or experience in horsemanship, and the whole breed are as nervously fearful of gunpowder and bloodshed as women or negroes.
Reading the Richmond papers, the captives in Libby Prison sank into despair. “The prison was gloomy and silent,” wrote Albert Richardson, a New York Tribune reporter who’d been captured by Rebels and sent to Libby. “Our hearts were too heavy for speech.”
Into this gloomy afternoon stepped a man known as the General — an old black man who fumigated the rooms in Libby every morning and performed other menial tasks in the prison. . .
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com ...
Baghdad Bob’s inspiration
Idiocy written by newspapermen. No soldier of the Army of Northern Virginia would have ever spouted such drivel. They knew how hard won their victories were. That the soldiers themselves were every bit as brave as they were, and only the South's leadership got them those victories.
I always wonder how people reacted once they knew they were lied to?
How did people from Atlanta feign anger with Sherman when Hood had more of Atlanta burned than Sherman? (of course Hood got first crack at it!)
Except maybe for Yankees like Samuel Colt, Oliver Winchester, Benjamin Tyler Henry, John Dahlgren, to name a few.
"...few have any skill or experience in horsemanship..."
One of the few areas U.S. Grant actually excelled at while at West Point was horsemanship. Even from his childhood days, Grant was something of a horse whisperer, and Longstreet called him the most daring horseman at the academy.
Bump for reference.
Wow. The last months in Richmond before total defeat must have been like living in North Korea. No food, but a steady diet of propaganda.
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.
