Rude, Crude Yankees = Good Useful Idiots

The Patriotist ^ | July 22, 2002 | Al Benson Jr.

[Non-Sequitur]

Well, hell, if the only command that mattered then both sides were guilty. As for Knefler, he was still a commissioned general during the war. And far from being an accountant he commanded a brigade in Beatty's division of the Union 4th Corps at Atlanta and later at Nashville. I suppose that meritorious service means nothing if it's with the Union army?

Likewise with Ben Levy, I suppose. After all, you want to make amends for an order given in a different theater over a year prior, then you give a medal to a man who wasn't affected by the order at the time. Makes perfect sense to me.

Salomon was an officer in the 82nd Illinois. He was an outstanding officer in an outstanding regiment. Once which the men who served in, enlisted in. I'm sorry you consider it segregated, but I should point out that there were a lot of regiments made up of immigrants. There were Irish regiments, French regiments, German regiments. I suppose you could say that they were segregated as well. You would be unfair, but I suppose you would be true in a litteral sense. As for white, segregated regiments in the Confederacy, ther whole army was full of white, segregated regiments. Where have you been?

[SandfleaCSC]

Well, hell, if the only command that mattered then both sides were guilty. As for Knefler, he was still a commissioned general during the war. And far from being an accountant he commanded a brigade in Beatty's division of the Union 4th Corps at Atlanta and later at Nashville. I suppose that meritorious service means nothing if it's with the Union army?

Command of two occupation brigades and five weeks as a general officer does not qualify anyone as the Alexander the Great of the Civil War nor does it make for meritorious service. I seem to recall his commander Wallace being removed and both of them reprimanded for sloppy troop movements and inaction prior to Nashville. There are plenty other Union officers that actually distinguished themselves on the battlefield, this isn't one of them.

Likewise with Ben Levy, I suppose. After all, you want to make amends for an order given in a different theater over a year prior, then you give a medal to a man who wasn't affected by the order at the time. Makes perfect sense to me.

Well, it could be worth mentioning that the CMOH standards during the Civil War were nowhere near as stringent as they are today. Hence the revoking of so many in the post-war years. Levy was a drummerboy who was wounded and collapsed on a couple of Union battle standards and was captured. Audie Murphy this guy was not. And just for your future information, an edict persecuting Jews affects all Jews...history tends to bear this out since about a millenium before Christ.

As for white, segregated regiments in the Confederacy, ther whole army was full of white, segregated regiments. Where have you been?

I can only think you misunderstand me on this. The Confederate and Union forces were both segregated by color. What you didn't see in the CSA forces was segregation by nationality or religion. In fairness to Union forces, this could be because of the lack of such a diverse population in the South. Immigrant soldiers did make up such a large percent of Union forces when compared to the Confederacy.

[WhiskeyPapa]

Regardless you cannot downplay the effort the yankees put into the far western theater as it is perfectly comparable in size, and what was at the time importance, to the more famous operations conducted elsewhere.

So there was an Army of the Potomac west of the Mississippi?

Like Jefferson Davis, you are ignoring one of the more important tenets espoused by Sun Tzu and Nathan Bedbug Forrest among others, -- He who defends all, defends nothing.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

I thought the discussion was the US civil war - not the Nazi.

The Nazis and the secessionists have a lot more in common than the neo-rebs like to admit.

The issue was how well slavery might do past the 1860's. And the record shows that the Nazis used it quite effectively in the 1940's. There's no reason to think it was going away or fading in 1860, and even if mechanization would have reduced the gang labor growing of cotton, it was mechanization that had made it profitable in the first place-- the cotton gin.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

Well, since Napoleon said it I guess that makes it so!

I think Napoleon's reputation in the military arts probably surpasses yours.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

With all due respect to the western theater, the true decisive battles were in the east - Antietam and Gettysburg.

What decided the war was the devestation of the Shenandoah Valley and the breadbasket that was Georgia.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

Antietam is considered a stalemate in practically every credible history of the war. Its effects with europe were strong, but the battle itself ended in a draw.

You don't know what you are talking about.

As I said just the other day (and you probably only skim my posts), Lee needed to follow the same strategy as G. Washington did. Maintain an army in the field and wait. Washington had that hot-blooded Virginia thing going on too. But he learned from his mistakes, and Lee did not.

This town, that town -- it didn't matter. The armies were the center of gravity, not the towns. Lee gained nothing at Antietam but to atrite his army in a way he could not afford, but that he was too inept to see.

As I say in another note above, wrecking the breadbaskets ended the war and to do that, you have to first disable or neutralize the enemy army. Grant did that by besieging Lee. Sherman did it by driving the AOT back and back and back and defeating them over and over until Hood decided that he could no longer fight Sherman toe to toe and tried to wreck his supply lines.

The problem with ALL the early commanders in the ACW was that they had Napoleonic blinders on. This was true on two levels. On the tactical level, they wanted mass Napoleonic assaults. You may have heard of the least successful of these -- it was ordered by Robert E. Lee, and was led partly by a man named Pickett. Lee learned --ZILCH-- from Malvern Hill and his other experiences. Another was at the battle of Franklin. Oddly, the commanding officer who ordered that charge was at Gettysburg and ordered a Napoleonic charge any way. Similar Union fiascoes occured at Fredericksburg and Cold Harbor. Why did it work for Napoleon and not in the ACW? Because the weapons, although superficially similar, had vastly different capabilities. In napoleon's day, the musket had an effective range of 50 meters. Forty years later it was ten times that.

In Napoleon's day, yu could mass your infantry, soak up one volley, and close with the enemy before they could reload. In the ACW no way. Lee attempted to close on troops a mile away, who had a clear field of fire and who could engage him with cannon at that range and rifled muskets at 500 yards. Lee had learned nothing from a year's campaigning. Grant did little better at Cold Harbor.

On a strategic level, Napoleon's influence was also pernicious. The early "On to Richmond" crew knew that Napoleon had squashed for after foe by siezing the capitals of his opponents. People of little understanding (like J. Davis) focused on this factoid. Others, Like President Lincoln, rightly saw the enemy army as the rightful center of gravity right off. He just couldn't find any generals to act on that precept.

Because ACW generals largely could grasp neither successful tactics or strategy, the war was a bloody mess.

You call Antietam decisive. Clueless. Of 60 major engagements in the ACW, 56 resulted in indecisive bloodlettings that solved nothing.

The battle of Franklin was one of the four others. The Army of Tennessee was hounded into oblivion by a successful pursuit after it was wrecked by its commanding general in Napoleonic type assaults.

And you know, it didn't really matter what those 44 dock workers were doing out in Texas.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

Lee gets a good press. Those four victories nestle in among the Seven Days battles, where Lee lost more men every day than McClellan,

Yet without any decisive losses.

Clueless. Lee had one quarter the manpower of the North. He couldn't afford to fight battles the way he persistently did. Lee wrecked his own army. He was perhaps the main architect of secessionist defeat.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

Lee gets a good press. Those four victories nestle in among the Seven Days battles, where Lee lost more men every day than McClellan,

Yet without any decisive losses.

Clueless. Lee had one quarter the manpower of the North. He couldn't afford to fight battles the way he persistently did. Lee wrecked his own army. He was perhaps the main architect of secessionist defeat.

Walt

[Aurelius]

"The Nazis and the secessionists have a lot more in common than the neo-rebs like to admit."

Ideally, these threads should serve the purpose of reconciling the differences created by the unfortunate events of 1860-1865. Such a reconciliation remains a problem and could never be easy. But when a person such as you intervenes in the process and makes a statement like this - a statement that reflects ill will and profound historical ignorance, then you are doing your country and your fellow countrymen a great disservice. You are an ignorant man, you understand nothing of the history of your country. Why don't you try to find another less destructive hobby.

[GOPcapitalist]

I think Napoleon's reputation in the military arts probably surpasses yours.

Probably, but a simple appeal to his authority does not make that authority correct on a matter. You based your entire position on an appeal to Napoleon's authority. I simply pointed out that was a fallacy.

[GOPcapitalist]

You don't know what you are talking about.

I certainly know no less than you on this matter, Walt.

As I said just the other day (and you probably only skim my posts), Lee needed to follow the same strategy as G. Washington did.

Actually Walt, I did read what what coherent in your posts, but that does not mean that I must buy into your opinion on how Lee should have acted. You similarly make valid points about napoleonic tactics, yet seem unable to discuss them without viewing it through tinted glasses that tend to overstate confederate mistakes while downplaying union ones.

You call Antietam decisive. Clueless. Of 60 major engagements in the ACW, 56 resulted in indecisive bloodlettings that solved nothing.

You are willfully misinterpreting my position. My earlier quote was: "Antietam is considered a stalemate in practically every credible history of the war. Its effects with europe were strong, but the battle itself ended in a draw." I said it was a tactical stalemate, or if you will have it, a bloodletting. I do maintain that Antietam could have been a decisive win for the confederacy had it turned out another way, but as it turned out it was a decisive strike against the confederacy recieving European support.

And you know, it didn't really matter what those 44 dock workers were doing out in Texas.

To the future of the state of Texas it certainly did. I dare say that Texas' existence as it stands today was saved by those 44 dock workers. They prevented Lincoln from doing to the west what he did to Georgia and South Carolina and the Shenandoah valley - loot, plunder, and burn his way across the region with disastrous impacts on civilians and commerce that precipitated problems for decades to come.

[GOPcapitalist]

So there was an Army of the Potomac west of the Mississippi?

The yankees certainly attempted to amass one. The Red River campaign alone was slated for about 45,000 men plus a fleet of ironclads, but it failed. The Sabine invasion was slated for another 15,000 including the 5,000 on hand at the battle plus a fleet of over 20 ships. It too failed. The Brownsville expedition went off with a good 5,000 with between 10 and 15,000 more anticipated. It made its way up the coast just in time for the confederates to come in behind and clean it out.

[GOPcapitalist]

The Nazis and the secessionists have a lot more in common than the neo-rebs like to admit.

Funny, cause the nazis seemed to have at least one very major, glaring, and specific view on a prominent war related issue which they shared with both the yankees and you...

"[In America] it is impossible to speak of original sovereignty in regard to the majority of the states. Many of them were not included in the federal complex until long after it had been established. The states that make up the American Union are mostly in the nature of territories, more or less, formed for technical administrative purposes, their boundaries having in many cases been fixed in the mapping office. Originally these states did not and could not possess sovereign rights of their own. Because it was the Union that created most of the so-called states." - Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf volume II, 1926

[WhiskeyPapa]

You are willfully misinterpreting my position.

Well, here is what you said in # 276:

With all due respect to the western theater, the true decisive battles were in the east - Antietam and Gettysburg.

Please try and keep your lies straight.

Walt

[Non-Sequitur]

I don't suppose that any amount of evidence is going to get you to admit that Knefler was a combat commander so I guess we'll drop it. By your definition, then, neither side had a Jewish combat commander at the brigade level. At least the North had several at the regimental level, which, BTW, included Knefler who commanded the 79th Indiana prior to assuming command of the 3rd Brigade. And for what it's worth, the combat command that you claim Knefler never held wasn't under Wallace. His superior officers at the time of Atlanta were General Wood as division commander, General Howard as 4th Corps commander, General Thomas as Army commander,and General Sherman as Army group commander. At Nashville General Wood had assumed corps command and General Beatty commanded the 3rd division. General Thomas still commanded the Army of the Cumberland. I should also point out that General Wallace was nowhere to be seen in either campaign. He was stationed in the Washington D.C. area at the time and commanded the troops that thwarted Early's offensive at the Battle of Monocacy in July 1864. You seem to recall wrong, then. Not a habit I hope?

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

There is no real reason to think that. The Nazis used slave labor quite effectively.

There is no reason to think that it you are unfamiliar with the debate going on in the South at that time. While some vocal advocates of Slavery existed, most Southerners, unlike the Nazis, were deeply religous Christians, respected differing opinions and questioned the "particular institution". Besides, most Southerners did not own slaves and for them Slaves represented economic competition. And the industrial revolution was making slavery unattractive economically.

I do not accept your premise that the Nazis used slaves effectively. Slaves can find subtle ways to throw a monkey wrench into a complex process, and they did. Would you want to fight knowing your ammunition and weapons had been built by resentful forced labor. German artillery had a staggering percentage of duds, US almost never, according to Steven Ambrose of whomever he stole it from.

The Nazis did not even employ slaves unashamedly. The Nazis did all they could to hide the fact that they were using slave labor from the German people and the world.

[Non-Sequitur]

I would question your claims and suggest that you are 180 degrees out on the question of support for slavery in the south. Far from being against it, virtually all southerners supported the institution as evidenced by the newspapers, speeches, and correspondence of the time. Even those, like Lee, who were supposed to be personally opposed to slavery did not advocate it's end. They viewed slavery as an unfortunate evil, but one which represented the best possible position for black men and women. And far from being a benefit to a few, in some states close to half the families had slaves. Over the south as a whole about a quarter of all people came from slave holding families. Slaves were the bedrock of their economic system and at no time represented economic competition for the white population. For the most part, slaves performed tasks that the white population would not have been interested in had the opportunity been offered them. Finally, the industrial revolution had begun the century before the Civil War and had not touched slavery at all. If anything, it increased the southern demand for slaves because the harvesting of cotton was a manual task and would remain so until the 1940's. So contrary to your claims, slavery was thriving down south and was the foundation for their economic well-being. Rather than advocate it's end, the southern leadership was willing to go to war to defend it. They protected slave imports in their constitution, ensured that no laws could be passed that might hinder it, and expected the institution to continue for generations.

[WhiskeyPapa]

So there was an Army of the Potomac west of the Mississippi?

The yankees certainly attempted to amass one.

This is what you said earlier:

Regardless you cannot downplay the effort the yankees put into the far western theater as it is perfectly comparable in size, and what was at the time importance, to the more famous operations conducted elsewhere.

Like I said, you need to keep your lies straight.

It is not true, (although you apparently cannot decide youself )that the USA put as much effort west of the Mississippi as they did elsewhere.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

I certainly know no less than you on this matter, Walt.

You're the guy who said the military industrial complex had its genesis in the ACW -- surely one of the most ridiculous statements by anyone ever on FR.

Walt