July 3. High Water mark of The Confederacy. Too bad they failed this day 136 years ago

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

Today is July 3, 1999.

I hope that all Virginians will remember what General George Pickett did for our 'country' on this day in 1863. Although he failed to accomplish his objective at the middle of the Federal Line against General Hancock at Gettysgurg, and lost his entire division he did so trying to free us from the shackles of Federal domination.

Of his three Brigade commanders, Generals 'Lo' Armistead and Dick Garnett lay dead, while Jim Kemper was grievously wounded.

Thank God for men like Pickett, Armistead, Garnett and Kemper.

May we find as many more in the next year as we may very well have our next best opportunity to shed the Federals one more time.

-- Paul ilne (fedinfo@halifax.com), July 03, 1999

Answers

For the history-challenged, fill us in.

-- oo (oo@oo.oo), July 03, 1999.

I majored in history. You think we would be better off if the Confederacy had won? How? This charge was Lee's greatest mistake...thank god he made it. Those poor men who died were sacrficial lambs; unfortunatley there may be many more of those soon. By the way, are you a racist machine gun toter?

-- Sand Mueller (smueller@azalea.net), July 03, 1999.

Paul, true, these were men of of incredibe courage and conviction. But the frontal assault on Mead's center at Gettysburg was Lee's idea not Pickett's. Pickett remarked to Longstreet after visiting the ailing Lee after the war "That old man butchered my division at Gettysburg". I say, if at first you don't seceed, try try again! The speckeled butterbeans and corn are comin in down my way, hows your crops?

-- (doktorbob downsouth@dixie.com), July 03, 1999.

Doktor Bob, Self determination is good for Chechnyans, Kosovoans and the like but we won't have any of that kind of talk around here. If Milosovic is a war criminal, then what was Sherman? Atlanta and Vicksburg (Grant's work) don't mean much to most Americans.

-- Pt (achillesg@hotmail.com), July 03, 1999.

And incidentally -- blacks would still be slaves -- God would still be on our side -- and cotton would still be king. Sounds like a neurotic dream to me.

-- Col. Warren (artillery@LittleRoundTop~.edu), July 04, 1999.


In answer to each:

For the history-challenged, fill us in.

-- oo (oo@oo.oo), July 03, 1999.

Today is the day of Pickett's charge, in which over fifty percent of his division was wiped out in an attack on the Union center commanded by General Winfield Scott under General George Meade.

During the battle, Winifield Scott's best friend was mortally wounded, to die two days later. His friend was 'Lo' Armisted, the commanding Brigadier of one of Pickett's brigades.

Scott was also seriously wounded and refused to be removed from the battlefiels until he knew the results of the engagement.

---------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------

I majored in history. You think we would be better off if the Confederacy had won?

Yes. And it depends who you mean by 'we'. If by 'we' you mean people who respectthe rule of law, then I agree.

How?

A people has the right to 'self rule'. The constitution allowed for the institution of slavery. That was the LAW. I think slavery was an abomination, but it was part of the constitution and the proper way to have eliminated it was constitutionally.

This charge was Lee's greatest mistake...thank god he made it.

Yes, It was a great mistake, not merely in retrospect. Gen eral Longstreet strongly adived against any attack at all, not merely this one on the third day of this battle. Longstreet was way way way ahead of his time in understanding the tactics and technology of his time. Lee was still ensconced in a Napoleonic mindset, the frontal assault, while 'Old Pete' c;early understood that the advent of rifled guns was the driving force behind defensive warfare. Lee should have learned that after the disastrous Union defeat at fredericksburg. He could slaughter Unionist in great numbers by waiting to be attacked from a fortified postuion, as he did from Marye's Heights.

Those poor men who died were sacrficial lambs; unfortunatley there may be many more of those soon. By the way, are you a racist machine gun toter?

Sand, you are an ass. To believe that the Southern States deserved their independence has NOTHING whatsoever to do with liking or disliking the institution of slavery.

Your ignorance is truly abysmal.

-- Sand Mueller (smueller@azalea.net), July 03, 1999.

---------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------

Paul, true, these were men of of incredibe courage and conviction. But the frontal assault on Mead's center at Gettysburg was Lee's idea not Pickett's.

I never said that it was Pickett's idea. I said he carried out the charge. Pickett's immediate superior, longstreet , argued vehemently AGAINST the charge and could not even speak the words to order it when it was time, but merely nodded.

Pickett remarked to Longstreet after visiting the ailing Lee after the war "That old man butchered my division at Gettysburg".

This is correct. Pickett never forgave Lee to his dying day.

I say, if at first you don't seceed, try try again! The speckeled butterbeans and corn are comin in down my way, hows your crops?

very well, thank you.

-- (doktorbob downsouth@dixie.com), July 03, 1999.

---------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------

Doktor Bob, Self determination is good for Chechnyans, Kosovoans and the like but we won't have any of that kind of talk around here. If Milosovic is a war criminal, then what was Sherman? Atlanta and Vicksburg (Grant's work) don't mean much to most Americans.

-- Pt (achillesg@hotmail.com), July 03, 1999.

Grant and Sherman were soldiers in a dificult position. However, what Sherman did was radically uncalled for.

---------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------

And incidentally -- blacks would still be slaves

Patently false.

-- God would still be on our side -- and cotton would still be king. Sounds like a neurotic dream to me.

The war had almost nothing at all to do with slavery except in the minds of ignorant northerners.

The LAW and the Constitution provided for that abhorent institution. One does not break the law to uphold the law. The institution of slavery should have been abolished. I would have argued that myself. I also would have fought on the side of the South. No matter what, the North did not have the legal right to do what it did.

-- Col. Warren (artillery@LittleRoundTop~.edu), July 04, 1999.

-- Paul Milne (fedinfo@halifax.com), July 04, 1999.


Sorry, don't have the quote ready to hand, but even Lincoln foresaw how the "exigencies" of the war had transformed the North beyond recognition and laid the groundwork for a kind of government repugnant to everything that had gone before.

Lee, Jefferson Davis and many other Southerners realized that slavery was on its way out and supported that. But they were determined to defend their liberty and the Constitution. The causes of the Civil War predated the slavery debates of the 1850s by several decades and centered on the legitimate relationships that should be held between states and Washington.

And, as has been true throughout human history, the primary causes were economic, with the underlying human cause being greed.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), July 04, 1999.


there have been more than one or two of you smarty pants on this forum that have been more than happy to have been my slave. just don't think i won't throw this sanctimonious attitude right back at you when you next come knocking

-- corrine l (corrine@iwaynet.net), July 04, 1999.

A short apologetic.

"It is only the atheist who adopts success as the criterion of right".

Robert Lewis Dabney

(General Stonewall Jackson's Chief aide, chaplain and biographer)

"All that the South has ever desired was that the Union as established by our forefathers should be perserved and that the government as originally organizied should be administered in purity and faith".

Gen. Robert E. Lee

"It is painful to know how carelessly they speak of war. If the Government insists upon the measures now threatened, there must be war. They seem not to know what its horrors are. Let us have meetings to pray for peace."

Gen. T.J. "Stonewall" Jackson

...America was founded as a continuation of Christian Europe which had been the cradel of the Protestant Reformation. After a time, many of the people and institutions of the North forsook this religion of their forefathers, turning instead to the tenants of the enlightenment and its ignoble Humanism. This had produced the French Revolution seventy years earlier, and more than anything else provoked war with the Christian South.

The famous Southern historian, Richard M. Weaver, realized the South's perspective.

- Another part of the Southern defense... was the opposition to all secular theories of the state. The French Revolution had established the principle that man is the measure of all things; his freedom, his welfare, his opportunity for the pursuit of happiness, were acclaimed the objectives of all just governments - a sort of political humanism which had the effect of deifying an abstract concept of man. -

The Southern viewpoint was that the states of the North had embraced this Humanism as its new religion. They had mutated from the country's original religious, philosophical, and legal cornerstones. Yet, the South remained true to the ideals upon which America was fonded in 1789. Again to qoute Richard Weaver,

- The realization which especially angered the Southern apologists was that they were held up as traitors or subverters of the established order, whereas it appeared plain to them that the North, led on by fanatical reformers, had promoted a revolution on principles rejected by the Founding Fathers. It seemed to them that in the light of history the South was the loyal section, for it had poured out its blood and treasure in defense of the common inheritance of laws and customs.

From 'The Theology of the Confederacy', Dennis Wheeler www.mindspring.com/~dennis/

As R. L. Dabney said, "Before something is buried make sure it is really dead".

It aint dead and it aint over.

The South was Right!,

Deo Vindice,

BR

For further info see:

Sprinkle Publications (540) 434-8840 sprinklepub@juno.com 'The Defense of Virginia and the South' R.L. Dabney

The League of the South www.dixienet.org 'The South was Right' Don and Ron Kennedy

www.pointsouth.com Lecture tapes

-- brother rat (rldabney@usa.net), July 04, 1999.


Lincoln was a traitor. The individual states entered voluntarily into the federal union, and it was implicit that they could withdraw. The Constitution, after all declared that the federal union derived its powers from the individual states, which in turn derived their powers from the people.

Lincoln established by force (conquest) the supremacy of the federal government over the states and also over the people. He turned upside down the powere equation from people-->states-->federal to federal-->states-->people.

So this decline hasn't just started in the past few decades; it got a major impetutus due to Lincoln, accelerating in this century.

BTW, even at that time, the slavery economy was undergoing change due to economic necessity. It may have dissolved in any event. If it didn't, the south would have become even more of an economic backwater than it was at the time. And the north was quite willing to accept runaway slaves.

-- A (A@AisA.com), July 04, 1999.



Why is Lincoln's birthday celebrated by the government and why is he lionized (worshipped) in the PUBLIC (government) schools? Because he established the federal government as supreme. Why isn't there a Jefferson birthday celebration -- Maybe because Jefferson said the tree of liberty has to be watered every generation or so by the blood of tyrants?

-- A (A@AisA.com), July 04, 1999.

The man in the White House right now isn't fit to shine Robert E. Lee's boots. He was a man of great character. Picket should have directed some of that ire at Longstreet for his actions that day. Too bad Lee didn't have Bedford Forrest with him after Jackson died. They still teach his cavalry strategies in Europe.

However, I AM glad the union was preserved. Just too bad people like to rewrite history and blame it all on slavery - a northern spin that took hold immediately after the war to add a "noble" weight to their cause, and to attempt to mitigate the horror at the tremendous loss of life. Thanks to those above who sent in their clearer explanations.

-- Another historian (Itsour@loss.com), July 04, 1999.


Moderation questions? read the FAQ