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General George S. Patton directing operations in North Africa. “I’m not interested in dying for my country,” he said once, “I’m interested in making the other sonsofbitches die for their country.”
In one of the best scenes in a remarkable movie — the multiple-Academy-Award-winning Patton — one of the best generals in American history, George S. Patton, is portrayed (by Geoge C. Scott) as defeating the legendary German commander Erwin Rommel (“the Desert Fox”) in a pivotal tank battle in North Africa in 1943. Surveying the smoking battlefield afterward, an exultant Patton roars, “Rommel, you magnificent bastard! I read your book!”
So Patton must be suspect, right? I mean, reading a book by a Nazi?
There’s more. Patton also read Stonewall Jackson. In a famous incident when Patton and Dwight Eisenhower were at West Point together, they were opposing commanders in a training exercise conducted somewhere in Northern Virginia. Instead of confronting Eisenhower’s position, Patton did an end run and flanked it, attacked it from the side, and as generals like to say, rolled up the opposition like a cheap rug. Eisenhower, furious, protested Patton’s tactics to the referees as illegal. Patton’s defense was that he had done exactly what Stonewall Jackson had done at the Battle of the Wilderness, just a few miles from where they were conducting the exercise.
So here’s a guy who reads about Nazis and slave-loving traitors, so how could we have trusted him? Not only that, he slapped guys who had PTSD. He should not have been allowed to turn the global tide against the Germans with his victories in North Africa, his invasion of Sicily, and his decisive intervention in the Battle of the Bulge. What were we thinking?
Eisenhower read stuff, too. For most of his career as commander and president, he kept four portraits on his office wall, of the people he described as the four greatest Americans who ever lived. One of them was Robert E. Lee. How could we have given command of Allied Forces on D-Day to a guy who had a picture of a slave-owning traitor on his office wall?
Not long ago, a mob formed in Virginia to hound Governor Ralph Northram from office as a racist. The primary evidence was a picture in a 40-year-old college yearbook that may or may not have shown Northram in blackface. (Even he didn’t seem to know whether it was him or not.) When that proved less than decisive, someone came up with another incriminating fact: someone had seen a history book open on his desk to a section about Robert E. Lee. Where is the outrage? Nowhere, it turned out, the whole thing sputtered out.
Sanitizing history, obliterating the events and the people you don’t like, withholding your attention from anyone who is in any way flawed (which is to say, the entire human race) is self-destructive, for individuals and for nations. It embraces and sustains ignorance, and in the real world ignorance is not bliss, it is death.
Some of my best friends are Confederates. I have learned profound and lasting lessons from the likes of John Breckenridge of Kentucky (who explained to the United States Senate, after Fort Sumter, why slavery could not possibly survive outside the South and thus there was no need to fight a war to prevent its spread), Jubal Early of Virginia, a vocal opponent of secession, and any number of other complex, flawed people who have not yet been expunged from our history books.
There’s another reason this current eruption of fastidiousness about history and historical figures is dangerous: As long as we are going at each other hammer and tong over which statues should remain and which should go, every minute spent arguing with each other about which parts of our history are too shameful to even remember, is a minute not spent on restraining police brutality, moderating racism, combating a fearsome pandemic.
A minute spent, in other words, not meeting our obligations to each other during a national emergency. You know who has some interesting things to say about that? Robert E. Lee, the magnificent bastard.
There is no reality! Everything is merely perception biased by perspective. Moreover, most, if not all, history is nothing more than beliefs propagated by one or more individuals who have one or more personal agendas or goals. Too few realize that belief is a choice and facts remain immutable regardless of anyone’s belief. The human species is a failed experiment that will soon end.
“There is no reality.” “Facts remain immutable.” Just curious. How do you reconcile those two statements existing in the same paragraph?
How indeed?
Robert E. Lee makes for an interesting character study – that’s for sure. And for the most part he was an innovative and bold tactician. But I’m not so certain about his (and Jeff Davis’) overall war strategy. The two failed incursions into the North – Sharpsburg and Gettysburg – proved costly for the Confederacy, not only in men and materials but in morale. Meanwhile the invasions galvanized support for Lincoln up north, and bolstered what had become a flagging interest in the war effort.
As far as American generals are concerned, I like Nathaniel Green, Grant, Sherman and, oh yes, Douglass MacArthur – now THERE was a Magnificent Bastard!
Well…most folks would agree that I’m at least half right anyway.
I believe Lee’s decision to invade in July of ’63 was the proper one. I think he knew that Vicksburg was going to fall, and as a result, the Western theater would quickly fall apart, which meant, the war had to be won in the East, and soon.
He also wanted to get at Hooker again before he was replaced, and I don’t blame him. Hooker was not up to the pressures of senior command, and Lee knew it. It takes two commanders to produce the Cannae Lee was constantly seeking, one on each side, and Hooker was that perfect foil.
How Lee went about it is another matter. The list of blunders he made in the lead-up to the campaign and then throughout the march north and subsequent battle is almost endless.
After Jackson’s death, dividing his army from two corps into three corps, which reduced the command of his one remaining competent senior level commander, Longstreet, while it handed over corp level responsibilities to the never-on-duty Hill and the incompetent Ewell.
Letting Stewart go off on joy ride before the march. No matter how much faith you have in your brilliant cavalry commander to do his thing and then rejoin the army (in the nick of time!), there is always the possibility that Stewart and his cavalry will get wiped off the chessboard, leaving you nearly blind on the eve of battle.
Sending the remainder of your cavalry to guard the Shenandoah passes on your not-so-tenuous left flank, not knowing where Stewart is or if his command still exists, leaving you moving about in enemy country … completely blind.
Not listening to Longstreet, the man who was arguably the first person in the 19th century to fully grasp how modern firepower had warped the face of battle. Maneuver, and always seek to fight on the defensive; what could be more logical or obvious at that late stage in the war?
Issuing vague orders on day one, like, “Gentlemen, I want no general engagement,” which were promptly ignored, and “take that hill if practicable,” which allowed Ewell enough latitude to make no attempt to take Culp’s Hill.
Longstreet gets all the blame for day two, but the only command decision he made that day that might have made the slightest bit of difference, was not allowing Hood to swing around to the right of Little Round Top. Longstreet was following Lee’s orders to letter, perhaps peevishly, perhaps not, “attack the right-center on the oblique,” but what does it say about a command structure where number one and number two are not in communication when a possible open flank presents itself? Who alone is responsible?
Number one.
Was there greater mistake in the history of warfare than attacking the Union center on day 3? Possibly, but Picket’s Charge is a leading candidate, especially when you consider that the man given command of the charge, Longstreet, had made it clear that such an attack had absolutely NO chance to succeed, and then proceeded to clearly and succinctly state all the reasons why.
Robert E. Lee is the ultimate enigma. I’ve spent so much time with the man I feel like he should be my brother, yet I don’t know him at all.
Something was clearly wrong with him in July of ’63, it’s like his genius left him and he went temporarily insane. His ticker was getting bad at the point, and his bowels were starting to rot out, and perhaps that affected his judgement, but those conditions were with him when his genius returned, on day four, when he commenced the masterful retreat of his army.
I think the best explanation for Lee going from genius to dunce back to genius again is span of a few weeks is probably the simplest one, hubris. He had come to believe that he and his army were invincible, and that made him sloppy.
So, temporary insanity, or temporary sloppiness, take your pick.
“For want of a nail…”
Wars, like business ventures, relationships and sporting events are, more often than not, won or lost at the margins – it all depends on the efficacy of the concept.
Lee gambled boldly but was short of damn near everything: manpower, food, ammunition, accoutrement, you name it. Because of these deficits everything would have had to have gone perfectly in order for his venture to have worked. But clearly this did not happen: a hesitancy on Ewell’s part here, a tardy cavalry recon there, dysentery in the camp – your outline of these and other problems was most comprehensive. Similar pesky details dog many a complex undertaking.
Finally, like the fatigued golfer a stroke behind the lead who swings too hard on the 18th hole in a vain attempt to get on the green in one but ends up in the bushes, or the flustered businessman who mortgages his house to recapitalize his failing enterprise, the good General Lee ordered a desperate ‘Last Hurrah’ charge into certain annihilation.
Genius or not, this is what people do. Your summation was excellent, but the basic premise, like Lee’s, was, I believe, inaccurate given the material and logistical dynamics of the time and place.
“… everything would have had to have gone perfectly in order for his venture to have worked.”
The strange thing is, despite all the blundering, on the second day Longstreet’s attack tore open a gap in the right side of the Union line more than half a mile long and nearly as deep.
It shut within minutes thanks mostly to the underappreciated Meade, and possibly could not have been exploited anyway, given the forces involved, but is was there.
Before he was laid low by a Yankee mini-ball (aka killed), William Barksdale was looking at nothing but air!
Yes, the stay at home strategy could have worked, and hell in way, it almost did, if Sherman doesn’t take Atlanta Lincoln probably loses the ’64 election, and the Confederacy gets its peace and the nation splits.
But as you pointed out, Lee liked to gamble; he was a commander who three times split his army into parts in the face of superior enemy, which is three times more often than is recommended in the textbooks; he liked to take his shots, and I think he sensed that the summer of ’63 was his last best chance to roll the dice.
And who am I to question the strategic wisdom of the immortal Robert E. Lee?
Guys, would you please knock it off? This post is not about the history of the Civil War, or of World War II, it’s about the value of studying history, and one’s enemies. Please reconsider the “note to commenters” in the ABOUT… section of the home page, and especially the requirement that the comment be germane to the post. If you want to kill gazillions of electrons discussing other matters, please rent a room.
Patton: ” … should not have been allowed to turn the global tide against the Germans with his victories in North Africa, his invasion of Sicily, and his decisive intervention in the Battle of the Bulge.”
Is this bait for both professional and arm-chair historians? Or are you trying perhaps, to piss-off some Russians you don’t like?
“Turn the global tide?”
Patton did some good things, but he most certainly did not turn the global tide. What he did he was, he fought the the 3rd of string of a broken down Wermacht, with Ultra, with air power supremacy, or in modern parlance, with full spectrum dominance, and for the most part beat them pretty handily when they weren’t in fixed positions.
When facing fixed positions(Metz), it is was a different story, of course.
As for the Battle of the Bulge, it was over once the skies cleared. Patton’s maneuver to turn the 3rd Army north and slam into the southern half of the Bulge was well executed, and proved helpful, but it wasn’t anything dozens of German and Soviet generals weren’t required to do almost on daily basis, and it was not the decisive element in the victory.
Patton was like a pitcher who goes 12 and 3 in his rookie year, and then baseball gets cancelled, and that’s it, that’s the end. Did he have Hall of Fame potential? Perhaps, but 12 and 3 does not get you a bust in the Hall of Fame, unless it’s a Hall of Fame run by FOXNews.
As for Bobby Lee, he was a traitor (I don’t think this is in dispute?), and when he took commission in the Confederate Army, yes he knew on a personal level it would give him an opportunity to battle to the death for Old Virginny, but he also knew, on professional level, that his main function as a general officer in the CSA would be to whip the Yankees so his new nation could keep on keepin’ on with black chattel slavery.
Here’s something I never understood, since I was a little kid, why is Benedict Arnold so reviled? He was one the best generals this continent has ever produced, so why didn’t Ike -and all the others- have pictures of Benny on their walls?
If Confederate memorials are just honoring great military men, why aren’t there any statues of William Tecumseh Sherman in Georgia?
There are 320 million Americans. We can take down monuments to the Confederacy while simultaneously addressing police brutality and racism. These actions are complementary, not competitive.
Oh, and may I remind you that Patton’s army was racially segregated, while Jim Crow was flourishing back home.
The events of history don’t change, and no one is suggesting that history books be revised to change the accounting of events that occurred. But the interpretation and the meaning of those events does change with time, and this is nothing to be afraid or ashamed of, nor should it be something to be opposed to. Why would we want our attitudes as a society to be locked into an era in the past?
The last of the Potomac River ferry crossings is in Montgomery County, Maryland, at White’s Ferry. The ferry boat, which takes cars, is named the General Jubal A. Early. It’s a fun ride, just takes a few minutes, one-way fee is $8 (the last time we did it a couple of years ago).
https://www.poolesvillemd.gov/338/Whites-Ferry
It’s like several of premodern China’s rulers, who could be half angel and half devil at the same time. Qinshihuang united all of the previously separate warring states of China into a single empire in the 3rd Century BC and implemented changes that greatly facilitated communication and transport throughout the empire (such as building roads and canals and standardizing the Chinese script) — and also burned works of literature he didn’t like, squandered enormous amounts of resources on building an excessively extravagant tomb for himself, and was responsible for the deaths of millions according to modern estimates, including many scholars.
Wonder if there are serious ways of inhibiting the devil in us all. One reckons the ways of life and of social organization found among the native Americans could have valuable lessons to offer — if we’re not too proud to learn from them, that is.
(Not that there’s much left that we can do anymore at the present juncture besides saving our own asses, given where the world’s headed…)
This Qinshihuang fellow sounds a little like modern Chinese leadership, whose goals seem to be to lift hundreds of millions out poverty while simultaneously squashing their liberties and poisoning them to death.
There’s the infrastructure thing too, and the personal aggrandizement of a member of the elite rings similar as well.
Does anybody learn anything from their own damn history?
If you think that spending time on removing statues isn’t part of “moderating [systemic] racism” then you’ve lost me. :-(
Perhaps a more useful response would be more statues. If the hero was a slave owner, make him share the square with a statue of a slave he owned, or a child he had by her; if he slapped a shell shocked soldier, then add one of the soldier, he certainly gave his all too. Go ahead and show the bastard as well as the magnificent!
Putting the statues somewhere else until the tantrums stop is one thing. If ever I was to hear that West Point was removing books by and about these folks, I would be very worried.
Big names in history rarely reveal sterling characters when researched.
Very few people do, even if they are nobodies.
The fact that slavers, accountants, serial killers and rapists have complex personalities does not somehow demonstrate that the act of tearing down monuments dedicated to them is motivated by the desire to erase them from history. In fact, in the case of ongoing events, the destruction of monuments is motivated by the desire to preserve their true history as enemies of human dignity and liberty. The only history it erases is a false one, that the heroes of the Confederacy only wanted to defend their country, and that their commitment to its defence was oblivious to the slave system which their country stood for and economically relied upon.
A thing’s existence doesn’t make it a part of history. A miniature Venus de Milo is not in and of itself a “piece of history” just because it might exist 2000 years from now. The original Venus de Milo isn’t a “piece of history” just because it existed 2000 years ago. People do not want to destroy monuments because they hate history and want to erase it. People want to destroy monuments if they are used, in the period of time that is present to them, to legitimise things and people which represent actions, ideas and beliefs antithetical to their interests and beliefs. Publicly displayed monuments can and often do function in this way, are often actively used in this way and are defended by the people who want them to be used in this way as “invaluable pieces of history”. This is not a modern phenomenon, it’s as old as the concepts “monument” and “history”.
There are several ancient Roman relics that show signs of deliberate damage and defacement. The cause might have been the Senate declaring that their eponyms be damnatio memoriae, condemned in the memory. Or they could have been the targets of early Christian riots. Or perhaps they were damaged by German and Celtic tribes destroying the buildings and monuments of the people who thought they were sub-human vermin, were invading their lands and enslaving them. The effects of such acts of condemnation or vandalism upon those relics are also pieces of history, and they determine the historical value of the relics themselves.
History cannot be separated from historical events by definition. The act of destroying, changing or replacing a monument is just as historical as the act of creating or preserving or publicly displaying it. History is not a tangible thing that exists outside of, well, history.
(Sigh) I sometimes wonder what you folks have been reading before you comment here. I made no statement for or against taking down statues, I have said the argument over them is a waste of time. Nobody sees the damn things when they’re up and nobody will miss them when they’re gone, except the pigeons. What does concern me is the dumbing down, and avoidance of, history itself.
The argument you’re referring to isn’t real. No one is debating whether or not the civil war was a Manichaean struggle over the idea of slavery. Instead people are destroying public monuments that represent persons or events whose histories are falsified or avoided in order to legitimise the ideology of the current system. It’s the exact opposite of avoiding history.
This is actually a good point. The fact that many of the Confederate monuments and statues were erected in the 1960’s as a result of the Southern backlash against the Civil Rights movement, makes them no less historic than those erected right after the Civil War itself. In fact, they may have greater significance as they give testimony to the depth an the resilience of Southern resentment against the North….I’m not saying I approve, I’m just sayin’.
When you want to change the world, change yourself.
Anyone pretending that the foreign or domestic policy of the United States under the last four administrations is more moral or noble than the motivation of the Confederacy does not have a moral compass.
A wool shirt or sack cloth are only valuable when they lead to a change in behavior. The statues and monuments are whipping boys. My vote is with Mr. Lewis, we are wasting time we do not have.
Speaking of complicated 19th century Americans, this guy is one of the greatest English speaking wit & social critic of all time.
HISTORY, n. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.
-Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
I don’t get why I’m (Canadian) the only person I know who quotes Bierce. In over 10 years of surfing collapse cyber spaces I have not seen a single quote. C’mon my American brothers there is no more pertinent time in your history than NOW for a daily dose of Bierce. I’ll wager George Carlin was familiar with Bierce.
CONSERVATIVE, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.
PATRIOT, n. One to whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors.
VOTE, n. The instrument and symbol of a freeman’s power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.
PEACE, n. In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.
http://www.thedevilsdictionary.com/
“I’ll wager George Carlin was familiar with Bierce.”
And I’ll wager that you are correct.
“I think, therefore I am.” René Descartes
“I think that I think, therefore, I think that I am.” Ambrose Bierce
“I think I am. Therefore, I am . . . I think.” George Carlin
As you well know, Apneaman, we do not suffer anti-war voices gladly down here, especially when they are battle-scarred veterans, and Ambrose Bierce was as battle-scarred as they come.
Plus, Bierce was sarcastic, and sarcasm in America is a dead language. /s