On Sat, 2003-03-29 at 12:15, Joel Hammer wrote: > > The generals? You'd have to go all the back to the our Civil War and the > > campaigns of George McClellan to equal their non ability. > > Now you have gone too far. > > McClellan was heads and shoulders above the crowd. He was the most > responsible for building the Union army from scratch. He understood > the importance of logistics and understood the huge advantage offered > by the Union Navy in allowing the out flanking of the southern armies. > He understood that the threat was more powerful than the execution. > His men loved him because he took care of them and didn't waste their > lives in senseless frontal attacks. He forced Lee into a battle in which > Lee lost more soldiers than the Union, which probably never happened again > in the war. After he was sacked by Lincoln because he wasn't winning > fast enough, Burnside was ordered to take the offensive. Being a toady, > which is what Lincoln wanted, he went into an ill-advised offensive, > got beaten very badly, and guess who was called back to service to save > the Union capitol? McClellan. He handily defeated the Confederates and > saved the day, but was criticized for not destroying the rebel army. He > was sacked again. The man who sacked McClellan was the same man who made > the incompetent Burnsides general in chief, Mr. Lincoln. > > And, talk about a moving target. As the body counts got dramatically > higher Lincoln kept raising the rhetoric, going from saving the Union > (who really cares) to saving mankind (say what?). The Gettysburg address > is a piece of work. I suspect that the occupation of Iraq will be easier > than the occupation of the South after the Civil War. > > Joel
Hate to beat a dying horse, but. You're right McClellen a good training soldier and good at logistics, but he was no field general. In his advance on Yorktown he continually stop the march because he over estimated the strength of forces opposing him and stopped to await reinforcements. At the start of the campaign there was than a regiment between him and Yorktown. His slow advance lead to one of his generals labeling him the Virginia Creeper. By the time he got near Yorktown Lee had rounded up 30,000 men to McClellan's 100,000+ and promptly engaged McClellan in an attack on (anybody?) McClellan's lines of commuication! They fought seven battles which you correctly pointed out McClellan inflicted more causities on Lee's force than Lee inflicted on the Union forces, but after every battle Lee held the ground and Little Mac retreated south until he had to be evacuated.In this part of the country we call that a defeat. Contrast that to Grant's battle of The Wilderness (actually 7 battles)where Grant lost every battle measured in body count but advanced south after every battle until Lee was bottled up in Petersburg After an unsucessful attempt to breakout was forced to surrender.Years later General Patton inelequently this as grabbing the enemy by the nose and kicking him in the ass.Probably the greatest tribute to McClellan's inability was paid by Robert E. Lee. When told that Lincoln had replaced McClellan Lee said he hoped not because if Lincoln kept doing that he would eventually find someone who could beat him. As for Burnside, he was a baffoon, but honest enough to admit it. When Lincoln offered him supreme command he tried to turn it down. Even to the point of telling Lincoln he was not fit for the command. So the error was not with Burnside but with the administration selecting its generals from the wine cheese Washington circuit. Lee P.S. once again apologize to those on the list who just want to do Linux, but I don't know how to move the whole kit and kaboddle to the gereral list. > > _______________________________________________ > Linux-users mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Unsubscribe/Suspend/Etc -> http://www.linux-sxs.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-users _______________________________________________ Linux-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe/Suspend/Etc -> http://www.linux-sxs.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
