Sunday, January 27, 2013

Robert E. Lee: Duty and Providence




 Mike Scruggs

The unsuccessful engagement at Cheat Mountain and the failure to block a Union advance in the Kanawha River Valley were disappointing, but they involved only three small Confederate brigades and few battle casualties. The disadvantages of terrible weather, muddy roads, and widespread sickness were formidable obstacles to success in western Virginia. Moreover, the lack of cooperation of generals Loring, Floyd, and Wise with Lee, and their petty rivalries, jealousies, and resentments among themselves, severely hampered any chance of overcoming an already difficult situation.

President Davis, though an experienced military leader himself, perhaps erred in not giving Lee direct rather than advisory authority over these generals. But knowing something of the egotism and political differences among the generals, Davis probably judged that advisory authority was the best way to revitalize their military effectiveness. Lee tolerated the situation for too long. He should have pressed Davis for more direct authority to suppress the brigade commanders’ self-serving egotism and demanded their prompt execution of orders.

The Richmond and other Southern newspapers exaggerated the importance of Confederate failures in western Virginia and pounded Lee with much undeserved criticism. They said he was too old, too theoretical, and not aggressive enough. Some began to refer to him as “Granny Lee.”  Lee bore all this without succumbing to the temptation to start pointing the finger of blame to others. At 55, the gray-bearded general was a bit older than most active duty general officers (average age about 40), but he would be remembered in history as one of the most aggressive and innovative military commanders in the annals of warfare. He would be called “the Gray Fox.”

Throughout the war, both the Union and Confederate armies suffered much loss of effectiveness because of an uncooperative spirit of self-centered pride and ambition among many general officers. There were notable exceptions, and Lee was one who placed duty far above any personal considerations.

“Duty…is the sublimest word in our language. Do your duty in all things….You cannot do more—you should never wish to do less.”—Lee, in a personal letter to one of his sons.

“General Lee…showed a personal disinterestedness, and unselfish devotion to principles and country, rarely to be met in this world.”—Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens.

“You must expect discomforts and annoyances all through life. No place or position is secure from them, and you must make up your mind to meet with them and bear them.”—Lee, to his daughter, Agnes.

“I cannot see a single ray of pleasure during this war; but as long as I can perform any service to the country, I am content.”—Lee, to his wife.

In November 1861, Davis placed Lee in command of the coastal forces in South Carolina to defend against threatening action by a large fleet of Union Navy ships assembling near Charleston. As an experienced engineering officer, Lee built an array of coastal defenses formidable enough to discourage any reasonable Union consideration of a major attack on Charleston by sea.

On March 2, 1862, Davis recalled Lee to Richmond and gave him command of all military operations of the Confederate armies. Davis, however, made most of the operational decisions and left implementation to Lee. About that time, the 35-year-old Union Commanding General,  George B. McClellan, responded to Lincoln’s pressure to take Richmond with a bold strategy to use Union Naval superiority to make an amphibious landing at Fort Monroe at the southern end of the Virginia Peninsula and then move north to besiege Richmond.

The Peninsula Campaign was harder going than McClellan anticipated, and the Union Navy lost many ships to the ironclad CSS Virginia. Nevertheless, on May 31, a Union army of 105,000 men was positioned on the northeast outskirts of Richmond straddling the Chickahominy River. Joe Johnston, commanding the 60,000 troops of the Army of Northern Virginia protecting the city, knew that he could not survive a siege, so he attempted to overwhelm the two Union corps of 34,000 men isolated on the south side of the Chickahominy with 22 of his 29 infantry brigades (51,000 men). It took some time for Union forces to stabilize after this assault, essentially stalling any immediate Union chance of capturing Richmond. The fiercest fighting took place at a crossroads called Seven Pines. Near dusk, Johnston was seriously wounded when struck by a bullet in his right shoulder and almost simultaneously hit in the chest by Union artillery shrapnel, knocking him from his horse and breaking his right shoulder and two ribs. Johnston was evacuated to Richmond, and Major General G. W. Smith, who had been plagued with ill health, assumed temporary command, but acted indecisively. Lee and Davis arrived on horseback and were both disappointed with Smith’s indecisive actions. 

The fighting ended about 11:30 am on June 1, when the Confederates withdrew to their defensive positions in Richmond. McClellan was in bed with typhoid fever and was only able to ride to the action at Fair Oaks Station near the end of the battle, which was inconclusive. However, the Union had suffered over 5,000 casualties with 790 dead. The Confederates suffered over 6,000 casualties with 980 dead.  McClellan resolved to bring up his big siege guns to finish off the Confederacy. But unfavorable weather (rain, flooding, and mud), Confederate cavalry, mobile railroad artillery, and fear of the elusive and quick-striking Stonewall Jackson would make moving heavy siege guns slow and difficult.
 
Toward evening, President Davis made Lee the Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, a decision that would dramatically change the course of the war. After building extensive defensive earthworks around Richmond, Lee launched the “Seven Days” offensive on June 25. By July 1, he had driven McClellan’s huge army back to the James River and saved the Confederate capital. Within three months the Union Army had been driven off the Virginia Peninsula. 

Clinton Added Teeth To CRA, Obama Turned Them Into Fangs

Via Daily Timewaster


Despite new evidence the Community Reinvestment Act led to riskier lending and played a key role in the subprime mortgage crisis, the Obama administration is broadening the anti-redlining regulation's authority and scope, spooking bankers.

A recent study by the National Bureau of Economic Research, the nation's pre-eminent economic research group, states that the CRA "clearly" had a major impact on the flood of subprime loans made in the late 1990s and 2000s, which directly led to the housing crisis.

By quietly expanding the regulation, analysts say President Obama is picking up where President Clinton left off in April 1995, when he rewrote rules for what had been a largely toothless law as first drafted in 1977.

Through executive orders, Clinton set strict numerical lending targets for banks in "underserved" neighborhoods, while ordering regulators to crack down on alleged bank redlining.

GUN CONTROL POLITICS

Via WRSA

 

VERBATIM

Giffords can only get a few words out — “so slowly” — and Diane Sawyer has no compunction about supplying words all around Giffords’s words, most notably at the end of the interview — you have to watch the video — when she turns Giffords into a puppet who voices the last word to a long sentence yammered out by Sawyer. Sawyer repeatedly assures us that Giffords understands everything and is able to think well, that her only intellectual deficit is in speaking. We’re told how effective Gifford will be in pressuring Congress to enact gun control. She will be taken around to the members of Congress so they will be subjected to the ordeal — if they want to say “no” — of saying “no” to her face.

This is how it’s done. At what point do you say “no”… enough?
 
Resort to theatrical efforts at emotional blackmail is an admission that you have no intellectual arguments. Which is par for the course with the smarmy Diane Sawyer, of course, and with the even-smarmier gun control movement.

I would ask “have you no decency?” — but we already know the answer to that.
Plus, from the comments:
The members of Congress that will be subjected to this ordeal, will be Republicans.
Democrats running for re-election in places like Minnesota will not be called on.
The love-and-caring bit is all a con. Every time.

Man With 4th Amendment Written on Chest Wins Trial Over Airport Arrest

Via Don


A Virginia man who wrote an abbreviated version of the Fourth Amendment on his body and stripped to his shorts at an airport security screening area won a trial Friday in his lawsuit seeking $250,000 in damages for being detained on a disorderly conduct charge.

Aaron Tobey claimed in a civil rights lawsuit (.pdf) that in 2010 he was handcuffed and held for about 90 minutes by the Transportation Security Administration at the Richmond International Airport after he began removing his clothing to display on his chest a magic-marker protest of airport security measures.

“Amendment 4: The right of the people to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated,” his chest and gut read.

In sending the case to trial, unless there’s a settlement, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 and reversed a lower court judge and invoked Benjamin Franklin in the process. According to the opinion by Judge Roger Gregory:

More @  Wired

Silence On Private Sales


After saying they would stop private gun sales, Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler has gone silent…

It’s been well over a week since The NC Department of Agriculture Commissioner fell in line with President Obama’s plan to ban the private sales of any firearms following a recent incident at a gun show. After a negligent discharge of a shotgun at a recent gun show at the NC Fairgrounds in Raleigh, representatives of Agricultural Commissioner Steve Troxler saw fit to declare that private sales of any and all firearms would be banned for the rest of the show, and possibly all gun shows held on NC agricultural property in the future.
 Just where does Mr. Troxler stand?

After pronouncing that private sales were banned from State Agricultural owned property, Commissioner Troxler has gone silent. The big question now becomes: will a REPUBLICAN controlled state agency now jump on President Obama’s gun control policies without question? When accidents involving automobiles happen, we don’t ban private auto sales. When accidents involving house fires happen, we don’t arbitrarily ban private home sales. Why then, are our elected leaders so quick to ban private firearms sales when a negligent discharge happens? 

Maybe we should just ask?

The citizens of North Carolina deserve to know where our leaders stand on this issue. Using the contact information provided and the suggested message (or one of your own), contact NC Agricultural Commissioner Steve Troxler and ask him personally where he stands on the issue of private firearms sales and President Obama’s gun control agenda. With the anti-gun crowd screaming loud these days, we deserve to know just where our leaders stand on the issue.


Only rebellion can save America

Via Don
 

The US federal government has strayed so far from the Constitution and the rule of law that it can now be considered rogue and illegitimate.

The thoroughly irresponsible rate of government spending projected over the next twenty-five years will drive federal debt to unsustainable levels. The country is heading for a financial meltdown and economic ruin.

The Republican Party is inept and impotent and cannot provide the necessary political opposition to the crimes and unconstitutional policies of the Obama regime or stand against the rampant voter fraud which is now polluting the electoral process. There is a report claiming that the Republican Party signed a legal agreement with the Democrat Party in 1982 not to pursue suspected vote fraud. If there is no guarantee of election integrity, then elections become only window dressing for tyranny.

Barack Obama is an illegal President and unindicted felon. Congress, the American media and the courts are engaged in a criminal conspiracy to conceal their complicity in perpetrating the Obama fraud on the American people. Law enforcement and our elected officials have chosen to risk the survival of the country rather than risk the truth.

"I’m tired of being Johnny B Good and I’m Gonna be Johnny Reb"

Via WRSA



I don’t like instant ice tea
And I aint crazy about dollar a gallon self service gasoline
And they nearly broke me with the high price of beef
And the funny thing is they think their putting this over on me

I’ve always been an upstanding citizen
But I am getting fed up now my friends
And if you don’t understand what I’ve said
I’m tired of being Johnny B Good and I’m
Gonna be Johnny Reb

Yeah I’m gonna be Johnny Reb
‘Cause I don’t believe everything I’ve seen and read
And I work like hell just to keep a roof and a bed
I’m tired of being Johnny B Good and I’m
Gonna be Johnny Reb

This country’s gettin’ in a kinda bad shape
When the gasoline profits are up, up and away
And I can barely live on my take home pay
There’s a whole lot of people that agree to what I say
Don’t tell me to ride a bus and turn down my thermostat
When yer all runnin’ around in jets and cadillacs
Well I can’t take this lying down
We gotta try and fight back ’till they believe what we said
We’re tired of being Johnny B Good and we
Gotta be Johnny Rebs
Yeah we gonna be Johnny Rebs

‘Cause we don’t believe everything we’ve seen and read
And we work like hell just to keep a roof and a bed
We’re tired of being Johnny B Good and we
Gotta be Johnny Rebs

We’re Tired of being Johnny B Good and we
Gotta be Johnny Rebs

Drugged, Kidnapped and Dragooned Army of the James


To obtain recruits for its armies, the North paid an immense amount of money for bounties and employed aggressive methods for those who resisted enlistment. Villages, towns, cities, counties and State’s paid lavishly into funds to buy exemptions and substitutes for residents, with the promise of additional bounties upon mustering – and bounty-jumping was rampant. State agents swarmed behind Northern armies to capture and enlist black slaves who would count toward their State quota of troops, thus relieving white citizens from military duty.

Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
www.ncwbts150.com
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"

Drugged, Kidnapped and Dragooned Army of the James:

“The Army of the James was the quintessential Yankee command. Among all Union armies, it boasted the highest percentage of units recruited in New England [and]….More than any other Federal army, [it] was a bastion of Republican and Union Party sentiment. While Lincoln enjoyed the support of most troops in every command, he had a special confidence in voters in [General B.F.] Butler’s force.

When the 1864 presidential contest heated up, [Secretary of War] Stanton confided to one of Butler’s staff officers that although Lincoln was not so confident about [General George G.] Meade’s army, he had no doubt as to the loyalty of the Army of the James [in delivering the soldier vote to him].

Butler went out of his way to fill his ranks with prewar office holders, editors of partisan newspapers, and political hangers-on. Of course, politics dominated every Union fighting force; each had to answer continually to political influences. Many had to spend as much time vying for power as they did fighting the Confederacy.

Another factor that sapped the fighting strength of the XVIII Corps was an abundance of soldiers who would fight only under duress, if at all. Especially among its New England regiments, unit effectiveness was compromised by the many men dragooned into service by unscrupulous agents employed by States anxious to enlist enough volunteers that they would not have to submit to federal conscription.

Many of these unfortunates were recent immigrants, “mostly speaking foreign languages,” who had been “drugged and kidnapped….then heavily ironed [shackled], confined in boxcars, and shipped like cattle” to designated regiments. [General Isaac J.] Wistar, whose district contained hundreds of unwilling recruits, noted that in one New Hampshire regiment alone, eighty men deserted during their first night in Virginia.

Other XVIII Corps outfits were found to contain an even less desirable brand of recruits. In the course of a few weeks, a couple hundred “bounty jumpers” deserted and returned north to enlist in distant cities under assumed names and collect additional money.

If many of the white troops were unreliable, the army’s contingent of black troops, untested in battle, did not inspire widespread confidence. To many of their white comrades, the blacks were am amusing novelty, a social experiment gone too far, and a source of unease and concern. Many were liberated and runaway slaves, used to lives of docility and subserviency. Could they display the martial skill, the initiative, the fidelity of whites? In the spring of 1864 most whites thought not.

The cavalry and artillery units of the Army of the James were of uneven quality….[a Northern colonel] complained of “this villainous Cavalry of [Gen. August V.] Kautz’s Division which has been so blowed about and exalted to the sky by reporters” but that appeared more effective at looting than fighting. Even Butler, who defended the cavalry against all critics, privately acknowledged its low quality.”

(Army of Amateurs, General Benjamin F.
To obtain recruits for its armies, the North paid an immense amount of money for bounties and employed aggressive methods for those who resisted enlistment. Villages, towns, cities, counties and State’s paid lavishly into funds to buy exemptions and substitutes for residents, with the promise of additional bounties upon mustering – and bounty-jumping was rampant. State agents swarmed behind Northern armies to capture and enlist black slaves who would count toward their State quota of troops, thus relieving white citizens from military duty.

Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
www.ncwbts150.com
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"

Drugged, Kidnapped and Dragooned Army of the James:

“The Army of the James was the quintessential Yankee command. Among all Union armies, it boasted the highest percentage of units recruited in New England [and]….More than any other Federal army, [it] was a bastion of Republican and Union Party sentiment. While Lincoln enjoyed the support of most troops in every command, he had a special confidence in voters in [General B.F.] Butler’s force.

When the 1864 presidential contest heated up, [Secretary of War] Stanton confided to one of Butler’s staff officers that although Lincoln was not so confident about [General George G.] Meade’s army, he had no doubt as to the loyalty of the Army of the James [in delivering the soldier vote to him].

Butler went out of his way to fill his ranks with prewar office holders, editors of partisan newspapers, and political hangers-on. Of course, politics dominated every Union fighting force; each had to answer continually to political influences. Many had to spend as much time vying for power as they did fighting the Confederacy.

Another factor that sapped the fighting strength of the XVIII Corps was an abundance of soldiers who would fight only under duress, if at all. Especially among its New England regiments, unit effectiveness was compromised by the many men dragooned into service by unscrupulous agents employed by States anxious to enlist enough volunteers that they would not have to submit to federal conscription.

Many of these unfortunates were recent immigrants, “mostly speaking foreign languages,” who had been “drugged and kidnapped….then heavily ironed [shackled], confined in boxcars, and shipped like cattle” to designated regiments. [General Isaac J.] Wistar, whose district contained hundreds of unwilling recruits, noted that in one New Hampshire regiment alone, eighty men deserted during their first night in Virginia.

Other XVIII Corps outfits were found to contain an even less desirable brand of recruits. In the course of a few weeks, a couple hundred “bounty jumpers” deserted and returned north to enlist in distant cities under assumed names and collect additional money.

If many of the white troops were unreliable, the army’s contingent of black troops, untested in battle, did not inspire widespread confidence. To many of their white comrades, the blacks were am amusing novelty, a social experiment gone too far, and a source of unease and concern. Many were liberated and runaway slaves, used to lives of docility and subserviency. Could they display the martial skill, the initiative, the fidelity of whites? In the spring of 1864 most whites thought not.

The cavalry and artillery units of the Army of the James were of uneven quality….[a Northern colonel] complained of “this villainous Cavalry of [Gen. August V.] Kautz’s Division which has been so blowed about and exalted to the sky by reporters” but that appeared more effective at looting than fighting. Even Butler, who defended the cavalry against all critics, privately acknowledged its low quality.”

(Army of Amateurs, General Benjamin F. Butler and the Army of the James, 1863-1865, Edward G. Longacre, Stackpole Books, 1997, pp. 45-49)
and the Army of the James, 1863-1865, Edward G. Longacre, Stackpole Books, 1997, pp. 45-49)

Violent People in America


To soap-box about "the need for more" gun-control, as do Piers Morgan, Dianne Feinstein, Barack Obama, Andrew Cuomo, and other willfully deceptive well-known persons, is an act to further divide an already fractious America.

When they feel they have enough public support,(democratic rule=tyranny of the majority), they will move to begin mandatory registration and eventual confiscation of firearms from law-abiding citizens, as they already have in the State of New York and other bastions of leftist liberalism.

These same people have already made it impossible to control the violent impulses of insane people and ensure that society as a whole is insulated from these horrific and tragic acts. To willfully deceive people is the definition of a liar and to knowingly cause great bodily harm is the definition of a felon. In North Carolina, intentionally causing great bodily harm or death is justification for the use of deadly force.

I will leave it to my readers to decide how we as a society should deal with people who knowingly cause death and great bodily harm.

The people who are clamoring for gun control are making it impossible for the average law-abiding citizen to defend themselves and their loved ones when some 18-year-old on Ritalin or Trazodone confronts them violently.

If only one teacher at Sandy Hook had been legally armed 20 children's lives could have been saved. Here is a quick primer on the antisocial personality so that you can educate yourself and may be able to spot the kind of persons who are committing these crimes before they have a chance to harm you.

What our government and elected officials need to be doing is investigating why nearly all the mass homicides, and a good percentage of single homicides, are tied to perpetrators using psychiatric medications.

Instead, the course they chose is to ignore the cause of all this bloodshed and human misery and compound and exacerbate the situation by focusing on the gun itself as the problem.

There are other causes that contribute to the current surge in gun violence other than crazed kids on Ritalin, like extreme violence prevalent in movies and video games, which brainwash certain susceptible personality types, but I won't go into that until the biggest problem is dealt with first.

Stop it with "The guns are the problem" you idiots (and you know who you are). Guns can't do a damn thing except what the person holding the guns makes them do.

W.G.

Man accidentally shoots himself at Des Moines gun show

Via Don

 

Again?

An Iowa gun dealer was hospitalized after he accidentally shot himself in the hand before a gun show Friday afternoon at the Iowa State Fairgrounds.

The 54-year-old St. Charles resident told police he was showing off a .25 caliber pistol he thought was unloaded when he slid the action of the gun causi

The shooting occurred in 4H Exhibit Hall about an hour before the three-day gun show began.
The man told police he was trying to dry fire, or fire the gun without a round in it. He said the gun was unloaded when he checked it earlier in the week and he didn’t know who would have loaded it. Police found another loaded gun on the man’s table and unloaded it, according to the report.

Our nation is preparing for war.

Via WRSA


What purpose do any of our freedoms serve if we have no means to protect them? Are we not only as strong as our own weakest link? Surely the people are strong when united, but when the fist of angered men crashes down with might and power, what is our powerless response? Thomas Jefferson was an extraordinarily insightful man as a founding father, and is attributed to the saying “A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have.”

It is important to remember the fallacy of this statement, however. The government of the United States does not grant rights, and it does not allocate freedom. Rather, the Constitution of the United States expressly states that we have these rights, and that the government is not to infringe upon them.

We are in the midst of a time when all this is called into question. Not only is the validity of our sanctified freedoms under fire, but our resilience as a culture. Surely one can watch from afar in the land of tea and crumpets calling us ‘cowboys’ and claiming out guns will be our downfall. In truth, however, clinging to our guns is the only thing that has saved this nation from absolute dissolution. To believe that war has become less popular in the modern era because we have grown too fond of it is a statement of profound ignorance. As we sit here today, our brothers and sisters are arming themselves. Civil War exists the same as cannibalism exists. It is so far fetched that the American people could stomach a revolution again. In this same notion, however, we could never stomach slavery. Thus, it is undeniable that our nation will come to blows. To claim we would rather die than to eat fellow man as a means of survival is absurd. Our fear of leaving the happy bubble we live in is influencing our thought process, but when starvation and deprivation drag you within an inch of death itself, all of life come into question. You begin to see the flaws in every member of your party.

Who is the weakest? Who could you do without? Who has angered you? Who shall be the one you choose?

NBC Political Director Says Rural/Urban Divide “Stark”

Via TSP

 

VERBATIM

NBC political director and chief White House correspondent, Chuck Todd, today declared the “Rural-Urban political divide is as stark as it has ever been.”  In speaking on a Washington, D.C. news radio station this morning, Todd said today’s divided nation is no longer “red state verses blue state, it’s rural verses urban.”  He went on to say that many of the politically divisive issues such as gun control and abortion stem from rural and urban differences that are “cultural.”  

Is he right?  In the 2008  Presidential election, much of rural America was “purple.”  In 2012, the color was definitely more red.   We hope to hear more of this interesting discussion during the 24th annual Rural Health Policy Institute, the largest rural advocacy event in the nation, where  Chuck Todd has been invited to speak. 

For more details on the Policy Institute http://www.ruralhealthweb.org/pi
You can listen to Chuck Todd’s full interview at http://www.wtop.com/774/3191975/Vice-President-Joe-Biden-will-soon-make-gun-control-recommendations-to-the-president.