Not
much media coverage, not much fanfare, not much reflection. A war that
carved over 600,000 lives from the nation when the nation’s population
was just 31 million. To compare, that would equate to a loss of life in
today’s population statistics, not to mention limb and injury, of circa
6 million.
We are in the month of May, when 150 years ago Grant
crossed the Rapidan to engage Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern
Virginia. Lee stood atop Clark’s Mountain and watched this unknown (to
the eastern theatre) entity lead a massive army into Lee’s home state.
Soon there would be the Wilderness, where forest and brushfires would
consume the wounded and dying. Days later, the battle of Spotsylvania
ensued, in which hand-to-hand combat would last nearly 12 hours.
Trading casualties one for one and rejecting previous prisoner exchange
and parole procedures, Grant pushed on, to the left flank. The Battle
of the North Anna, then the crossing of the James, and thus into the
siege of Petersburg. This was 1864 in the eastern theatre.
Today there is hardly a whisper of the anniversary of these deeds, sacrifices, and destruction.
Why?
More @ American Thinker
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