Please re-read the first sentence of my post you referenced....carefully.
Please re-read the first sentence of my post you referenced....carefully
.. There is a story that General Ulysses Grant relates about early in the war he was fretting over attacking a Confederate position and when he finally did so he found that the Confederates had panicked and abandoned their position. And he realized that the Confederate general was just as scared about his intentions as he had been of the Confederates. And that changed his fundamental outlook on how to conduct war
.The Battle of Cold Harbor was fought from May 31 to June 12, 1864, with the most significant fighting occurring on June 3. It was one of the final battles of Union Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's Overland Campaign during the American Civil War, and is remembered as one of American history's bloodiest, most lopsided battles. Thousands of Union soldiers were killed or wounded in a hopeless frontal assault against the fortified positions of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's army
freeman3 wrote:The Union,lead by Grant, won the Civil War...
freeman3 wrote:Yeah, well, it kind of annoyed me about Ricky's criticism of Grant at Cold Harbor. In 1864 Grant was going up against the military genius of the war, Robert E. Lee. Lincoln's thought from an early period in the war was the Union had the advantage of men and resources while the South had the advantage of interior lines of communication so they could more easily men around than the Union could. So if the Union attacked piecemeal then the South could off-set their numerical inferiority by shifting their armies to deal with threats as they became apparent. So to Lincoln the way to deal with that was by simultaneously attacking the South at different points so that there would be some areas that were weak and the South could not shift men and resources to cover them. But he had a hard time getting his commanders to being aggressive enough to do that.
But in 1864 that was the plan--attack everywhere. At the very least wear the South down in a war of attrition. But up to now Robert E. Lee had been undefeated on his home turf. When he invaded the North it was a different story--he was lucky to escape from Antietam and Gettysburg, and Antietam was perhaps a tactical draw while Gettysburg was a defeat.
So Grant had to take it to Lee...but at the same time avoid a major defeat. Grant kept trying to slide to the left around Lee, but Lee was like a mind-reader as to Grant's intentions. Lee's defense was brilliant but in the end Lee could not replace the losses he was taking and was pinned down in a long-drawn out siege at Petersburg.
So Grant...did succeed in his military mission against a very skilled opponent. And thus I find a swipe for a tactical mistake to be unfair without placing it in a larger context. (Actually, a danger of Google research where you take a slice of knowledge to emphasize a point without having the overall knowledge to understand that the point is not valid given the overall context. Google is great...but it has its limitations.)
Politically, Union casualties could have lost the war for the Union. Lincoln was up for reelection and the huge losses that Grant sustained made it possible a peace candidate (McClellan) could have beaten him. Unfortunately, the loss of Atlanta doomed the South. Joseph E. Johnston was a passive defensive tactician and Sherman kept maneuvering him out of his defensive positions and the Union army kept getting closer to Atlanta. This resulted in the South turning to Hood--personally brave but not up to the challenge of commanding an army--and he did what was expected of him, attack the Union army. He lost, Atlanta was abandoned, Lincoln's reelection was assured, and Union victory was inevitable at that point.
"I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made … No advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained."
Yeah, well, it kind of annoyed me about Ricky's criticism of Grant at Cold Harbor.
Joseph E. Johnston was a passive defensive tactician and Sherman kept maneuvering him out of his defensive positions and the Union army kept getting closer to Atlanta.
I have had nearly all the Southern Generals in high command in front of me and Joe Johnson gave me more anxiety than any of the others. I was never half so anxious about Lee.
Take it all in all, the South, in my opinion had no greater soldier than Joe Johnston – none at least that gave me more trouble.
Ray Jay wrote:The other angle of the Civil War example is fighting for what is right. NK is a large slave labor camp.
You keep citing things in isolation which are kind of funny, really.
There is a story that General Ulysses Grant relates about early in the war he was fretting over attacking a Confederate position and when he finally did so he found that the Confederates had panicked and abandoned their position. And he realized that the Confederate general was just as scared about his intentions as he had been of the Confederates. And that changed his fundamental outlook on how to conduct war.
Note that Lee did not retreat against Grant but challenged him at every turn. He realized that the South with its numerical inferiority could not sit passively on defense but had to take the initiative.
‘All that I could ask was that the policy of the campaign should be one of defensive tactics,’ Longstreet stated in his memoirs, ‘that we would work so as to force the enemy to attack us, in such a good position as we might find in his own country, so well adapted to that purpose — which might assure us of a grand triumph.’
The other angle of the Civil War example is fighting for what is right. NK is a large slave labor camp.
freeman3 wrote:Ricky, please. Is that what the p is for? You cite Civil War generals who praise their opponents...but not really. You don't know this because you are hunting for links on a subject...without knowing the subject. You pick this Longstreet quote without realizing how immensely controversial his actions at Gettysburg were. Yeah, Longstreet's idea was to maneuver the North into attacking the Confederate Army like happened at Marye's Heights when Burnside kept charging up a hill and Union troops were slaughtered. That was Longstreet's idea to force the Union to attack Confederate positions in strong defensive positions and he didn't like the strong defensive positions that the Union had at Gettysburg. And Longstreet thought that Lee had agreed to his vision...but he had not. And Longstreet threw a bit of a tantrum about it and was not 100% in to the battle at Gettysburg. He has not beeen very popular (I think) due to his actions at Gettysburg.
Pickett's Charge was on Day 3 at Gettysburg. Day 1 was won by the Confederate, Day 2 they came very close to winning...and Lee thought that since they had been hitting the flanks the center was weak. It was not weak. Moreover, Union artillery was devastating that day. So he made a mistake. No one is perfect. Lee was better than anyone else in that war though.Not to romanticize the Civil War because the South had a bad cause and that is why they lost. But we're just talking about generalship here
Anyway, I did not bring up the Civil War as a template for anything.You did. You brought up Cold Harbor as indicative of overconfidence by General Grant and I said hold on there--that's not really fair to bring up one bad battle and conclude something about a general. You decided you would try and hunt for more quotes to defend your initial mistake. This is not a subject you can debate by doing Google searches. There should be a phrase for that...
rickyp wrote:To do whats right in Korea, is to have the patience and wisdom to avoid massive destruction, to avoid a world wide financial calamity and to avoid rewarding North Korea for acting aggressively.
I really don't know what that is ..... but nothing anyone here has offered here could guarantee avoiding all of that. So talk. And let the South Koreans lead. They have the most to lose and gain . And they are more likely to understand North Korea.
If South Korea makes progress, maybe China will take more interest.Right now, there's not much for China to gain from a major change to the status quo. Unless they think Kim would actually risk nuclear war, and I don't think they consider him irrational to that extent. Homicidal. Not suicidal.
All he's about is regime survival.... And nuclear war would certainly not lead to that.