Huh, you say…what is he up to now? Well, as it happens, I just want to put some stuff out there so you, my dear readers, can argue about lots of different things that have nothing to do with anything, like our current Fearless Leader in the White House duking it out with the Mass Media into all sorts of nothing sandwiches while he quietly gets the regulatory swamp drained. Such is life. Misdirection, you see.
Just like Lee was snookered into Gettysburg. Sure, he wanted a fight outside Virginia…but then what? The Confederacy was already losing half its food supply when US Grant finished clearing the Mississippi Valley with the capture of . The Richmond/Washington corridor was, in comparison, as sideshow. But the history books, driven by the Lost Cause Mythology (LCM) that demands that All Things Lee must be Earth-shatteringly vital, says that Gettysburg was the battle of the Civil War. Some American history textbooks mention Bull Run, Gettysburg and Appomattox, foregoing all other actions as unimportant. Lee is mentioned, of course, and Lincoln, but Grant? Meade? Even Halleck? Not on a bet.
But…you moan. Lee was snookered into Gettysburg? Tricked? Well, in a way, yes, he was. Though the “strategy” that he outlined to Jefferson Davis demanded a fight with the Army of the Potomac, but he didn’t say just where or how. So he split up his army to join it up somewhere in Pennsylvania so he could thrash “those people” (the term that LCM insists Lee always used when referring to the Union Army…except when he didn’t) once and for all. Trouble with that was that, without a definite plan, the various pieces of his army were just going to be out foraging as he looked for a place to get together. Lee wasn’t expecting to get it together in southern Adams County, but that was where Buford’s cavalry encountered Ewell’s corps. Then there was Howard’s and Reynold’s corps, and Ewell had a real fight on his hands.
Suddenly Lee’s army had to come together, and he had no idea that Meade’s whole army was on hand because Stuart’s cavalry was off on another “ride around” the AoP and thus out of communications, but unlike 1862, the propaganda value to the Bold Cavalier’s exploits was nil. However, the military value of bruising Stuart’s ego in June at Brandy Station was tremendous, and to salvage his sinking reputation he took his horsemen off on another wild ride.
So Lee was blinded by Stuart’s absence…or at least that’s what LCM claims. You see, it just isn’t possible that Lee had so little control over his subordinates that such things could happen, so it has to be Stuart’s fault. Just as on 3 July 1863 it was Longstreet who failed against Meade’s center because Lee cannot fail…ever. And Lee, the ever-stainless Marse Robert Edward Lee, cannot be faulted for fighting at a severe terrain disadvantage in Pennsylvania. It had to have been his subordinates who failed him. And so it goes.
But too, today is National Chocolate Wafer Day, National Eat Your Beans Day, and National Fried Clams Day. Now, only Fried Clams Day has a known origin–3 July 1916 was the first time anyone suggested deep-frying clams–but the other two are mysteries. A snack stand in Essex, Massachusetts battered and fried a batch after a customer suggested it, and first served them during Fourth of July festivities. It sort of took off. I have some rather fond memories of fried clams at Howard Johnson’s restaurants, which dates me. The national day started in 2015.
Now, the consequences of belief. There are, you know. As Lee found out in Pennsylvania, believing that he could steal a march on Meade was, in his case, catastrophic. Similarly, German belief in their capacity to knock France out of the war before having to deal with the Russians in 1914 was similarly disastrous. Germany did it again in 1939, taking on the whole world by 1941. But that was a consequence in Hitler’s “unshakeable belief” in so many things that were just–demonstrably–wrong.
But no one can escape the consequences of belief, because what you believe guides what you do. And if what you believe is accurate, all is well until someone decides that what you believe is simply wrong. If that disagreement is a simple “I don’t think so,” there it ends. But if someone believes–and has the power to enforce–that you must change your belief and behavior or face a fatal consequence…that’s different.
But that’s where “free speech” and “censorship” and “hate speech” and “blasphemy” and “sedition” get all tangled up. Opinions (personal, not legal) can’t be “wrong” if they don’t deny facts–they’re just beliefs. Today is Monday. If you say that it’s Wednesday, you would be wrong, incontrovertibly. That is not an opinion, but a fact. If you believe that persons of another faith or skin color are all evil, or want to destroy those of your faith or skin color, that is an opinion because it’s simply too broad a spread. But if you act on that belief, it stops being an opinion and starts being a motive for whatever it is you wish to do.
The painting that heads this little missive is a good example. It was painted to meet a commercial need, and to satisfy an audience that would find “Hancock at Gettysburg” to be inspiring. It’s not a photograph, and abounds with historical inaccuracy. But it was commercially successful despite all that. Point at it as say “Pickett’s Charge” if you want; no one will kill you for it, but it’s “Hancock at Gettysburg.” But say that a TV personality is wrong, or ugly, or–horrors–unworthy of your time, and you may be in for a fight. Attractiveness is unquantifiable, and thus not a matter of “fact.”
What anyone says about anyone’s looks or appearance is, long run, irrelevant to living, or governing, or ruling. The accuracy of paintings, too, is pretty irrelevant. And so is this blog. I write it because I want to; you read it for the same reason. No harm no foul if you don’t or I don’t. But it’s not “censorship” if you don’t follow me, just as my not watching the endless reruns of the same twisted plots of TV sitcoms isn’t “censorship,” or my not caring what your sexual proclivity is or your gender identity or your personal pronouns isn’t “anti-gay,” and it is not yet illegal to not care. That may come, but not yet.
JDB Communications, LLC 