Really, Canada? REALLY?

You honestly elevated this feckless airhead to Prime Minister?

If his last name was MacDonald you wouldn't have given him the time of day.

He's John Edwards without the gravitas.

Go stand in the corner.



 

When Revisionists Defend!

One for our continuing series on George McClellan: In Defense of McClellan at Antietam: A Contrarian View.

Like I said, Talmudic disputations...

While not entirely persuasive, it appears to conclusively exonerate the Young Napoleon of the charge of responding too slowly to the Lost Orders find:

As McClellan’s army advanced on Sept. 13, Union soldiers stumbled upon a four-day-old copy of Lee’s orders in an abandoned rebel camp. Known as Special Order No. 191, this paper revealed that Lee had dangerously split his army into five parts. Three columns had converged on Harpers Ferry to capture the Federal garrison there, a fourth column was in Hagerstown, and a fifth column was acting as a rear guard near Boonesboro, Md. Historians have debated fiercely over when the Lost Order was delivered to McClellan.

In his landmark 1983 book, “Landscape Turned Red,” Stephen Sears asserts that McClellan verified before noon that the papers were legitimate, then exhibited his usual excessive caution and failed to move his army for 18 hours. To back up this theory, Sears cites a telegram that McClellan sent to Abraham Lincoln at “12 M” — which Sears says stands for meridian or noon — in which McClellan confidently informs the president that he has the plans of the enemy and that “no time shall be lost” in attacking Lee.

After the book’s publication, though, the original telegram receipt was discovered by researcher Maurice D’Aoust in the Lincoln papers at the Library of Congress. It shows that the telegram was sent at midnight (the word was written out) — a full 12 hours later than Sears thought. D’Aoust points this out in the October 2012 issue of Civil War Times in an article entitled “ ‘Little Mac’ Did Not Dawdle.”

Where this essay falls flat is in its assertion that Lee had almost as many men at Antietam as did McClellan. Nowhere have I seen that argument advanced. Still, useful grist for the historical mills.

Americans All, Part I.

The Confederate battle flag has been much in the news over the past year, sadly brought to prominence by the massacre in a church by a racist. While it provoked some sensible soul searching and actions concerning the place of the flag in public life, it quickly went well beyond sense to a mindless iconoclastic frenzy.  Because 2015 America.

For what they are worth, they've also prompted some thinking on my part about the banner and what it means to not just us moderns, but in the context of American history. Caveat lector: this is the first of two installments.

The battle flag of the 4th Virginia Infantry Regiment, 

captured during the Battle of Spotsylvania in 1864.

Billy Yank and Johnny Reb at peace: Union and Confederate veterans 

at the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1913.

As a Michigander, the men and women of Dixie--of whatever coloration--would call me a Yankee. And, being Southerners, almost all of them would be polite about it. I can live with that--even if it lumps me in with New Englanders, a people who are (for me at least) a reliable source of raised eyebrows.

That said, I don't think of myself as a "northerner," and I suspect most of those who live north of the Mason-Dixon don't. As a Southern friend correctly pointed out, "north is a direction, but South is a place."

I'm a Midwesterner, and rather proud of that, despite having nothing whatsoever to do with my delivery to or placement within the region. The Midwest is indisputably a place, one with her own people. Most of the time, we Midwesterners are a common sense, friendly but sometimes almost stolid folk, inclined to pragmatism and possessing of relatively-long fuses. We have our foibles--anything that smacks of cosmopolitan foolishness is avoided, and we tend to regard the world beyond the Appalachians and Great Plains as a source of annoyance more than anything else. And the rest of the planet? God gave us the Atlantic and Pacific as moats for a reason. Though I will say that sometimes those foibles are bugs with an upside, so to speak.

But at our best, we have a sense of history and rootedness that serves us well.

 However, there's one subject where the Midwest is melded into "North" and "North" becomes a place--discussions of the Civil War. Also known as the War Between the States, the War of Northern Aggression, the War for the Union or--my personal favorite: the Late Unpleasantness. 

Part of out Midwestern historical sense is a remembrance of the Civil War, and our great rememberer is the late Bruce Catton (in the same sense that the late Shelby Foote is the great rememberer for the South). In truth, the Midwest was "the West" in the War, and our forefathers rallied to Old Glory in huge numbers. In Michigan, 23 percent of the male population wore the blue, and 1 in 6 of those died.

Michiganders fought every major campaign, and were responsible for catching Jeff Davis after the War ended. We remember them in monuments and highways studding our State. As a youngster, once I started reading about the War, I was hooked, and it shows no signs of letting up yet.  My family went to Gettysburg when I was ten. I even picked up a Confederate battle flag during my visit. My children will have no such opportunity, however.

Nevertheless, I'll treasure that visit to hallowed ground until I die or grow senile. 

The latter of which, at the rate things are going cognition-wise, will probably be sometime next month. Anyway.

That interest will never die because the War is a source of endless fascination for anyone who studies it seriously. The historical figures become people you know and eventually come to regard as acquaintances, mentors and perhaps even, in an odd way, friends. Ones whose honor and decency you feel compelled to defend, and whose full humanity you argue even as you have to acknowledge their sins. Frankly, if you ever want to hear the next best thing to a Talmudic disputation, sit in on a debate over the decision-making or actions of Civil War General X in Battle Y or Campaign Z. The feathers puff up and the arguments fly almost as thick as the bullets at the actual battle.

For this Midwesterner, that includes even--nay, especially--those from below the Mason-Dixon Line.

To be sure, my chief heroes from the American Iliad are Lincoln, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (see--I can like New Englanders!) and George Henry Thomas--Unionists all, but only one of them a Midwesterner. 

Lincoln has undergone apotheosis, which is unfortunate, because the flawed man is far more interesting--and brilliant--than the flawless bronze effigy. If nothing else, he shows what the Midwesterner (by way of Kentucky) has within him.

Chamberlain was someone only America could have produced: a genteel classics scholar turned warrior who never flinched from the Cause even though it threatened his marriage. And he earned his immortality on July 2, 1863, saving the nation at the far left of the Union line at Gettysburg with a bayonet counterattack.

And then there is the Other Virginian--almost anonymous--George Henry Thomas. Unlike his compatriot, Robert Edward Lee, he chose the Union, and the North recognized his genius, belatedly, grudgingly and incompletely. The nation still fails--utterly and inexcusably--to honor his sacrifices and memory of the Rock of Chickamauga and Sledge of Nashville. In fact, we have done a grave disservice to the sacrifices of the free Southerners who fought for the Union during the war--at least 100,000 fought for the United States, a fact usually remembered not at all.

Three men of the Union--what about that "especially," Yankee? 

Bless your heart, 'n' all. 

Fair point. Thus, I proffer the following three men in gray:

For starters, there's this man for whom Texas' Fort Hood is named: the incomparably heroic and tragic John Bell Hood. He never lacked courage, being grievously wounded twice while leading his men from the front. His left arm was maimed at Gettysburg and he lost his right leg above the knee at Chickamauga, the two bloodiest battles of the war.

As a brigade and division commander, he has no critics. He led those units almost flawlessly. However, it is a commonplace that Hood was a victim of the Peter Principle, his promotion to command an army being beyond his abilities--and perhaps even murder for the men he led. 

But I would argue otherwise, at least as far as the Atlanta campaign is concerned. A look at the record shows he had decisive victories slip from his grasp on multiple occasions. Fighting Sherman, he was more unlucky than anything else, hobbled by bad timing and worse subordinates. Even afterwards, he had the chance to destroy the bulk of a Yankee army at Spring Hill, but for nearly inexplicable reasons, his commanders missed their chance.

However, right after Spring Hill you can make the charge of incompetence stick. Sending his men in a charge at the Battle of Franklin against Federal breastworks across a mile of ground without artillery support was murder, and nothing but. I still cringe when I read about the brave Confederates making that impossible charge...it's heartbreaking. And...they almost pulled it off, breaking through the Federal center only to be repulsed by a hot-headed Union commander who had defied orders to place his soldiers in the right place at the right time.

Say what you will about the courageous Confederates making Pickett's Charge, but the men of the Army of the Tennessee were incomparably more heroic at Franklin. And they paid a much higher price.

The Federals still retreated after Franklin, and Hood followed. Only to be crushed by Thomas two weeks later at Nashville. Hood was then was relieved of his command. 

He survived the war, but his courage failed to win him the heart of the woman he doggedly courted, Sally Preston. He eventually married, but his maimed condition probably contributed to him succumbing to yellow fever in 1879 at the young age of 48, six days after his wife Anna. Their ten surviving orphaned children were adopted out to several families, and a Texas association of Hood's veterans helped with financial support of the orphans.

Patrick Ronayne Cleburne was an Irish immigrant and veteran of the British Army who came to America and settled in Arkansas in 1854. Despite this being the high-tide of nativism, he was embraced by the residents. Well, most of them: Cleburne survived an assassination attempt by a member of the anti-immigrant Know-Nothings in 1856 (yes, the sentiments were that ugly). He became a lawyer (no one is perfect) and respected member of the community. Thus, he gladly stood with his Arkansas neighbors when the secession crisis hit. Cleburne was certainly the finest division commander for the Confederacy in the War--stopping William Sherman cold during the Battle of Chattanooga and performing superbly elsewhere. Cleburne should have risen to higher command--except that he advocated emancipating and arming slaves to help with the war effort. Even as the Confederacy died in the spring of 1865, such proposals were controversial--even when made by Jefferson Davis, and even when freedom was entirely conditional upon the slaveholder's written consent. Companies of black Confederate soldiers started forming in late March 1865, but Richmond fell before any saw action.

Before that, a mere low-ranker general making a more radical proposal was an act of career suicide. And it provoked no small blinkered pique on the part of those who hated the proposal: the Army of Tennessee was starved of competent corps commanders during the War, and Cleburne would have fit the bill perfectly. Fortunately for the Union, bigoted fear prevailed.

Thus, brave Cleburne stayed at the division level, and died in the horrific slaughter at aforementioned Battle of Franklin on November 30, 1864, leading his men in futile attacks against Union breastworks, at the even-younger age of 36. He was one of six Confederate generals killed that day, and John McGavock had the grim honor of having five of their bodies (including Cleburne's) laid out on his porch after the battle.

Last, but hardly least, is Marse Robert himself, General Robert E. Lee. Like Lincoln, Lee too has undergone something like deification, due in no small part to the classic and exhaustively-researched biography by Douglas Southall Freeman. But even without a classic biography, Lee would be impossible to gloss over lightly. A bona-fide American hero before the War, most know that Lee was offered--and declined--the command of the United States Army before the War started. Being a slaveholder who seemed to genuinely dislike the institution in the abstract (to me, quite similar views to those held by the late Henry Clay, who freed all of his slaves upon his death), he loved his Virginia too much to fight her. 

Despite being one of "Those People Over There," it is impossible for me to read of Lee's tactical exploits without admiration--Chancellorsville especially being the masterwork of a Great Captain.

And at the war's end, he spared the not-quite reunited nation the horror of guerilla warfare, for which we should continue to be grateful:

“Then, General,” [Lee] reasoned further, “you and I as Christian men have no right to consider only how this would affect us. We must consider its effect on the country as a whole. Already it is demoralized by the four years of war. If I took your advice, the men would be without rations and under no control of officers. They would be compelled to rob and steal in order to live. They would become mere bands of marauders, and the enemy’s cavalry would pursue them and overrun many sections they may never have occasion to visit. We would bring on a state of affairs it would take the country years to recover from. And, as for myself, you young fellows might go bushwhacking, but the only dignified course for me would be to go to General Grant and surrender myself and take the consequences of my acts.”

As an aside, it must be noted that Confederate General Joseph Johnston also refused to disperse his army to engage in guerilla warfare--and he had direct orders from Jefferson Davis to do so. Of course, it probably didn't hurt that Johnston and Davis loathed each other, but Johnston deserves considerable credit for his role in ending the war. Others also leap to mind: Mary Boykin Chesnut, John C. Breckenridge, John B. Gordon, Richard Rowland Kirkland (a/k/a "the Angel of Marye's Heights")...the list is near-enough endless.

So, when I see the Confederate battle flag, I see the charge at Franklin, the humanity of men like Cleburne, Hood, Lee and Johnston. I see the willingness of beaten Americans to live with the verdict of the battlefield and to exhort their fellow Southerners to also reconcile. To me, the virtues of the men who marched underneath that banner are what leap to mind first. Such virtues allowed the country to reunite--to heal and become one nation. That it did so, and so quickly, is nothing short of astounding. By 1898, the former Confederacy leapt to the call to arms in the Spanish-American War, with one of its Generals literally leading a charge under the Stars and Stripes in Cuba. 

But that's not the only way the banner can be viewed--and is. For that, I will have another post.

That was a heartbreaker.

Up by 2 with 10 seconds left...only to lose on the last play of the game, leaving the hard-charging team with a 5-2 record.

Hmm?

Oh, I'm talking about my eldest son's football team losing yesterday evening after a furious comeback, 37-33.

Yes, weekend sports hell.

Oh, and Michigan fans: give it a rest. Our punter is going to be torturing himself for the rest of his life over the ending of that game. He's not playing for money, jerks.

Piling on is a personal foul in life, too.

At least the Lions aren't going to treat us to 0-16 II: Now Even Suckier.

So I got that going for me, which is nice. 

And, once again, I'm glad I ditched Facebook. I imagine people behaved as expected Saturday night. 

It appears the blog is a going concern again.

This post you are reading is the 95th one to the blog for the Year of Our Lord 2015.

By way of comparison, no year since 2009 has had more than 81. 

So...smoke if you got 'em. And pass the port.

 

When People Were Property.

Between 1936 and 1938, the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration interviewed over 2000 people who had been born into slavery. The result was dubbed the Slave Narratives Collection. While the interviews are not without their flaws, they are an essential primary source regarding human chattel slavery in the United States. 

Indeed, the Narratives are the largest such collection of slave interviews from any slaveholding society.

The very worthwhile introduction to the Narratives can be read here.

They are organized by the interviewee's state of residence and can be read at this link.

I don't have a problem with this.

It appears that the Obama Administration is arming Syrian Kurds and Christians on the sly.

 American and Kurdish officials and Syrian Arab opposition leaders told us this week that ammunition said to have been for the Syrian Arab Coalition, a newly announced group of Sunni Arab brigades in northeastern Syria, had largely ended up arming the Kurdish Democratic Union Party and its associated military forces, known as the People's Protection Units or YPG. That will aid the Kurds in fighting the Islamic State and cementing their control of Kurdish territory.

One senior administration official who works on the issue told us that the White House knew that the coalition was likely to pass on most if not all of the weapons to the Kurds. The official, who called the Syrian Arab Coalition a "ploy" to arm the Kurds, said the White House knew they would receive the shipments because they controlled the area where the weapons were dropped. The U.S. did not ask the Arab coalition for any guarantees the weapons would stay in Arab hands, the official said.

* * *

In addition, the YPG itself has acknowledged that it is participating in a new alliance with Sunni Arab and Syrian Christian groups known as the Democratic Forces of Syria. That group held its first meeting Thursday in the Syrian city of Al Hasakah to discuss how to divide up the new U.S.-provided ammunition between Kurdish, Arab and Christian rebel brigades, a representative of the group said.

Since this appears to be people less likely to use the stuff against us, it seems to be sensible, even clever. Plus, it seems to have ticked off Erdogan, so bonus.
 

Just a reminder.

Just because a guy constantly praises "dialogue" doesn't mean he really wants any--he just wants to be on record as saying he wants it. For him, "dialogue" is a shibboleth, nothing more.

The Salt The Earth TV network priest in Canada seems to be a classic example of this mindset. I know for a fact he blocked someone just because she was friends with "the wrong people."

The new era of accompaniment and openness is starting to look like the old version.

On a completely unrelated note, enjoy this Soviet propaganda poster from the Second World War.

 

 

Not as much as the rest of us do, Mike...

Michigan running back Mike Hart regrets "little brother" knock on MSU.

Talk about badly-timed...right before Michigan started getting owned by the Spartans. 

And by "us," I mean the segment of M-fandom that has taken the opportunity to develop something like humility over the last decade. 

We'd have a hard time trying to fill Wendler Arena, but there you go.

I can't imagine doing this kind of work.

Not without shooting some of the scum who engage in this slavery, that is.

But thanks to the FBI and Michigan State Police for taking down a few sex traffickers this week.

According to MSP Detective Sgt. Edward Price [no relation that I know of--Ed.], the teens were found in Detroit, Madison Heights, Ferndale, Clinton Township and across Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties. Price is assigned to the Southeast Michigan Crimes Against Children Task Force, an FBI Task Force that investigates the exploitation of children by means of sex trafficking.

Price said investigators found a variety of sex toys, drug-related items such as "crack pipes," guns, laptop computers, clothes, underwear and high-heeled shoes and boots.

The 19 girls rescued in the sting ranged in age from 13 to 17. A dozen suspected pimps were arrested.

Price said the amount of sex-trafficking cases has steadily increased in Michigan.​

"It's increasing," he said. "We have dope guys that have stopped selling drugs and have started selling human beings."

Price said investigators have seen known drug dealers switch to sex trafficking partially because they believe it's a less violent, but rich and thriving industry.

"We've also seen a lot of gangs getting involved," he said. "It's not new, but it's picking up. ... These cases are difficult to work, they have to be victim-centered."

How about "NO."

An unwelcome development in eastern Tennessee:

The Confederate battle flag could soon be flying on top of the Greene County courthouse — above a monument to the county’s Union soldiers on the town square — if a new resolution put forth by a county commissioner is passed next week. Monday’s Greene County Commission meeting will kick off with the resolution at 6 p.m., sponsored by Commissioner James “Buddy” Randolph. 

I have a huge problem with the iconoclastic frenzy frothing to expunge the Confederate battle flag from every corner of the United States. I think it's repulsively stupid and offensive that The Dukes of Hazzard can't be shown on TV because someone might see the decor on the General Lee and need counseling and/or a cash payout for emotional trauma. 

To the fainting couch--eek! 

Likewise the banning of the battle flag from Amazon and eBay. It's cheap moral preening and point-scoring that does nothing to help anyone, but gets applause from the practitioners of Approved Thinking and Narratives.  

Hey, Amazon--how about paying your employees more and not treating them like crap? 

No? Easier to gain applause from your fellow lefties by banning a flag, amirite? 
Got it. All that said, the battle flag does not belong flying over a governmental building. Nowhere, nohow. No.

Especially not in eastern Tennessee, a bastion of Unionist sentiment during the Civil War. We do a beyond-poor job of remembering Southern Unionists, and this bit of Orwellian flag-waving buries their memories even deeper. There are better ways to honor the Confederate minority in that part of the country.

I sincerely hope this resolution is rejected. Resoundingly.