tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16821859.post115121236955726562..comments2024-03-26T16:03:42.608-06:00Comments on Flares into Darkness: Saturday Movie Review: Gettysburgambisinistralhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03836786826294202405noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16821859.post-1151267282106044422006-06-25T14:28:00.000-06:002006-06-25T14:28:00.000-06:00Of course, the Union officers didn't advantage the...Of course, the Union officers didn't advantage the ground by accident--I didn't mean to denigrate any effort by calling it accident. Just marveling at how such close, close margins changed such a huge flow of history.buddy larsenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17760847873026506988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16821859.post-1151266767389622042006-06-25T14:19:00.000-06:002006-06-25T14:19:00.000-06:00Pickett's war-winning charge was broken up by line...Pickett's war-winning charge was broken up by line reserve units that Lee's artillery prep should've scattered, and would've except for a matter of a couple of degrees oddity in the incline in the slope of the far side of the ridgeline. <BR/><BR/>The "far side of the hill", as Wellington said of his ridgeline at Waterloo, won the battle.buddy larsenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17760847873026506988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16821859.post-1151265592520331072006-06-25T13:59:00.000-06:002006-06-25T13:59:00.000-06:00Lee was probably closer to right in his assessment...Lee was probably closer to right in his assessment that his soldiers could not be defeated than many Northerners would like to now admit. Hindsight is always 20-20. The truth is that if he'd had his cavalry and if a few other things had fallen his way instead of against him, he would have won at Gettysburg and he probably would have gone on to take Philadelphia. The North at that point might very well have sued for peace. They were after all mostly willing to sue for peace a year later from sheer boredom.MeaninglessHotAirhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11767916621253839341noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16821859.post-1151263922200147662006-06-25T13:32:00.000-06:002006-06-25T13:32:00.000-06:00His natural melancholy, his plainly-obvious and th...His natural melancholy, his plainly-obvious and thus heartwarming efforts to benefit others by overcoming it, losing the favored son at the age of ten in 1863, Mary Todd's psychological difficulties, many things combined to make him uniquely able to feel and communicate that one clear note that we still hear, that inspires us now as it did then.buddy larsenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17760847873026506988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16821859.post-1151260575094891552006-06-25T12:36:00.000-06:002006-06-25T12:36:00.000-06:00buddy—I was obviously looking west from the Angle....buddy—<BR/><BR/>I was obviously looking west from the Angle. I've always been dyslexic when it comes to compass directions and generally I stop and think: Is that right? Not always though. More's the pity.<BR/><BR/>The war changed Lincoln and we'll never know whether it might not have changed one of his rivals in the same way if they'd been in his position, but it's hard to imagine that union could have had a more capable defender than the one she did.<BR/><BR/>Best.lonerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13329414340481290010noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16821859.post-1151259400323003182006-06-25T12:16:00.000-06:002006-06-25T12:16:00.000-06:00You're right--the Second Inaugural is sublime, alm...You're right--the Second Inaugural is sublime, almost sacred. The meanings, and the words, are Biblical. Only Lincoln could have achieved that moment--heck, only Lincoln could've bled the pressure out the nation in such a way as to save that nation.buddy larsenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17760847873026506988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16821859.post-1151258845733915762006-06-25T12:07:00.000-06:002006-06-25T12:07:00.000-06:00buddy—I thought Gods and Generals a mediocre movie...buddy—<BR/><BR/>I thought <I>Gods and Generals</I> a mediocre movie, but then I thought Jeff Shaara's first novel of the same title not nearly as compelling as his dad's <I>The Killer Angels</I> and I worried when I read that it was going to be made into a movie. It might have been a success (the commercial failure has probably doomed any adaptation of <I>The Last Full Measure</I>, but I don't refer to that) as a movie if they'd just called it <I>Stonewall</I> and adapted the Thomas Jackson sections of the story (Hancock is in the Armistad <I>Gettysburg</I> solliloquy, Chamberlain isn't important until Gettysburg, and Lee before Jackson is primarily about his rise to the top within the political realm and the chain-of-command.) Just a thought.<BR/><BR/>I was most moved during this visit while looking east to the Virginia Memorial from the Angle. I was most in danger when descending from the Pennsylvania Memorial—the bottom step on that top flight of stairs for future climbers.<BR/><BR/>I'm in total agreement regarding <I>The Gettysburg Address</I>. The same goes for <I>Abraham Lincoln's Second Innaugural Address</I>.lonerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13329414340481290010noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16821859.post-1151257708065429942006-06-25T11:48:00.000-06:002006-06-25T11:48:00.000-06:00Loner, I agree--the critical support for Lee's thi...Loner, I agree--the critical support for Lee's thinking is in remembering that the model is always the to-date 'flow' of the war. <BR/><BR/>The Army of Northern Virgina marched north to Gettysburg, on the heels of several tremendous victories--esp the previous battle, Chancellorsville, now said to have been Lee's greatest tactical demonstration. <BR/><BR/>Following that battle, who can fault Lee for having believed--as he is said to've--that the Southern soldiers almost could not be beaten?buddy larsenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17760847873026506988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16821859.post-1151256347225610872006-06-25T11:25:00.000-06:002006-06-25T11:25:00.000-06:00It's Taneytown Road.terrye—I neglected to mention ...It's Taneytown Road.<BR/><BR/>terrye—<BR/><BR/>I neglected to mention that while on Little Round Top where the 20th Maine was positioned a tour guide was doing his best to besmirch Chamberlain because the official account of what happened there on July 2nd was rewritten by Chamberlain after he was informed that the original was missing. It's apparently more "literary" than the original, a copy of which it turns out is in the Maine archives. I wasn't part of the group so I didn't ask if the 20th Maine had in fact retreated or surrendered on that day, but I wanted to.<BR/><BR/>The High Water Mark of the Confederacy was coming regardless of what happened on the 3rd and, while Longstreet turned out to be right, I can't but think that I would have been with Lee because of his past successes and the usual incompetence of the Union command (still evident in the aftermath of Pickett's Charge.)lonerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13329414340481290010noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16821859.post-1151255838751990482006-06-25T11:17:00.000-06:002006-06-25T11:17:00.000-06:00The Gettysburg Address if read in a calm quiet hou...The Gettysburg Address if read in a calm quiet hour will bring a tear to eye everytime. Lord, the language!<BR/><BR/>Loner, be sure and catch "Gods and Generals" sometime.<BR/><BR/>Terrye, your ex was right at least twice--about the Civil War, and about marrying a gal who feels the realness of history.<BR/>:)buddy larsenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17760847873026506988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16821859.post-1151232460081175092006-06-25T04:47:00.000-06:002006-06-25T04:47:00.000-06:00loner:Killer Angles was one of those books I could...loner:<BR/><BR/>Killer Angles was one of those books I could honestly say I could not ut down.<BR/><BR/>My ex visited Gettysburg as a boy and began a lifelong fascination with the Civil War and its battles and Generals. About this battle he would say that Lee's chvalrous refusal to abandon in the field despite the advice of the wise Longstreet would turn the war. But then again my ex never really thought the South had a chance in th elong run, not with Lincoln in the White House.<BR/><BR/>I transcribed a diray by a civil war soldier from Indiana who died outised of Atlanta, Ga. Longstreet was the General he worried about.<BR/><BR/>So much pain and suffering and loss.terryehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16609746018265953069noreply@blogger.com