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Traditional American Values vs. Progressive Ideology: Vigilance is always required. We have not yet run out of options.

The Civil War + 150 years



Vanity, vanity, all is vanity, says the Teacher. ... The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. What has been will happen again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun." So warns the Teacher at the beginning of the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament Bible.
I just finished reading Bernard Cornwell's gripping historical fiction four-book series of the Civil War: "The Starbuck Chronicles." It encompasses the time period of 1861-1862: 1st and 2d Manassas [Bull Run], and Sharpsburg [Antietam]. The hero is a Yale dropout who ventures South in mid-1861 in a misspent-spent effort of gallantry only to find himself scorned and disowned by his Boston preacher Father and the extended family. As fate would have it, protagonist Nathaniel Starbuck falls in with the Confederacy and becomes a great warrior-leader for the South. As is Bernard Cornwell's style, he depicts the conflicting spectrum-capacity for tenderness and the brutality that exists in all men. The battle scenes magnificently portray the noise, smell, fear, cowardice, bravery, courage, foolhardiness and savagery found in wartime. Cornwell's historical accuracy and the attention to battlefield topography and historical records is impressive. The characters are real but flawed, as are all men and women. For those who have read The Killer Angels, I believe they would not be able to put down this saga until finished. Cornwell leaves the fourth installment open-ended for sequels.

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Modern Americans cannot even imagine the conditions that the battle-tested and weary Civil War soldiers, North or South, dealt with in bivouac or in battle. I would venture that surviving veteran Marines from "Guadalcanal, the 101st Airborne "Screaming Eagles" at Bastogne, the US POWs from the "Bataan Death March" in WWII, or those stranded in "Chosin Perimeter" in the Korean War would readily agree with this point. The Confederate Army was essentially a 100% forager Army, very often employing captured union supplies, weapons, rations and even blue coat uniforms against the North. The Union Grand Army of the Republic was enviably supplied, if viewed by Southern standards. The first video [below this paragraph] depicts the history and sounds of the fearsome "Rebel Yell." Even here and now in the South, most folks only know a half-hearted rendition of the real thing. It was an utterly blood curdling and unnerving phenomena that undoubtedly affected friend and foe alike in battle ... if not the outcome. Imagine, if you will, General George Pickett's entire Virginia Division crossing that field at Gettysburg [2d and 3d links below]. Many sensed that they might very well be among those who would be killed outright, or be wounded, or be captured. The order comes and the Division moves out in dressed ranks with their officers and colors in front. More than a quarter mile long formation commences a desperate assault on entrenched Union Forces behind a stone wall just below the high ground of Cemetery Ridge. The Confederate lines marched nearly unfailingly [though drifting to their left] through withering cannon fire of solid shot, grapeshot and canister. When they closed on their Union brother-enemies they finally lowered bayonets and began their "Rebel Yell," while at a quick-step, and continuing through a trot. Then it became a raging death yell as they make their final running charge to the wall where Union gunners and infantry poured fire into their lines. It was an utterly awesome, bloody, costly, gallant, and yet foolhardy tactical effort. "Years later, when asked why his charge at Gettysburg failed, General Pickett replied: 'I've always thought the Yankees had something to do with it.'" [NOTE: For a complete description of Pickett's Charge go to: 1. (Link) 2. (Link) 3. (Link)] So what is the point? In my humble opinion, the American Civil War was not inevitable. Would that this war had never been fought. You may certainly disagree. The bloom came off of the rose of the "Glorious War" shortly after the 1st Battle of Bull Run. A second Civil War might or might not settle today's political arguments, but at what cost? It would most certainly kill off a generation of young Americans. It seems to me that we may be carelessly approaching such an impasse in America ... if we do not heed history. We are unlike our ancestors of 150 years ago who saw the same country through the same glasses but with different aims. This time around, there is one side holding to Traditional American Values that view the glass full of opportunity and that the Individual is Sovereign. This view is opposed by a Progressive Ideology [alien to our soil I might add] that always views the glass as half-empty and that individuals are the "subjects" of Big Government. Let us ponder the costs of a Civil War. One Hundred and Fifty years ago one might have eloquently asked this question of those ebullient rabble-rousers egging on a revolution or confrontation, "Whither goest Thou now and for what end, fellow American?" Today we might ask, "Are we out of options? Are you willing to be like Confederate General Lew Armistead and place your hat high on the raised tip of your saber so that your troops can follow you in the din of battle? Will you do this knowing the full costs of ill-spent courage and bravery for the sake of your own, or some politician's empty bravado? Will you die in the arms of loving brothers on the other side, or despised as their un-reconciled enemy? Is there consolation for any widows and orphans under such circumstances? Can this be avoided?" Name one country in the world that has came out of a civil war unscathed, without crippling wounds that endure for generations, debilitating handicaps, or deep scarring reminders of former animosities. I am a bit weary of those who over-quote Jefferson or Patrick Henry talk of in an effort to bypass prudence. Neither of these fine gentlemen, who were in the prime of their life, fought and bled for America in the Revolutionary Army. I say, save the rhetoric for your speech to your troops when, facing certain death, you too are willing to place your hat on your saber and lead your willing followers into some inglorious and wasteful slaughter. Be careful for what you wish in America. It is the fool that wishes for war. War is ever and only to be a last resort for free men and women in this great Republic. A great and growing possibility of conflagrations plague us overseas and at home. Two tonics we need are a return to Faith in God and to study the lessons of history. For Believers, it is God who inspired men to found the United States of America and Who still inspires us to right the ship. History's lessons provide the very same guidance for all of us. American institutions did not spring into being from evolution of gooey slime or the inspired minds of earthly kings. Whether or not one believes that God is the Author of all, or whether you are a solely student of history, the handwriting is on the wall. The currently charted course in America and abroad is unsustainable. It is most important that all Traditionally-minded Americans [probably 70% or more of the likely voters] reclaim this the Constitutionally Limited and Federally Constituted United States of America resoundingly at the ballot box on November 6, 2012. Only a landslide will silence the alien opposing force ... but only for a time. Vigilance is always required. We have not yet run out of options. [NOTE: View the Power Point photo gallery [above], then watch the videos [here]. Take care that you do not watch these with a callousness of a movie-goer watching a documentary. Rather look at these photos, an then think of the cost of Americans slaughtering Americans ... once more. Watch these old men embrace as brothers as you contemplate the value of a Constitutional Republic with democratic traditions. Civil war veteran soldier footage, captured between 1913 and 1938 ]. "I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell." - General William Tecumseh Sherman


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William R. Mann -- Bio and Archives

William R. Mann, is a retired Lt. Colonel, US Army. He is a now a political observer, analyst, activist and writer for Conservative causes. He was educated at West Point [Bachelor of Science, 1971 ]and the Naval Postgraduate School [Masters, National Security Affairs, 1982].


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