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Matt Atkinson -- Very interesting Ranger at the National Park Service talks


Which is why all those folks from Pennsylvania came rushing to Lee’s cause....oh wait, the exact opposite happened. Lee’s invasion caused northerners to rally to the Union cause even more than they had already done. The idea that northerners were going to support Lee’s army in a guerrilla campaign is beyond nonsensical. People in Pennsylvania— the heart of Quaker Country, no less— absolutely despised slavery.

The South explicitly went to war to protect slavery. They were the ones who were founded on the protection and defense of slavery.

Again, which doesn’t change the fact that shelling US soldiers on a US Fort is an act of war.
 

:lamo

No, it really didn’t. The copperheads never accomplished anything of note, and were effectively run out of their own communities by their neighbors for their actions.

Time and again, the Confederates clung to your theory that the North wouldn’t fight, and time and again, US troops took them on and fought on even after taking heavy casualties.

The Confederates were laughably disorganized even after their “victory”. They were in no shape to try and attack DC.
 
Robertinfremont said:
If you mean the first fight at Manassas, which is where I spoke of, for the South it can be argued that the worst mistake they made was not carrying the fight from Manassas into DC trying to knock out the troops of the North.
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Tigerace117 said:
The Confederates were laughably disorganized even after their “victory”. They were in no shape to try and attack DC.
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Exactly, which is what I stated earlier in this thread.

And reading posts like that help to remind me how the Hayden Lake groups are still alive and well in Idaho, sadly. People who cling so strongly to the lie that the South was fighting a "just war", and that all who oppose them and their beliefs are cretins.

And notice, how when challenged about the 35k soldiers marking towards Washington, he then followed up by stating that they should have done so. Funny, but unless I am wrong that clearly indicates that they were not just out picking flowers, but were attempting to attack Washington after all.

But as always, I generally laugh at those that try to justify the actions of the Confederates. They really have nothing to stand on, and even some of the most renowned Generals hated the causes they were fighting for, but did so in the belief they were fighting for their states.
 
Tigerace117 said:
The South explicitly went to war to protect slavery. They were the ones who were founded on the protection and defense of slavery.
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More than that, they wanted to expand it.

Hence, the attempts to invade New Mexico. Anybody who knows about Confederate history has no doubt that if they had won, they would have expanded their country. New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma, and more were all under the eyes of that government (and even some Mexican territories). If they had won, they would have expanded the slave trade, and if given the change even resumed the trade with Africa itself. Even during the war they had attempted to take over New Mexico. After a Southern Victory, expect Arizona, Colorado, possibly even Utah to have been added (or serious attempts to add them).

Even Idaho had a lot of Confederates in the era. One of the major gold mining towns was named after Atlanta, Georgia after some of the founders had gotten a mistaken report which stated that the Confederates had won and driven General Sherman's forces from the city (as we all know, in reality the city burned).

Hence, one of the main reasons why the British and French never really supported them. At most, they saw the Confederates as "spoilers" of the growing US power and influence, but they never actually supported the Confederate cause.
 

I did not attack you one bit poster.

What do you mean by that crack, Hayden? You mean The ex husband of Jane Fonda who perhaps was one of your heros?

I did not try to justify the acts of the Confederates. I pointed out that had they been wanting to conquer Abe, they would have marched into DC and wiped him out. And of course if the Union could run like cowards to DC, the South could have followed them.

Stop whining directly about posters and stick to topics.

As to your claims, pound them where the sun won't shine.

You are rude and so far as I am concerned, not one bit appreciated.
 
Robertinfremont said:
That is flat not correct.

What is your source? But never mind, it is not true.
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"America's War for the Greater Middle East" by Andrew J. Bacevich.

Long story short, the hastily put together for known as the Eastern Alliance proceeded to bumble their way into Tora Bora, General Franks then decided not to deploy USMC forces to block escape routes into Pakistan, allowing Bin Laden to escape from his mountain hideout.

Franks's failure to actually decisively defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda (both Mullah Omar and Bin Laden escaped) didn't seem to bother him or CENTCOM, whom abruptly declared victory without pausing to wonder whether the slapdash groups of anti-Taliban forces they had suddenly and without warning given lots of money and weapons to would actually help stabilize Afghanistan.

To his credit, Franks did identify that the troop numbers he was given for Iraq in 2003 were inadequate (he managed to sandwich that note in between self praise for his "revolutionary" offensive into Iraq), but he didn't actually grasp the full implication of what faced American occupying forces. Franks was a tactician, not a strategist, and that was painfully obvious in the months after the fall of Baghdad when he failed to deliver any kind of leadership as to how US forces would deal with the rising insurgency in Iraq.

But to be fair to Frank, he was hardly the only problem with American leadership at the time, and at least he didn't whine about not getting promoted like Sanchez did.
 

Read the two Generals books. What you said is wrong.

What is wrong? First Franks had no troops near Tora Bora. Franks paid mercenaries who were there and the reports were that they did not see any sign of Osama Bin LAden. This myth has haunted Franks for years. That he saw Osama. But he never did. And never claimed he did. And the Afghans in the area went home for the night. Franks took a new route. He had the mother of all bombs flown to the Tora Bora Area and destroyed as much as he could. Osama had left Afghanistan long before Franks set his men to fight.

The very idea Franks had troops that could have blockaded Tora Bora is simply not factual.
 

You took the word of a man who once was as high as a Col in the Army who played no role at all in the two Bush wars.

Both Generals I spoke of played direct combat leadership roles and told the truth. How do we know. Documents in the Army archives tell the same story.

Franks had more troops if you recall. Turkey put the halt to Franks using them. But Franks did a super job that he should get our thanks for. Franks already has 4 stars and had turned down the job of Chief of Staff in order to retire as he promised to his wife he would.

I have beefs with Sanchez too but not to the point that at this moment I plan to discuss him.
 
Robertinfremont said:
First Franks had no troops near Tora Bora.
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Untrue. Task Force 11 was embedded with the Eastern Alliance as they pushed into Tora Bora.

Franks paid mercenaries who were there and the reports were that they did not see any sign of Osama Bin LAden.
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Frank's "mercenaries", aka the anti-Taliban fighters known as the Eastern Alliance (itself a fanciful name) simply didn't make any real effort to actually assault Tora Bora. They were poor fighters without the capacity for the offensive needed.

The very idea Franks had troops that could have blockaded Tora Bora is simply not factual.
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Except, you know, for the Marines he could have sent in.
 
Robertinfremont said:
You took the word of a man who once was as high as a Col in the Army who played no role at all in the two Bush wars.
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Irrelevant. Neither you nor I took part in the Second Punic War, but we can still talk about it in a reasonable and intelligent manner.

Both Generals I spoke of played direct combat leadership roles and told the truth. How do we know. Documents in the Army archives tell the same story.
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Whether they fought is not the issue here, the issue is Franks' poor performance.

Franks had more troops if you recall. Turkey put the halt to Franks using them.
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Untrue. Franks wanted 300,000+, all Rumsfeld would give him was 170,000.

But Franks did a super job that he should get our thanks for.
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Nothing about Franks' performance was "super". He beat up an Iraqi Army that disintegrated on first contact than completely bungled the post-war occupation.
 

Slavery was not the topic until a couple of posters started flapping their gums about it.

The South did want to also inhabit the open west and take property with them. Slaves at the time were designated property by law.

Still the South went to war due to them being invaded in Virginia. Sumter was a side show while the war at Manassas was definitely not a side show.

Sumter cost no lives.

Manassas cost plenty of lives including some civilians.

The South routed the troops and they fled to DC and Maryland. Booted their arses back where htey came from.

Abe told the country he did not fight the war about slavery. And I believe that statement to be true. And he did invade VA. And the North was in effect keeping an small invasion force in the harbor at Charleston South Carolina.
 

Bottom to top.

First, Franks told Bush ahead of him invading either Afghanistan or Iraq he was retiring. Bush talked him out of retiring so Franks promised to fight the two wars. Franks had a massive intelligent team planning both wars. And won both easily.

Franks did a brilliant job. And the ex Col can't persuade me otherwise. General Mike DeLong went to bat for Franks and backs him up completely.

If Franks wanted more troops than those he had planned to use from Turkey, one would think he would have said so in his book.Franks spoke of those troops and said he managed to win fast even without them. Franks was not denied troops. Not by Bush or Rumsfeld. His troops on the ships in the ocean were parked due to what Turkey did.

I believe had you read the two important Books I cited, you would know a lot more than you do know. Your author comes at this purely as a critic and not as a participant. And you know that.
 

I plan to check both Generals books for this task force 11. There was such a task force in WW2 and the force aka was named many names.
 

Idaho, Northern California, the interior of Oregon and Washington, Arizona, Montana.....all areas crawling with “white pride” confederate fanboys.

People who are so deeply invested in the “Lost Cause” myth that they are willing to justify any crime, believe any myth, in order to support their fantasy.

I do think it’s rather telling that the OP likes to blame Abraham Lincoln for the Civil War(which is laughable in itself) ....and yet totally exonerates Jefferson Davis and the Confederate government which, by his own standard, would be just as much to blame.
 

The South wanted to expand slavery regardless of what the inhabitants of the area wanted. They tried to flood Kansas with pro slavery fanatics which lead to a mini civil war within the civil war itself. They advocated for war with Spain over Cuba, fantasized about seizing vast amounts of land from Mexico and conquering Central America to create a “Golden Circle” and broke every agreement they ever made on the topic.

The claim that Fort Sumter was “harboring a small invasion force” is laughable. The Union troops there were totally insufficient to try and take Charleston, and had no intention of trying. They were there to guard US government property, which the south had no right to try and take.

The Union did boot the Confederate invaders out of Pennsylvania and all the way back down into Virginia, yes.

And then the USCTs helped kick the crap out of your heroes up and down the south.
 
Robertinfremont said:
And won both easily.
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Franks made partial operational successes that then fell into strategic failures. I'd hardly call that winning both easily.

Franks did a brilliant job.
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What, pray tell, did Franks do that was so brilliant?

If Franks wanted more troops than those he had planned to use from Turkey, one would think he would have said so in his book.
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Because a General has *never* ever lied or left out something of his memoirs, right?

Franks was not denied troops. Not by Bush or Rumsfeld. His troops on the ships in the ocean were parked due to what Turkey did.
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"The on-the-shelf version of OPLAN 1003, which predated 9/11, called for an invasion force of a half-million, equivalent in size to the force that had expelled Iraq from Kuwait in 1991. To Rumsfeld, one-fourth of that number sounded better. Franks counter-offered first with 385,000, then 300,000, then 275,000. Rumsfeld was still not satisfied. They settled on 170,000."

Bacevich, Andrew J.. America's War for the Greater Middle East (p. 248). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

I believe had you read the two important Books I cited, you would know a lot more than you do know.
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I read Franks book back when I was in Korea.
 

Well you display a bias unlike a historian's. Both on this matter and how you trash General Tommy Franks and his fine group of troops and all of the planners that worked hard to come up with the right plan for the troops Franks had.

And also the lie that Rumsfeld limited Franks is also refuted.
 
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You completely turned me off from reading the Bacevich Book since clearly he has a high degree of animosity towards General Tommy Franks and General DeLong as well.

In the Army I served in, a Col commanded up to around 2000 troops. Franks had many more than that and he and the other Generals and Admirals worked hard to do the job with minimum losses.
 

I never liked Tom Hayden and it is remarkable I am being told I am his fan. The lost cause is not what I call it. I call it the regrettable mistake made by Abe Lincoln who had he been a statesman, this nation would not have caused the killing of over 630,000 troops. A way for Abe to keep them alive was not to invade VA.
 
Robertinfremont said:
You completely turned me off from reading the Bacevich Book since clearly he has a high degree of animosity towards General Tommy Franks and General DeLong as well.
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lol okay. I guess you shouldn't read any books that are critical of people huh?

It's noted how you fail to provide any actual counter-information at all.

In the Army I served in, a Col commanded up to around 2000 troops. Franks had many more than that and he and the other Generals and Admirals worked hard to do the job with minimum losses.
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And? I've never commanded more than eight people, but I'm well read enough to tell you when a bad decision is a bad decision. General or not, Frank is still just a man, prone to the same mistakes and errors as any other person.

The difference being that when a four star screws up, lots more people are likely to be affected than when I screw up.
 

Wrong poster bud. But given your laughable claim that the Confederates could have conducted guerrilla warfare in ****ing Pennsylvania, I rather doubt that you are correct on that either.
 


Not really given that you are a pretty damn blatant Lost Causer and Confederate fanboy.

A “real statesman” would have hung Jefferson Davis and every member of the Confederate government and higher ranking military members in 1865.

A “real statesman” would have also hung the entire leadership of the KKK the first time they tried pulling their night rider crap, and kept doing it until the South either got the message or ran out of Klansmen.

You Confederate fanboys should count your lucky stars that Lincoln wasn’t a “real statesman” because in 1865 nobody would have said boo if he chose to do so, either internationally or here in the North.

The South made that impossible when they declared war on the US by shooting at US soldiers.

But your heroes were too desperate to defend slavery.
 

Every one of them. Either shot of, preferably, hanged, in public.

Esp. Jefferson Davis, who was allowed to live on.

That is where our country truly ****ed up.

There are, literally, 317 kinds of people. One who reads history and learns from it. And then....

Billions who hate all that and don't understand why pardoning him was such a bad move.
 

I would have been okay with sparing some of the higher ranking Confederates. James Longstreet, for instance, who was one of the very few Confederates who realized how evil the cause he had fought for was and was willing to openly say so, which made him a lot of enemies amongst his former “comrades”. Taking away Lee’s fancy estate and turning it into a cemetery was an ingenious form of punishment in all honesty considering how much he wrapped himself in family history and “prestige”.

It was the civilian “fireeaters” who really pushed for the war, and in my opinion they should have born the brunt of the punishment. States which were particularly vile— South Carolina, Texas— also should have been treated with a heavier hand than states with big Union support areas like North Carolina or Tennessee.

Major effort should have also gone into protecting the freedmen. Everything up to and including reprisal executions en masse to force the Klansmen to knock it off.
 

God DAMMIT, son, stawp book lernin'.
 
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