During the first day of Second Manassas, as the Federals called it, the Yankees repeatedly tried to seize the artillery placed on the hill by the Brawner Farm. 
This picture is the view from the gunner's side. They were repulsed, but many regiments on both sides lost up to 70% of their men.
How did they do it? War had become a "sanguinary affair," as Jackson put it. The tactics were still largely Napoleonic with set piece arrangements attempting flanking maneuvers, turning and turning, hoping to push your opponent into collapsing his position. The minie ball, however, had changed all that. That fat, rifled round could kill a man at 1,000 yards and due to it's large caliber, could cause horrific open wounds impossible for the medicine of the time to deal with. Maneuverability and speed versus tightly regimented drill field performance became the secrets of battlefield success, but the majority of military leaders of the time failed to grasp that reality. Southern leaders, like Nathan Bedford Forrest, figured it out - with deception, speed and ingenuity he frequently defeated forces far larger than his. Ulysses S. Grant never did figure it out...he didn't have to. He had a cold mathematical perspective of engagement - as long as he was losing at a rate slightly less than 3 to 1, he was winning.
There are a number of lessons to be gleaned from this quick overview of a major battle in the War between the States fought almost 150 years ago, but I will touch on a few salient ones for our time.
First - it is very hard to convince people of the facts if they have a pre-set impression of the events around them. The Union Commander, John Pope, knew that Lee had split his army in half, sending Jackson around the Union Army to raid the Union Supply Depot at Manassas...so far, so good. He developed a picture of the battle in his head where he pulled his army from the line, counter-marched north and caught Jackson by surprise, destroying half of Lee's vaunted Army of Northern Virginia. Problem was, as soon as he left his position on the Rappahanock River, Lee's other half army under Longstreet pulled up stake and swung west and north at a faster pace. After Jackson disappeared (he hid his army behind the aforementioned abandoned rail bed) Pope wasted two days poking around looking for him. Guess who showed up. Even then, on the second day of the battle, as his left flank was being overrun by Hood's hard charging Texans, Pope refused to believe it possible that Longstreet's Corps had arrived.
There is a lot of Popish (let's not confuse it with "Papal") thinking on the left...a few examples:
1) Tax cuts only benefit the rich. This oft repeated mantra is nauseating...ranks right up there with "Bush lied, people died" and the definition of a "cut" as "a budgetary event wherein you receive less of an increase than originally contemplated."
2) The government is the best solution to all problems. Got a financial problem, the government can help. Need your car repaired? The Executive Branch is on the job. How about a warranty for those wheels? Consider it done! Little chill coming on from the rough weather? Government heath care is there for you. Cradle to grave, the Federal Government will help you through.
3)There is no argument against global warming...debate over, kaput. Ignore the evidence that the earth is actually cooling and the hundreds of scientists that dispute the bad science that helped reach this conclusion. This is all for another post, but this hoax is being used to foist dangerous straps over the Gulliver of capitalism.
Mind you, there's some Popish thinking on the right too...things like "we can reason with our opponents across the aisle and meet halfway." Silly Elephant Leaders still think they can work with radicals. Worse still, they believe they can out-Santa Claus the left if they could just get back into power.
Second, the corollary to my first observation - you cannot convince someone who has a pre-judgment that they are wrong - the only recourse is to defeat them. Pope failed to acknowledge that the picture of the battle had changed until he was crossing the bridge over Bull Run Creek, scampering towards Centreville with what was left of his army.
The Popish thinking prevalent now that defies this maxim at it's own peril include -
1) Executives from car companies to electric utilities have tried to put forward their watered down versions of a cap and trade legislation hoping, like begging dogs at a table, to get a pat on the head from the overweight diners at the Congressional table. Fools! Spend your money on a public relations/advertising campaign that illustrates how destructive cap and trade legislation is. Getting half of something really bad is the lobster treatment - they put you in the pot and slowly turn up the heat till it's too late.
2) A little government health insurance built into the budget can't be all bad...can it? Think lobster...come to think of it, maybe the Tea Party Crowd should adopt the lobster as a mascot.
3) It's OK for the Treasury Secretary to be a tax cheat - after all, he's the smartest guy for the job! In the broad spanse of our nation, we can't find ONE other person that is as qualified as the Boy Wonder?? To paraphrase the great William F. Buckley, "I would rather entrust the government to the first 400 people listed in the Boston phone directory." If we cannot have leaders that are honest and ethical - oh hell, what am I saying - but darn it, this guy is running the IRS for pete's sake!
Third - tactics must adapt to the weapons deployed against them. The lesson of the minie ball is profound and in military history it is repeated often - can you say "Maginot Line?" Obama as a candidate and now as President has deployed a phenomenal machine into the field. He brings together the internet with the power of community organization groups like ACORN and the racially charged churches to keep a grass roots cult movement going. You are not going to defeat that trying to emulate it...this video sums it up well:
New ways of presenting the conservative argument need to be considered. Conservatism needs to be packaged not as something that somehow reaches out to control you - conservatism IS freedom. We don't try to tell you how to live your life...how many hours you can watch your TV or what doctor you have to see. We believe in the individual and in the empowering gift of freedom. While that should be cool enough for a younger generation, it has to be packaged well and sold. Obama became a brand, then he became a cult. Going head to head with cultists is not a good option...laughing him out of office because he is an empty, teleprompting suit is. Humor is a wonderful balm and needs to be applied, dare I say it, liberally!
My final observation from my recent sojourn in Northern Virginia is this - people can rise to do incredible things when the institutions they hold dear are in jeapordy. The courage to storm massed guns is incomprehensible to me...but if the option were a return to slavery, I could do it. I do not speak hyperbolically to say that is where we are. To the ramparts!
Rumble on!
This picture is the view from the gunner's side. They were repulsed, but many regiments on both sides lost up to 70% of their men.How did they do it? War had become a "sanguinary affair," as Jackson put it. The tactics were still largely Napoleonic with set piece arrangements attempting flanking maneuvers, turning and turning, hoping to push your opponent into collapsing his position. The minie ball, however, had changed all that. That fat, rifled round could kill a man at 1,000 yards and due to it's large caliber, could cause horrific open wounds impossible for the medicine of the time to deal with. Maneuverability and speed versus tightly regimented drill field performance became the secrets of battlefield success, but the majority of military leaders of the time failed to grasp that reality. Southern leaders, like Nathan Bedford Forrest, figured it out - with deception, speed and ingenuity he frequently defeated forces far larger than his. Ulysses S. Grant never did figure it out...he didn't have to. He had a cold mathematical perspective of engagement - as long as he was losing at a rate slightly less than 3 to 1, he was winning.
There are a number of lessons to be gleaned from this quick overview of a major battle in the War between the States fought almost 150 years ago, but I will touch on a few salient ones for our time.
First - it is very hard to convince people of the facts if they have a pre-set impression of the events around them. The Union Commander, John Pope, knew that Lee had split his army in half, sending Jackson around the Union Army to raid the Union Supply Depot at Manassas...so far, so good. He developed a picture of the battle in his head where he pulled his army from the line, counter-marched north and caught Jackson by surprise, destroying half of Lee's vaunted Army of Northern Virginia. Problem was, as soon as he left his position on the Rappahanock River, Lee's other half army under Longstreet pulled up stake and swung west and north at a faster pace. After Jackson disappeared (he hid his army behind the aforementioned abandoned rail bed) Pope wasted two days poking around looking for him. Guess who showed up. Even then, on the second day of the battle, as his left flank was being overrun by Hood's hard charging Texans, Pope refused to believe it possible that Longstreet's Corps had arrived.
There is a lot of Popish (let's not confuse it with "Papal") thinking on the left...a few examples:
1) Tax cuts only benefit the rich. This oft repeated mantra is nauseating...ranks right up there with "Bush lied, people died" and the definition of a "cut" as "a budgetary event wherein you receive less of an increase than originally contemplated."
2) The government is the best solution to all problems. Got a financial problem, the government can help. Need your car repaired? The Executive Branch is on the job. How about a warranty for those wheels? Consider it done! Little chill coming on from the rough weather? Government heath care is there for you. Cradle to grave, the Federal Government will help you through.
3)There is no argument against global warming...debate over, kaput. Ignore the evidence that the earth is actually cooling and the hundreds of scientists that dispute the bad science that helped reach this conclusion. This is all for another post, but this hoax is being used to foist dangerous straps over the Gulliver of capitalism.
Mind you, there's some Popish thinking on the right too...things like "we can reason with our opponents across the aisle and meet halfway." Silly Elephant Leaders still think they can work with radicals. Worse still, they believe they can out-Santa Claus the left if they could just get back into power.
Second, the corollary to my first observation - you cannot convince someone who has a pre-judgment that they are wrong - the only recourse is to defeat them. Pope failed to acknowledge that the picture of the battle had changed until he was crossing the bridge over Bull Run Creek, scampering towards Centreville with what was left of his army.
The Popish thinking prevalent now that defies this maxim at it's own peril include -
1) Executives from car companies to electric utilities have tried to put forward their watered down versions of a cap and trade legislation hoping, like begging dogs at a table, to get a pat on the head from the overweight diners at the Congressional table. Fools! Spend your money on a public relations/advertising campaign that illustrates how destructive cap and trade legislation is. Getting half of something really bad is the lobster treatment - they put you in the pot and slowly turn up the heat till it's too late.
2) A little government health insurance built into the budget can't be all bad...can it? Think lobster...come to think of it, maybe the Tea Party Crowd should adopt the lobster as a mascot.
3) It's OK for the Treasury Secretary to be a tax cheat - after all, he's the smartest guy for the job! In the broad spanse of our nation, we can't find ONE other person that is as qualified as the Boy Wonder?? To paraphrase the great William F. Buckley, "I would rather entrust the government to the first 400 people listed in the Boston phone directory." If we cannot have leaders that are honest and ethical - oh hell, what am I saying - but darn it, this guy is running the IRS for pete's sake!
Third - tactics must adapt to the weapons deployed against them. The lesson of the minie ball is profound and in military history it is repeated often - can you say "Maginot Line?" Obama as a candidate and now as President has deployed a phenomenal machine into the field. He brings together the internet with the power of community organization groups like ACORN and the racially charged churches to keep a grass roots cult movement going. You are not going to defeat that trying to emulate it...this video sums it up well:
New ways of presenting the conservative argument need to be considered. Conservatism needs to be packaged not as something that somehow reaches out to control you - conservatism IS freedom. We don't try to tell you how to live your life...how many hours you can watch your TV or what doctor you have to see. We believe in the individual and in the empowering gift of freedom. While that should be cool enough for a younger generation, it has to be packaged well and sold. Obama became a brand, then he became a cult. Going head to head with cultists is not a good option...laughing him out of office because he is an empty, teleprompting suit is. Humor is a wonderful balm and needs to be applied, dare I say it, liberally!
My final observation from my recent sojourn in Northern Virginia is this - people can rise to do incredible things when the institutions they hold dear are in jeapordy. The courage to storm massed guns is incomprehensible to me...but if the option were a return to slavery, I could do it. I do not speak hyperbolically to say that is where we are. To the ramparts!
Rumble on!