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To: stand watie
that last chance came in APR 65, when he failed to break the ANV & the other major CSA forces into guerrilla bands & fight on, until the north decided to QUIT.

You are a complete idiot, aren't you?

"Lee saw such manifest danger in this proposal to become guerillas that he began to question Alexander: "If I should take your advice, how many men do you suppose would get away?"

"Two-thirds of us. We would be like rabbits and partridges in the bushes and they could not scatter to follow us."

"I have not over 15,000 muskets left," Lee explained. "Two-thirds of them divided among the states, even if all could be collected, would be too small a force to accomplish anything. All could not be collected. Their homes have been overrun, and many would go to look after their families.

"Then, General," he 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."

Lee paused, and then he added, outwardly hopeful, on the strength of Grant's letter of the previous night, whatever his inward misgivings, "But I can tell you one thing for your comfort. Grant will not demand an unconditional surrender. He will give us as good terms as this army has the right to demand, and I am going to meet him in the rear at 10 A.M. and surrender the army on the condition of not fighting again until exchanged."

Alexander went away a humbler man. "I had not a single word to say in reply," he wrote years afterwards. "He had answered my suggestion from a plane so far above it, that I was ashamed of having made it." - "R. E. Lee" by Douglas Southall Freeman

Lee saw the folly of guerilla warfare and the horrendous impact it would have had on the Southern population, even if someone like you can not.

72 posted on 07/02/2008 2:43:58 PM PDT by Non-Sequitur
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To: Non-Sequitur

Knock off the name calling N-S.


74 posted on 07/02/2008 2:57:19 PM PDT by StoneWall Brigade
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To: Non-Sequitur
Lee saw the folly of guerilla warfare and the horrendous impact it would have had on the Southern population

He certainly knew of the horrors going on in Missouri, which was essentially a guerilla war, so did not need to imagine it.

75 posted on 07/02/2008 3:17:21 PM PDT by Lucius Cornelius Sulla (Obama "King of Kings and Lord of Lords")
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To: Non-Sequitur
I met a guy at reenactment one time who portrayed Col. Chamberland we talked for hours on end about little round top I gotta say there sure was bravery on both sides that day.
76 posted on 07/02/2008 3:26:24 PM PDT by StoneWall Brigade
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