Posted on 10/12/2018 7:13:42 PM PDT by yesthatjallen
President Trump praised Confederate Geader Robert E. Lee as "a great general" on Friday during a campaign rally in Lebanon, Ohio.
"So Robert E. Lee was a great general. And Abraham Lincoln developed a phobia. He couldn’t beat Robert E. Lee," Trump said before launching into a monologue about Lee, Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant.
"He was going crazy. I don’t know if you know this story. But Robert E. Lee was winning battle after battle after battle. And Abraham Lincoln came home, he said, 'I can’t beat Robert E. Lee,'" Trump said.
"And he had all of his generals, they looked great, they were the top of their class at West Point. They were the greatest people. There’s only one problem — they didn’t know how the hell to win. They didn’t know how to fight. They didn’t know how," he continued.
Trump went on to say, multiple times, that Grant had a drinking problem, saying that the former president "knocked the hell out of everyone" as a Union general.
"Man was he a good general. And he’s finally being recognized as a great general," Trump added.
— NBC News (@NBCNews) October 13, 2018 Trump has drawn criticism for his defense of Confederate statues, including those of Robert E. Lee.
He drew widespread condemnation last year following a deadly rally in Charlottesville, Va., saying that white nationalist protesters were there to oppose the removal of a "very, very important" statue.
"They were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee,” Trump said at the time. “This week it's Robert E. Lee. I noticed that Stonewall Jackson is coming down. I wonder, is it George Washington next week and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You know, you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?”
Trump, speaking at another rally in Ohio last year, said that he can be one of the “most presidential” presidents to hold office. "…With the exception of the late, great Abraham Lincoln, I can be more presidential than any president that’s ever held this office,” he said to a crowd in Youngstown.
Grant did what he had to do to defeat Lee and end the war. Anyone who thinks that Lee would not have done the same had their positions been reversed is just kidding themselves.
I’ll argue Lee was a better General than Grant because of the differences of resources at their disposal. Grant had enough soldiers and materiel that he could just keep putting more into the fight. Lee has to be much more tactical with limited resources that could not be replaced. That the war went on as long as it did with the disparity in resources is a testimony to the better use and application of those resources, and likely the better generals in the field of the CSA....IMHO. From a historical perspective, I’ve always wondered if Lee kept a defensive posture and just sought to defend the Confederacy from northern invasion, and not make any forays into the north (Gettysburg), if they could have held out longer and the north would have eventually sought peace.
The problem with that is that you assume that Jackson would have come from the north as Ewell did. Lee had long planned to reorganize his army from two corps into three and would have done it after Chancellorsville regardless of whether Jackson died or not. At Gettysburg Jackson could just as easily have been the once coming from the west instead of A. P. Hill.
The South, by comparison, was almost a third world country. Shelby Foote pointed that out also in Ken Burns's Civil War series, in one of the final episodes ("The South never stood a chance, really" - his words, not mine).
In very broad terms, and greatly over simplified, logistics / materiel usually wins.
He knew how to win. And he outlasted us. Being a good general isn’t all about moving pieces around on a map. It’s about winning.
I understand we pretty much won every battle. But he won the war. He used ALL his tools. That is the sign of a winning General.
“And yet Grant had no problems cutting himself off from supply line and reinforcements...”
For crying out loud, I obviously was referring to his overall support of men and material for his total war effort as compared to Lee. He knew he could afford to make mistakes.
I am not an historian, but Winston Churchill was a noted historian, and he wrote that Lee was one of the greatest generals in world history. I don’t know what he thought about Grant.
Point taken...fun to speculate on this stuff though.
Abraham Lincoln thought so,too. Lee was his first choice to lead the Grand Army of the Republic.
===”I’m not sure that was an error. Even with the odds against him at Gettysburg, trying for an unlikely victory on Union soil may have been the best chance Lee had. Sometimes you have to play the cards you’re dealt.”====
It’s arguable, but the topography was against Lee. Meade didn’t have to be smarter than Lee because he had teh high ground and teh best position. For Lee, retreating and trying to outflank Meade and move toward DC might have been smarter than attacking the Union center and getting wiped out.
I think almost outflanking the Union Army the day before gave Lee the false sense that he was within a nose hair of victory, leading to Picketts’ disaster the next day.
Naw, that's a lie because you hate "the North" precisely the same degree you claim others hate "the South".
If you didn't, you wouldn't be so obnoxious in your posts.
wardaddy: "I detest you cowards who bash my ancestry as Nazis while we hold on as the most reliable conservative part of the nation...a fact not lost on our president"
Nobody on this thread said anything about Nazis, though we did remark on some exceptional German WWII generals.
wardaddy: "And now you’re calling Donald Trump a Lost Causer too...lord you sound like Brook Baldwin"
I posted nothing remotely implying that, so why do you lie about it?
wardaddy: "Quit being a coward and tell us who you are.
The light is shining quite well on you right now"
Every thread you ask that and every time I give you the same answer: check out my home page, it will tell you everything you could reasonably want to know.
I can add now that anybody who knows me, or knows of me, will see immediately from my screen name who I am.
wardaddy: "A nice thread with folks being congenial and polite till your Antifa like crowd shows up and craps in the punch bowl in concert as always"
That's a lie, and you know it.
Wardaddy was the first poster to start slinging the cr*p, and why, exactly?
Because Rockingham pointed out factually that RE Lee was more aggressive militarily than the Confederacy could support.
And that is fact, not "south hater" opinion.
If you doubt me, the ask Central_va if he agrees?
wardaddy: " Go ahead and address with Mr Thompson your concerns that Trumps views on Lee makes him a Lost Causer bigot
I want to see this"
Total nonsense, doubtless some sort of psychological projection, where, typical Democrat, you take the worst of your own feeling and project them onto others.
Your problem, in my opinion, is you're on a late-night hair trigger which fired rounds down range long before there was a real target in sight.
Sure, you might call that "suppressing fire" but I'd call it just wasting ammo.
Get some rest, FRiend.
Several here have made similar points, but there are important distinctions:
When Grant faced lesser Confederate generals in the West, he proved a master of tactics, movement, combined arms & on-the-spot innovation.
It wasn't until Grant faced another master tactician like Lee that Grant was forced to abandon tactics & finesse in favor of so-called "brute force".
Bottom line is Grant did what he had to to win, period.
No question he was the greatest!.
...
The battle isn’t about ‘north’ -vs- ‘south’ today. We both won and lost that battle.
It is about ‘American’ -vs- ‘leftist’.
We will either all win or lose that one...
Right, the Rock of Chickamauga was cautious almost to a fault. If he had hypothetically been teamed up with, say, Longstreet they may have together served the Confederacy better than did, for examples, Lee & JB Hood.
He merely pointed out facts and wasn’t ‘South bashing’. Lee may have been brilliant but he did have failings.
Lee won most battles where he occupied the high ground in a defensive position and lost most the battles where he was attacking an entrenched Union force that had the high ground.
And there was a mythology built up around Lee. Many placed the blame for the disastrous defeat at Gettysburg not on Lee, but Longstreet because of it.
Just a suggestion, but you might want to hold your fire and wait for people who make nasty derogatory statements about your heroes.
History is the greatest teacher.
Lee was a loyal, intelligent general, and did what he thought best for our country. A civil war is never clear cut, even racially, and ‘right/wrong’. When brother is killing brother priorities have become drastically conflicted and regrettably compromised... I truly and honestly hope and pray we never return there again, although I fear that may happen.
Regardless of what anyone thinks of the outcome, let it never be questioned that the civil war was the hell we should never have entered. And FWIW, the left WANTS us divided and fighting, even bloody civil war, because it advances THEIR agenda.
Be REASONABLE, and the one’s who are not “in their face”, and
advocating reasonable conversation instead of conflict as Hillary (’cant be reasonable’), and Watters (Get in their face), and Obama (2007 ‘get in their face’) and recently former DOJ Holder “They go low...kick them”....
The left is melting down. Let them. Don’t get in their way.
They are going hard left, and if we let them go hard left while appealing to the right and center things will go well for us IMHO...
The South's days were numbered. Given the blockade of the South, and the North's industrial base, Lee had relatively little time to force a victory that could be used as leverage to negotiate for peace. Gettysburg was a large enough engagement to matter to the public, and it was in the North, which would have mattered politically. Perhaps there was an element of overconfidence, or perhaps he drew to an inside straight because he knew he had to win a hand. Personally, I think he was at least drawing to an outside straight. I stood on Little Round Top last weekend, thinking about how close that part of the battle was. Gettysburg was certainly not hopeless for the South and may have been Lee's best chance.
If Lee had won, that battle might have allowed for a negotiated peace. Retreat, even a retreat toward DC could easily have meant numerous smaller skirmishes but no decisive engagement, which would have meant no political solution and certain defeat in the long run. I can see your perspective, but I don't think Lee could count on another opportunity for a decisive engagement that year. Gettysburg was in July, and Sherman would start his March to the Sea the next spring. I suspect Lee knew that the South didn't have the resources to hold out for another year of fighting.
As opposed to those who died for the likes of JP Morgan and the like. You know the people that exploited 10 and 12 year old children!!!
Your post is right on!!! The south took the only shot they had left !!!
——If Lee had won, that battle might have allowed for a negotiated peace. Retreat, even a retreat toward DC could easily have meant numerous smaller skirmishes but no decisive engagement, which would have meant no political solution and certain defeat in the long run. I can see your perspective, but I don’t think Lee could count on another opportunity for a decisive engagement that year-——
That might have been Lee’s thought process. The problem is that he was in a terrible topographical situation at Gettysburg. I think Longstreet’s view was something like, “We can take an almost guaranteed decisive loss here, or move the army and try to win a decisive battle on better ground in another location. Lose here for sure, or redeploy, wait a little longer and maybe still win.”
Lee gambled and lost, but I agree with you that there was no obvious correct answer before the disaster on Day 3. Longstreet just thought that in hindsight it was a bad gamble.
No war has ever been won on defense.
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