By Raoul Lowery Contreras
In the pantheon of American heroes, two men stand out to me as being the best of the best, they are Abraham Lincoln generals William Tecumseh Sherman and cavalry general John Buford.
When the Republican Party wanted General Sherman to run for President in 1868 he said, “If nominated, I will not run, if elected I will not serve.” Of war, “War is Hell.” During the Civil War, he conceived a theory that he had to render war a daily horror for the people of the State of Georgia so they would quit supporting the “great cause” and would demand the war end.
He led an army that, like Sherman, wanted to punish all southerners for starting the war of secession, the war of “national divorce.” The war in which over 600,000 Americans died, over 250,000 killed in action, the rest from disease or accidents.
The people of Georgia were crushed by Sherman’s “March to the Sea’ Their cattle were expropriated, their corn and every bit of edible food was collected by union soldiers so they could eat. Cotton was either expropriated or burned. Georgians still hate General Sherman.
I think he was the best general in Lincoln’s army, second only to General U.S. Grant, the top general in the Union Army. Why? Because his proposed “March to the sea” worked. Then after a month’s rest General Sherman pivoted north through the Carolina’s and presented President Lincoln with a massive three state victory that gutted the Confederacy’s spirit shortening the war perhaps by a year or more.
On the night of June 30th, 1863, General John Buford and his 2500 Union horse soldiers, mounted infantry, arrived in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Confederate soldiers, 20,000 of them, arrived the next morning. Buford had six cannons.
Buford gathered his officers; this is what he told them: “You know what’s gonna happen here in the morning? Whole damn Reb army’s gonna be here…(New Union commander Meade will line up our troops and attack) straight up the hillside, out in the open, in that gorgeous field of fire. We will charge valiantly……and be butchered valiantly! And afterwards, men in tall hats and gold watch fobs will thump their chests and say what a brave charge it was.”
General Buford’s men organized their soldiers in defensive lines blocking the only road 20,000 Confederates had into Gettysburg the morning of July Buford informed his commander that he expected to hold on for two hours, what with being outnumbered almost seven to one. The main Union support regiments were 10 miles away. Buford told his men they had to hold until reinforcements arrived. When they arrived, General Buford greeted the rebels with “There’s the Devil to pay.”
Buford’s hopes were that his men could hold their ground for two hours once fighting started; Buford’s men held the high ground for eight hours.
Confederate general Robert E. Lee’s troops wound up making a famous frontal attack across a mile worth of uphill charge led by a general named Picket. Thousands died just as Buford predicted. And despite Lee’s troops winning the battles of July 1 and 2, the suicidal Confederate attack of General Picket was overwhelmed by the Union forces on the high ground and the battle of Gettysburg ended as a Union victory. The victory was the beginning of the end. A 24 months later Lee surrendered.
The United States of America won the war because it won the Battle of Gettysburg.
Now, a brainless Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG), Republican House member representing Georgia’s 14th congressional district, is calling for a “national divorce” of “Red” states and “”Blue” states, Red being Republican. That is stupid. Moreover, the “Blue” people of 1861 were pro-slavery Democrats. They were, by definition in the Constitution TRAITORS as they made “war on the United States.”
Now it’s MTG’s turn. A “national divorce” didn’t work in 1861. The people that tried it then we’re stupid and traitors. MTG is just plain stupid. Is she a traitor also, like her ancestors that ripped the country apart and slaughtered 600,000 Americans? We’ll see.
###
Contreras is a U.S. Marine veteran, political consultant, author, newspaper columnist and hosts the Contreras Report on YouTube and on ROKU Television in the U.S. and Mexico
