Howard on the Hill
For all the flak he gets, Oliver Otis Howard still cuts a striking figure on Cemetery Hill at Gettysburg.
I’ve been spending a fair amount of time with Howard lately as Dan Davis and I finish up our work on Fight Like the Devil: The First Day at Gettysburg, July 1, 1863. I’ve come to a few surprising realizations once I started looking past all the armchair generalling.
Howard is easy to scape-goat. But like Burnside at Fredericksburg, maybe 150 years of scape-goating has made it hard to see the fog.
I think I’m seeing things a little differently these days.
More to come….
IN an analysis of military history, there are winners & losers. We all too often forget that each one of these men was there to win a war, and many died trying. We often negate their efforts when the only problem was that someone else won.
but we also know like Prime Minister Winston Churchill do not ever give up the fight, that[s the way battles are won, entire wars even.