Did You Hear It?
Today (Monday, January 15) on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program, I heard Princeton professor Eddie Glaude Jr. comment on “a culture war Donald Trump is waging as if he was Sherman marching through the South.”
Here In Georgia, we have heard Sherman’s march equated with lots of things, but likening it to a Trumpian modern-day culture war is a new twist, indeed.
Did anyone else hear this?
No, I didn’t see it, but, here is the only site I found on the ‘Net that mentions it.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/01/morning-joe-panel-trump-supporters-are-throwing-democracy-in-the-trash-in-the-name-of-racist-culture-war/
Hilarious analogy. Didn’t MLK, Jr. wage successful culture wars as well? Unfortunate identity politics by an award winning academician. His major work is “How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul.” I would suggest that this is true only if you let it, or, as in the case of some, obviously want it to. The real tragedy is in the inability of some to admit the sea change in attitude among the white communities. I would also politely suggest that opposition to some members of the black leadership does not equate to racism.
Recent developments undercut your assertions.
How so?
I’ll wager you can figure that one out if you follow the news even casually.
Who would listen to a contemporary professor?
The analogy is probably the strongest compliment you could give President Trump. Sherman’s March to the Sea & through the Carolinas was the most decisive strategic & psychological maneuver of the entire war; key to the victory end game.
Not if Hood crushed Scofield at Spring Hill. Then Sherman would have looked like a dolt.
John:
Are you saying that Hood could have defeated Thomas’ army outside Nashville in the middle of a bitter winter, even if Schofield had been defeated at Spring Hill? Not a snowball’s (pardon the pun) chance in Hell.
War is calculated risk. Sherman proved his superiority in this at the highest strategic level. At Spring Hill & Franklin, he still had the inept Hood & his staff & subordinates to botch opportunities & continue to destroy their own army with suicidal frontal attacks. If you want to play the “what if” game, had Sherman captured Hood in Atlanta or Hood made a 4th major attack near Atlanta, the Western Theater would have been ended 3 months earlier than it did & heightened the impact even more.
Bob, Thomas did not have an “army”. Her had a patchwork of units that he was furiously trying to organize. Scofield’s elimination would have removed the largest coherent force Thomas had. I seriously doubt that Thomas would have been up to any immediate offensive action, involving snowballs or otherwise. Had Hood sidestepped Nashville, I wonder how brilliant Sherman would have appeared then, strategic or otherwise. Lincoln kept intoning about going after the enemy’s army. Sherman wanders off in the opposite direction, leaving Thomas with all the heavy lifting. Luckily, because as a tactician Sherman was consistently mediocre. His reconnaissance at Cassville was pathetic, his separation of his component armies before Peachtree more than a calculated risk, and only Hardee’s slows saved him from a serious check at the Battle of Atlanta.Hood’s problem wasn’t his tactical ineptitude, it was that he was commanding the Army of Tennessee, not the Army of Northern Virginia.
Those are valid points about Sherman. As a tactician he wasn’t much better than the consistently mediocre Stonewall. I wouldn’t overstate Hood’s skills as a tactician, however (particularly at a level above division command). Once he got to the environs of Nashville he made some mistakes himself which certainly didn’t help his cause.
True. By the war’s end there were so many emotionally and physically damaged individuals in all levels of command, that rational decision making took supreme effort. For every Custer and Sheridan, who fed on war, there was a Warren and a Hood.
And glad to see I’m not alone in fighting against the myth of Stonewall. Complex individual, Inspirational on a battlefield, but a bumbling tactician.