2024 Year in Review: #6
We just had back-to-back Lincoln posts in our countdown, and now, we have back-to-back Kevin Pawlak posts. Coming in at #6 on our list of most-read posts for 2024, here’s “Lee’s Best Battle According to Lee’s Old War Horse” from June 3, 2024.
Longstreet could not bear, of course, to credit Chancellorsville as Lee’s greatest victory, because he was not present for that one. Longstreet, as he was throughout the war, was late and missed the battle.
Tsk, Tsk, Eric. Give Lee’s Old War Horse a little slack. Read Knudsen’s reply to the post. He knows more about Longstreet than you or I.
He probably does, but gosh, doesn’t even Michael Shaara have Lee saying, “But he [Longstreet] is always so slow”? Fredericksburg was an easy battle for Lee; he was already in place, and Burnside obligingly came to him to be shot down. But Chancellorsville – dividing his army not once but twice; not gambling but cooly, correctly assessing what Hooker and his commanders would do; giving Jackson free rein to take his entire Corps on the flanking march; making the correct choice to have Stuart take that command when Jackson was mortally wounded (I suspect he wanted Stuart to remain in command but was overruled by Davis in favor of Ewell); and thoroughly thrashing an army fully 40% larger than his own…that’s artistry, and even better artistry than what he did to McClellan at Sharpsburg, though on longer odds. Old Pete just missed it, is all. One must wonder – if Longstreet had been there, would he have taken credit for all of Lee’s moves? After all, not Lee, Jackson nor A. P. Hill were alive to refute them had he done so.