Given George S. Patton, Jr.’s success as an armored commander and his success as an army commander, it’s easy to forget that he was an old horse cavalryman. In 1921, Patton, then a major in the 3rd Cavalry, wrote this essay, which sums up the mentality of the horse cavalryman. The essay is titled “The Cavalryman”. It’s a favorite:

“There is always room at the top,” is a favorite phrase for the advertisements of correspondence courses.

This is true in all walks of life, but in none is it truer than in regard to leaders of Cavalry.

Since the time when the increased complexity of war made the division into several arms necessary, there have been many good generals of armies, good infantrymen and good artillerymen not a few, but the good cavalrymen can be counted on the fingers of your hands.

This does not mean that the leader of cavalry must be of superior clay to his brethren of the other arms, but it does mean that he must possess a combination of qualities not often found in one individual.

He must have a passion – not simply a liking – for horses, for nothing short of an absorbing passion can make him take the necessary interest in his mount.

A diploma, even from [Fort] Riley, does no more than give a good start on the line which must be followed and developed.

He must be a veterinarian in theory and practice; a farrier and a horsehoer better than any man in his troop; a stable sergeant and horse trainer; a saddler. Above all he must possess a sense of obligation to his mount, which, with the whip of a remorseless conscience makes him – him personally – seek the welfare of his horses above his own.

No one acquires these qualities at teas or card parties, or by slapping his leg with his whip.

Such knowledge can only be acquired by reading books on horse diseases, on horse management, on conditioning, and training. By association with horsemen of all sorts and conditions wherever met. What he reads and sees and hears will not all be useful, or all correct. Much of it will be bunk, but little by little, through the years, constant research and above all, constant experimentation will lead finally to the acquirement of a little knowledge.
But, while so learning and working, he must remember that the things he e is accomplishing are not ends. He is neither a stable sergeant, nor a horseshoer, nor a veterinarian; such arts are but means. The end is to become a cavalry officer who will be a success in war.

The officer who never looks after his ponies after a game to see that they are properly put away; or who at the end of a long march or hard drill says, “Sergeant, fix up the horses, I’ll be back soon,” and then beats it, is not building for war; is not earning his pay. He is without pride and lazy, and the men know it and despise him while neglecting the horses.

I have said that all the foregoing things must be done with the object of obtaining success in war; but why?

Because, success in war depends on getting to the right place at the right time. Neither result may be attained if the horses play out. When the great moment for which he has lived comes, all his knowledge, no matter how hard he has worked, will seem pitifully inadequate to enable him to get exhausted and half starved horses over waterless country on time. Time, I repeat; let him brand that word into his soul. Nearly all the remediable failures of the world result from being late.

An now, suppose that the officer has possessed himself of these qualities; affection for the horse; tenacity of purpose; a studious mind; a feeling of obligation and a sense of time. What are the other qualifications he must acquire?

A thorough knowledge of war by reading histories, lives of cavalrymen, by the study of the tactics of his arm and by the constant working of problems. This, too, will take strength of will and hard work, but, again assuming that he has succeeded, what is the final quality which he must acquire?

He must rain himself into the possession of a Gambler’s Courage.

Since General Chauvel has destroyed the idea that the horse is precluded from the battlefield, and has shown that bullets are impotent to stop determined valor, the successful cavalryman must educate himself to say Charge! I say educate himself, for the man is not born who can say it out of hand. There are several reasons for this.

For years, we have been taught that fire is irresistible, our experience on the target range has strengthened the myth. We picture sheets of cupro-nickel (I had almost said lead) sweeping in devastating hurricane over the field.

At maneuvers we have been taught to skip on foot from bush to rock-like sand fleas on the beach.

Civilization has affected us; we abhor personal encounter. Many a man will risk his life, with an easy mind, in a burning house, who recoils from having his face punched. We have been taught to restrain our emotions, to look upon anger as low, until many of us have never experienced the God sent ecstasy of unbridled wrath. We have never felt our eyes screw up, our temples throb, and the red mist gather in our sight.

And we expect that a man, the result of all this, shall, in an instant, the twinkling of an eye, direct himself of all restraint of all caution and hurl himself on the enemy, a frenzied beast, lusting to probe his foeman’s guts with three feet of steel or shatter his brains with a bullet. Gentlemen, it cannot be done – not without mental practice.

That is why it is easier to attack on foot than to charge mounted. It seems more refined. There, in front, are those dear futile bushes of maneuvers, the bullets sing and whisper but there is more time to get used to them. It takes courage, higher moral courage to walk to death than to gallop at it. But, it is the form of courage which our civilization has given us. It is the courage of the burning house; not of the bloody nose.

Therefore, you must school yourself to savagery. You must imagine how it will feel when your sword hilt crashes into the breast bone of your enemy. You must picture the wild exaltation of the mounted charge when the lips draw back in a snarl and the voice cracks with passion.

While on the march or at horse exercise, you must say to yourself, “There is the enemy at the corner! What do I do? Charge!!” You must ride stiff fences, you must play polo.

When you have acquired the ability to develop on necessity, momentary and calculated savagery, you can keep your twentieth century clarity of vision with which to calculate the chances of whether to charge or fight on foot, and having decided on the former, the magic word will transform you temporarily into a frenzied brute.

To use the words which Conan Doyle puts in the mouth of his hero Gerard, you have equipped yourselves with, “A heart of fire and a brain of ice.”

To sum up, then, you must be: a horse master; a scholar; a high minded gentleman; a cold blooded hero; a hot blooded savage. At one and the same time, you must be a wise man and a fool. You must not get fat or mentally old, and you must be a personal Leader.

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Yesterday, Dimitri Rotov had a post about Brig. Gen. Napoleon Bonaparte Buford, the older half brother of John Buford. I responded and gave Dimitri some information. That exchange of information got me thinking about Army politics during the Civil War, and how those Army politics influenced lives and careers. Here’s the best example I can think of.

“John Buford was the best cavalryman I ever saw,” remembered his dear friend, Brig. Gen. John Gibbon. “I have always expressed the belief that had Buford lived he would have been placed in command of the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac, and once in that position he never would have been displaced.” Another officer of the 1st U. S. Cavalry said of Buford, “He had the respect and esteem of every man in the army, and the cavalry loved him as a father.” In the days after his brilliant performance at Gettysburg, a number of high-ranking officers, including Meade, lobbied to have John Buford promoted to major general. That promotion did not arrive until the day John Buford died, December 16, 1863. That day, Lincoln scrawled a hand-written note to Stanton asking that Buford be promoted to major general, dating to July 1, 1863. When the commission was presented to Buford in the hours just before he died, in a moment of lucidity, he supposedly said “Too late….now I wish I could live.”

Buford’s background and family history haunted his Civil War military career. He was a Democrat, who was born in Kentucky. His wife was raised with her first cousin, Brig. Gen. Basil W. Duke, who was John Hunt Morgan’s brother-in-law and a fine Confederate cavalryman in his own right. John Buford’s first cousin Brig. Gen. Abraham Buford commanded a division of Confederate cavalry under Nathan Bedford Forrest. Buford became a victim of unfortunate consequences through no fault of his own. Mix in Buford’s own disdain for the press and his penchant for avoiding publicity, and it creates a recipe for trouble that prevented him from achieving the high rank he deserved, and forever changed the complexion of the Army of the Potomac’s Cavalry Corps.

When news of the shelling of Fort Sumter arrived in Salt Lake City in 1861–where Buford was stationed–there was a lot of suspicion that he would follow his Southern roots. At that time, Buford roomed with another captain with Southern antecedents, John Gibbon. Buford and Gibbon were the best of friends–they had a lot in common, and they shared a lot personality traits. Buford’s brother-in-law, a prominent Frankfort merchant named Philip Swigert, had arranged with Gov. Beriah Magoffin that Buford be offered command of all of neutral Kentucky’s troops. Gibbon watched Buford read the letter, and waited for his response. When Gibbon asked what Buford intended to do, Buford responded, “I intend to tell him that I am a captain in the United States Army, and that I intend to remain one.”

In spite of this clear declaration of loyalty to the Union, there were frequent questions about Buford’s fidelity and dependability–as stated, he was a Democrat with Southern roots and lots of stuff in his closet. I have often said that the best single decision that John Pope ever made was to pluck Buford out of the inspector general’s office, have him promoted to brigadier (he held his Regular Army rank of major at the time), and give him command of a brigade in the Army of Virginia. As you well know, Pope was a nearly unmitigated disaster that greatly embarrassed Lincoln and Stanton, who had hand-selected him. Unfortunately, those events meant that Buford was closely associated with Pope, who quickly became a pariah after the twin debacles at Second Bull Run and Chantilly.

Consequently, many have speculated that the combination of all of these things (Pope, Democrat, Southern roots, etc, etc.) actually prevented John Buford from being promoted until it no longer matter–a couple of hours before his untimely death of typhoid fever.

So go Army politics. In the 1870’s, not long before he died, Joe Hooker gave an interview to a San Francisco newspaper. Hooker went to his grave blaming George Stoneman and William Woods Averell for his defeat at Chancellorsville, and that never changed. However, in that interview, Hooker made a statement that really provides deep insight: “I had to put Stoneman in command, and neither he nor Averell were of any account. I sent them to cut off Lee’s connections and the devils went so far around to avoid an enemy that they never accomplished anything they were sent for. If John Buford had been given the command the result would have been different.”

Alfred Pleasonton ranked Buford by nine days. When Stoneman took medical leave on May 15, 1863, Pleasonton took temporary command of the Army of the Potomac’s Cavalry Corps as its senior officer. But for these issues, Buford probably would have been promoted prior to Pleasonton. The complexion of that Cavalry Corps would have been very different indeed. Buford was thus a victim of the Army’s labyrinthine political machinations. Had Buford not taken ill, and had Gibbon’s prognostication held true–John Buford assuming command of the Cavalry Corps in 1864–and I seriously doubt that Phil Sheridan ever would have been brought east to assume command of that Cavalry Corps.

“For want of a nail, the kingdom was lost.”

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The second commander of the Army of the Potomac’s Cavalry Corps was Maj. Gen. Alfred Pleasonton. Pleasonton, a West Pointer and career dragoon, was a guy with an agenda. And that agenda was not battlefield glory. Pleasonton was a lead from the rear kind of a guy who was a masterful schemer and political intriguer. Pleasonton was the sort of guy who would start a fight on the playground and then step back and watch the chaos that he had started.

He was also one of the worst xenophobes I have ever encountered. Pleasonton hated foreigners with a passion so deep and so abiding that he found a way to remove all high ranking officers of foreign birth from his command through systematic manipulation. Percy Wyndham, an Englishman, made it easy–he was severely wounded at Brandy Station on June 9, 1863. Luigi Palma di Cesnola, an Italian count from an ancient ennobled family was badly wounded and captured at the Battle of Aldie, again making it easy. Others were more difficult. Maj. Gen. Julius Stahel, a Hungarian, ranked Pleasonton, and it was only through political intriguing that Stahel was removed from the path. Brig. Gen. Alfred N. Duffie, a Frenchman with a checkered past, was a classic example of the Peter Principle in action. Pleasonton got rid of Duffie by sacrificing his fine, veteran regiment by sending it on a mission behind enemy lines alone and unsupported, and the regiment was chopped to bits. That was reprehensible in the extreme.

Although Pleasonton was a good judge of talent–he arranged for the promotion of three good young officers–Wesley Merritt, Elon J. Farnsworth, and George A. Custer–from captain to brigadier general on June 28, 1863. He also had some real administrative talent. However, he was not an inspirational leader, and he was no brilliant tactician or strategist.

In short, his legacy is no real legacy. It’s hard to find another officer in the Army of the Potomac who reached higher rank and left less of a legacy than did Alf Pleasonton. And for that alone, he remains a paradox.

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Last night, I gave a talk to the Raleigh (NC) Civil War Roundtable. I did a comparison and contrast of Wade Hampton and Jeb Stuart, and in the course of preparing the talk, I realized that the TRUE Wizard of the Saddle was not Nathan Bedford Forrest, for the reasons set forth below, but rather Wade Hampton.

Here are the reasons:

1. Unlike Forrest, Wade Hampton was THE quintessential subordinate officer. Always courtly and courteous, Hampton performed well as a subordinate. In fact, Robert E. Lee greatly regretted giving Hampton permission to leave the Army of Northern Virginia to go to South Carolina in 1865, and Joseph E. Johnston, the overall Confederate commander in the Carolinas, came to rely heavily on Hampton was his most trusted and most dependable subordinate, supplanting even William J. Hardee. In fact, Hampton designed the plan that Johnston used at Bentonville, and Hampton’s audacious attack at Monroe’s Crossroads permitted Hardee to successfully evacuate his Corps from Fayetteville and burn the Clarendon Bridge over the Cape Fear River before it fell into Sherman’s hands. In fact, Hampton, who did not particularly like Stuart, was unfailingly the loyal subordinate who could be depended upon in almost any capactiy.

2. Unlike Forrest, Hampton was the complete package. While a ferocious fighter–Hampton killed 13 Union soldiers in personal combat during the war and was severely wounded twice in battle, and wounded one other time in battle–Hampton also had a real talent for performing the traditional role of cavalry–scouting, screening, and reconnaissance. Hampton was actually quite good in all three of these roles–perhaps he learned and mastered the techniques from Stuart–and could be relied upon to perform whatever role he was needed in.

3. Unlike Forrest, Hampton regularly met and defeated the very best the Union cavalry had to offer. While Forrest was off facing the second team, Hampton was facing–and beating–the likes of Sheridan, Gregg, Merritt, Kilpatrick, Wilson, Custer, etc. Hampton never lost a major cavalry engagement where he commanded the Army of Northern Virginia’s Cavalry Corps.

4. Like Forrest, Hampton had no formal military training whatsoever, even though his grandfather had been a major general in the War of 1812, and both his father and grandfather had served in the cavalry. However, Hampton had a lot of native, natural talent, and became a feared and respected commander of horse as a result of his God-given talent.

5. Unlike Forrest, Hampton’s operations actually made a difference in the outcome of the war. Hampton’s truly decisive thrashing of Sheridan at Trevilian Station in June 1864 actually made Early’s Valley Campaign possible, and made it possible for the Confederacy to have an additional six months of life that it otherwise probably would not have had. Forrest’s operations were not much more than annoyances for the Union high command, like a larger-scale version of John S. Mosby’s partisans.

6. Hampton was THE highest ranking officer in all of the Confederate cavalry, ranking even Forrest and exceeding even the lamented Stuart in rank.

When I take all of these factors into account, it becomes clear to me that calling Nathan Bedford Forrest the Wizard of the Saddle is wrong. With all due respect to the late, great Shelby Foote, the TRUE Wizard of the Saddle was Wade Hampton, not Forrest.

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My wife and I try to take a little vacation of some sort every October. I promised her one that has nothing at all to do with the Civil War this year, so we’re heading to Las Vegas for a few days later this evening. This means that I will be off line for a few days. See y’all when we get home next Tuesday.

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I am often asked for my opinion on the greatest cavalrymen of the American Civil War. Invariably, unless the person asking the question knows me well, they express surprise and asky why Nathan Bedford Forrest is not on that list. I wish I had a dollar for every time that I’ve been asked this question. I’d have a lot of dollar bills by now.

In my humble opinion, there is no place for Nathan Bedford Forrest on ANY list of great cavalrymen of the Civil War.

I know that’s not only controversial, but borders on sacrilege in a lot of quarters. However, there’s a good reason and sound logic underlying this opinion of mine. First, and foremost, Forrest was not a cavalryman in any traditional sense of the word. The historic role of cavalry was scouting, screening, and reconnaissance. With no formal military training, Forrest had absolutely no talent for these crucial roles, and did not perform them with any ability, the one notable exception being the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862. By example, when one thinks of Jeb Stuart, one thinks of his masterful intelligence gathering (which included three different rides around the Army of the Potomac), the magnificent job he did screening Robert E. Lee’s retreat from Gettysburg, and the way Lee described Stuart: “the eyes and ears of the army.” Or, consider what a weeping Lee said when he learned that Stuart was dead–“he never brought me a wrong piece of information.” In all my years studying the Civil War, I have never once heard such a description applied to Forrest.

Rather, Forrest was a commander of mounted infantry. His men carried infantry weapons and used infantry tactics. They used their horses primarily as transportation, using them to move from place to place, where they then fought dismounted. I will grant you that Forrest was an innovative tactician, and that some of his tactics closely resemble some modern armored tactics, but it’s important to evaluate Forrest in the context of his times, and not in comparison with modern doctrine, which has changed. Forrest simply had no talent for the traditional roles of cavalry.

Second, there’s the fact that effective cavalry work depends upon the cavalry commander working closely with the army commander, whereby the cavalry commander serves as the eyes and ears of the army. Armies rely on discipline. Discipline means that junior officers obey the lawful orders of their superiors. This is the only way that a chain of command can be maintained and anarchy avoided. That means that an insubordinate junior officer, no matter how talented, has no value to an army commander if that junior officer refuses to obey orders. What I’ve just described is Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest absolutely and categorically refused to serve under two army commanders–Bragg and Hood–and said to Hood, “If you were half a man, I would slap your jowls.” Never mind that Hood had lost one leg in combat, and had a permanently crippled arm due to another combat wound. This means that unless he was in independent command, Forrest was entirely useless to the army commander.

By the way, the same description applies to Phil Sheridan, who was unable to serve under George G. Meade, and never did again after the Battle of the Wilderness.

Finally, there’s the issue of just what did Forrest accomplish. Yes, he had a gaudy combat record, but it’s easy to do that when you’re persistently and consistently up against the second team. I can think of only one instance where Forrest really faced the first team–against Wilson at Selma at the tail end of the war–and when he did face the first team, he got thrashed, big time. I come to the conclusion that Forrest really wasn’t much more than John S. Mosby on a larger scale–a nuisance that sucked away some resources, but which, in the big scheme of things, didn’t really have any impact at all of the final outcome of any major campaign or of the war in his theater.

When I examine all of these issues, I come away with one conclusion: that there is no place for Forrest on a list of great cavalrymen of the Civil War. In fact, given my druthers, I would choose Wade Hampton over Forrest in a heartbeat. Hampton was every bit as hard a fighter–Hampton had a gaudy won-lost record against the best the Union had to offer, not the second team–who was the ultimate subordinate officer and who had a real gift for performing the traditional roles of cavalry. Perhaps that explains why Hampton was THE highest ranking cavalry officer of the war on the Confederate side, outranking even Forrest.

That’s my opinion, anyway.

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Modern Civil War books that I love, in no particular order:

Anything by Gordon Rhea
Andy Trudeau’s A Testing of Courage
Alan Nolan’s Lee Considered
Anything by Bruce Catton, but especially the American Heritage picture book
Shelby Foote’s trilogy
Douglas Southall Freeman’s Lee’s Lieutenants
Stephen Z. Starr’s trilogy on the Union cavalry
Virgil Carrington Jones’ Gray Ghosts and Rebel Raiders
Mark L. Bradley’s two books, but especially Last Stand in the Carolinas: The Battle of Bentonville
Anything by Jeff Wert, but especially his From Winchester to Cedar Creek
Ernest Fergurson’s Chancellorsville 1863: Souls of the Brave
Chris Fonviele’s The Last Departing Rays of Hope: The Wilmington Campaign
Alice Rains Trulock’s In the Hands of Providence
Benjamin Franklin Cooling’s Monocacy: The Battle that Saved Washington
Peter Cozzens’ This Terrible Sound: The Battle of Chickamauga

There are probably more, but these are the ones that come to mind at the moment.

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Although I have said some of this publicly on a prior occasion, I really believe that it is appropriate for me to pay tribute to someone whose loss I still feel keenly, and whose friendship, support, and guidance meant a lot to me. I’m not one for public outpourings of emotion, but I think it’s appropriate to pass on my thoughts and to share some information.

Brian Caldwell Pohanka was very much a mentor to me. In many ways, if I am a successful historian today, I owe that to Brian. He was always unfailingly generous, sharing knowledge, resources, and time. There was a time, early in my historical work, when I didn’t write anything that wasn’t read, commented upon, and blessed by, Brian. He unfailingly encouraged me in my work, and he always shared his immense knowledge willingly. In my case, as recently as sixty days before his untimely death in June, I asked him for recommendations on some reading on Ranald MacKenzie, and his lovely wife Cricket answered me within hours with his suggestions.

I had a chance to tell Brian the things that I needed to say to him directly this winter. He told me then that he has made certain that his legacy will continue on by donating his massive library–which makes mine look small–and papers so that they will be accessible to all, and he made a cryptic comment about once he was gone, we’d learn more about steps that he took to ensure that his legacy as a preservationist lived on. As Dimitri Rotov points out, Brian donated half a million dollars to the Central Virginia Battlefield Trust, half a million dollars to the Richmond Battlefields Foundation, and another $100,000 to another preservation group. For those who don’t know this, Brian was one of the three original founders of APCWS, which is today the CWPT. He was also one of its largest annual contributors, but always anonymously, as he never wanted to draw attention to himself. That was very characteristic of Brian–he wanted no attention for the things that he did.

Professor Greg Urwin once paid Brian the ultimate compliment. One day while we were having lunch, Greg told me that if the definitive account of the Battle of the Little Big Horn could be written, there was only one person who could do it–Brian. I told Brian this, and he characteristically pooh-poohed it. But I am pleased to be able to tell you that he got to do just that. In August, a new book on the Little Big Horn–a Frassanito-style then and now–was published by the University of Oklahoma Press, and Brian finally got to tell the story of the Little Big Horn his way in it. I understand that he also finished his magnum opus, his regimental history of the 5th New York Infantry, aka Duryee’s Zouaves. Brian spent more than twenty years working on it, and it was a mammoth undertaking.

Rest in peace, Brian. I, and the rest of the Civil War community, miss you. It’s just not the same knowing that you won’t be there to read and comment on my work–it was always a safety net for me. And thank you, for being my friend and mentor. Most importantly, thank you for everything you did for our Civil War community.

And at last, you will be able to look George Custer in the eye and ask him just what the hell he was doing that warm June day in 1876……

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Well, I’m home after a long weekend. I led two tours this weekend, even though I don’t feel particularly well. I seem to be coming down with a cold, and it’s difficult for me to talk in my normal voice at the moment. Nevertheless, I had a great time. The weather was just spectacular, I got to talk about things I really enjoy in a place I love, and with people whose company I enjoy. All in all, it doesn’t get much better than that.

As I finish this series of posts, there’s one final issue that I want to address.

There’s something about Gettysburg that compels otherwise normal, sane people to do things that make no sense. I’m not sure what it is. However, there’s something about Gettysburg that drives good people to propound goofy, unsupportable and unsubstantiatable theories. Perhaps they feel a need to be able to claim that after 140 years and countless tens of thousands of pages of books and magazine articles that they have made a great discovery that somehow unlocks the battle. Perhaps it’s that they feel the need to be the subject of discussion. Perhaps they just feel a need to stir up controversy. I don’t know what it is. However, three very prominent examples come to mind.

First, is a certain park ranger. He’s well respected among his peers, and he’s known as being a fellow who’s not afraid to research things and go out on a limb. His first book, which is an expounding upon Lee’s “real” strategy for Gettysburg, has sold a lot of books. This fellow’s most recent theory is that Meade figured out that Longstreet was making a countermarch, sending Union cavalry to meet it in the vicinity of Hunterstown. Instead of Longstreet’s infantry, the Federal horse found Confederate troopers, and a nasty little fight ensued. Never mind that there isn’t a single shred of evidence to support this particular claim. It’s new, and it’s controversial, so therefore, it has to be advanced.

Then, there’s a particular licensed battlefield guide. This individual is absolutely obsessed–to the point of perhaps being unhealthy about it–with a particular portion of the field. This guide has cooked up a bizarre theory about where an important event occurred that is based on a flawed and factually incorrect assumption. Without there being so much as a scintilla of evidence to support it, this person claims, as a matter of absolute fact, that the monuments of a particular brigade were misplaced and that the veterans were promised that these monuments would be moved, thereby reflecting the true place where these events occurred. Never mind that the records of the Gettysburg Battlefield Monument Association do not reflect anything whatsoever of the sort in any fashion. When this person is challenged about the evidence underlying this theory, that person responds by launching vicious personal attacks against anyone who challenges the theory, and demanding that anyone showing the moxy to challenge the theory prove it wrong. Never mind that the responsibility for proving a theory is on the person advancing a theory. By all accounts, this individual is a nice person. I’ve never seen it–this person has launched vicious personal attacks on me in public because I had the temerity to challenge the theory.

Finally, there’s another ranger I know. I’ve actually spent a fair amount of time with this fellow, and I enjoy his company. However, this fellow seems bound and determined to make a name for himself as making some great discovery. Consequently, he latches on to these bizarre theories and insists that they have merit. There’s also the fact that this fellow insists on arguing theories even when others prove him incorrect. It’s frustrating as hell when that happens.

I have never met the first two people mentioned. By all accounts, the first person is a very good guy, well liked and well respected. The second person, I am told, is nice. I would not know, and from the way I have been treated, I couldn’t possibly care less what that persons says and does. If what that person says and does has no impact on my life, then that’s good enough for me. So long as this person ceases and desists from launching personal attacks upon me, I couldn’t care less what that person says or does. The third fellow I know fairly well, and I enjoy his company.

Why these people insist on advancing these theories is a total mystery to me. Perhaps it’s because they feel some need to advance new theories in the hope of finding something new all these years later. Maybe it’s that they hope to make a splash and that they also feel some need to have a moment in the limelight. I doubt we will ever know, and it may not even be conscious on their part.

I do know that these theories frustrate me to no end when unwitting members of the public accept them as the gospel truth just because someone in a position of credibility says that they are so. In my mind, that’s wrong, and in my mind, it should not be allowed. The second individual I mentioned shows people the wrong part of the battlefield and claims that EVERYONE–the veterans, the GBMA, and the National Park Service were all wrong about where these events were placed. It’s wrong, and it needs to end.

Either put up or shut up. And if you can’t put up, then please, do us all a favor and shut the hell up.

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I am sitting in a hotel room in Gettysburg as I write this. The hotel is right next to the visitor center, meaning that it’s actually on the battlefield proper, although it probably ought not be here. That’s another rant for another night, though.

I spent a fabulous day on the battlefield today. The weather was nothing short of spectacular–not a cloud in the sky, and about 70 degrees. It simply doesn’t get any better. I led one tour today, and have another one to lead tomorrow. I am fond of saying that the even the worst day on the battlefield is significantly better than the best day at the office. It was certainly true today.

At the same time, it’s one of those mixed feelings things.

As I said, I am drawn to this battlefield, time and again. No matter how fascinating I find other battles, I still come back to Gettysburg. I ask myself why. Perhaps it’s because I’m a native Pennsylvanian. Perhaps it’s because I’ve spent more time on this field than any other and know it better than any other. Perhaps it’s because it was my first love. Honestly, I’m not sure. I wish I could understand it, but I can’t.

I do know that there’s one thing that I firmly believe. There WERE other battles beside Gettysburg. Some of them were even more important. Others are certainly as fascinating in their own right. What I’ve never been able to understand is why some people are single-minded about Gettysburg. Gettysburg is the ONLY battle that they care about, and it’s the only one that they deem worthy of studying in any fashion. Instead of really understanding where and how Gettysburg fits into the big scheme of things, they would rather micro-manage and micro-study every single thing about Gettysburg to the exclusion of every other battle. They may know ever teeny, tiny bit of trivia about Gettysburg, but they don’t know anything at all about the rest of the war.

A long time ago, I realized that one cannot truly understand Gettysburg without having a thorough understanding of Chancellorsville. There is so much about Chancellorsville that is directly tied to Gettysburg that you can’t truly understand one and not the other. Here are some of the linkages:

1. John F. Reynolds, who was aggressive by nature, never fired a shot in anger at Chancellorsville. Was it any surprise that Reynolds was desperate to pitch into the fray at Gettysburg?

2. Dan Sickles resented the position he was forced to abandon at Hazel Grove, which exposed his Third Corps to galling artillery fire. He swore it would never happen again.

3. O. O. Howard provided no real leadership to the 11th Corps, putting it into an untenable position. Then, he ignored reports of a Confederate movement against his flank. Although elements of his command fought hard, it was in an impossible position, and got routed and was sent flying.

I could go on, but you get the idea. All of these events play into the way these people conducted themselves at Gettysburg. Accordingly, I firmly believe that you can’t really understand Gettysburg without understanding Chancellorsville thoroughly. Some agree with me, but still refuse to learn these lessons. Others simply blow off the idea, content to stay in their own private Idaho. One fellow once said to me that since his time is limited, he’s decided to focus on Gettysburg to the exclusion of all other battles. While I can appreciate that, it’s an awfully narrow view.

The truth is that while I love this place and what it stands for, I would rather go to Antietam, where there’s no crass commercialism and phony ghost tours every ten steps. Or, better still, I would prefer to go to Chancellorsville and examine those events in detail. Or, I would prefer to visit some of the pristine cavalry battlefields that have been long overlooked by history and by most people.

In my mind, I think it’s very sad that people take such a narrow view. As important as this place is to me, there are plenty of places that are just as important, if not more so.

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